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Old 05-14-2011, 03:20 PM
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Zarabozo Zarabozo is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Mexico City
Posts: 545
Smile Re: i7 Builds - Specs and Results

Hello All,

Just to share my config. It's not an i7 setup, but a dual Xeon Hexacore.

The Xeon 56xx Series share the same core technology that i7 980x has. The main difference is the ability to work in a dual processor configuration (Xeon can communicate with another processor directly while i7 can't). The Intel X5680 Xeon processor is exactly as powerfull as the i7 980x, for example. I'm using the X5650, which is only 2.66 Ghz but costed me half the price of the X5680. The following is my setup:

Motherboard: Supermicro X8DA6
Processors: 2 x Intel X5650 (12 cores 24 threads total)
RAM: 24 GB (6 modules of 4GB Kingston 1333 ECC Registered Gold)
Video: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series 1GB GDDR5 (using 2 HP monitors 24'' 1920 x 1200 each)
OS Disk: Kingston SSD Now V+ 60GB
Media Disk: WD Velociraptor Sata3 (6GB/s via SAS) 10,000 RPM 600GB
...and much more hardware that doesn't matter for this subject.

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit SP1
ProTools 9.0.2 with CPTK2
My interface: Eleven Rack (I'm about to change it for the new MBox Pro DSP accelerated with 8 I/O channels)

All the Windows optimizations (except for disabling network cards) are done.

My result with the Dverb test: 464 dverbs.

I'm using the DVerb that PT9 comes with, so I'm assuming it's the DVerb 2. I'd love if someone could send me the DVerb 1 file to give it a try too.

Also, this is a limited result and not a real one based on this machine's power. I have opened a thread here informing about my issue: PT9 only uses 16 of my 24 threads. I'm sure that if Avid comes up with a fix to this, my result will be much higher.

Now, for anyone wondering about the performance, I don't have a single problem besides the one I just mentioned. PT9 works amazingly well, with rock solid stability. My 10k RPM Velociraptor disk also helps me have all my PT settings set to use the biggest times for I/O and sample buffers without PT ever complaining about not being able to get the audio from the disk fast enough.

I generally work with really big sessions (lots of channels, lots of RTAS, lots of subs - 256 aux available with CPTK2 - and I like to work on 96k @ 24bit). This was originally the reason I wanted to build what I considered a really stable and powerful machine (as stable and powerful as a the server build it really is). This was truly the first machine that is able to keep up with my kind of sessions without being an HD setup.

Mykhal C asked me to share this experience on this thread. As soon as Avid (if ever) resolves the issue I mentioned, I think about opening a new thread dedicated to Dual Xeon builds, Specs and Results.

Cheers!

Francisco Zarabozo
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