HDX vs HD2 power now and come 64 bit

[soundworx]

If one HDX card is 5(?) times as powerful as a PCI-e accell card, what would be the comparison between a one card HDX system and my HD2? 2 to 2.5 times more power?

But if 11 goes 64 bit, doesn't that mean it has to do more calculations thus reducing that difference to.... what? I don't want to upgrade and come to the conclusion I need another card to get comparable performance in the future.

[BasketCase]

Originally Posted by soundworx

If one HDX card is 5(?) times as powerful as a PCI-e accell card, what would be the comparison between a one card HDX system and my HD2? 2 to 2.5 times more power?

But if 11 goes 64 bit, doesn't that mean it has to do more calculations thus reducing that difference to.... what? I don't want to upgrade and come to the conclusion I need another card to get comparable performance in the future.

No, it is the other way around. A 32bit system can only process data in 32bit long strings. A 64bit system can process double the amount of data of a 32bit system in the same time.

I am not sure how AVID are calculating the speed of those HDx cards. If they are operating at 32bit internally on 64bit processors then we may very well see a performance increase come protools 11.

[bad jitter]

Originally Posted by soundworx

If one HDX card is 5(?) times as powerful as a PCI-e accell card, what would be the comparison between a one card HDX system and my HD2? 2 to 2.5 times more power?

But if 11 goes 64 bit, doesn't that mean it has to do more calculations thus reducing that difference to.... what? I don't want to upgrade and come to the conclusion I need another card to get comparable performance in the future.

That's a very good question. I believe HDX has about 2,5 rimes the power of HD2 Accel. But on 64 bit, does it have only 1,25 times the power, so it's very much like HD2 is today. Maybe AVID could chime in?

[TOM@METRO]

Another question (if we are looking to the future) would be; how will this compare to the next generation of Native processing? Intel is not standing still either.

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by bad jitter

That's a very good question. I believe HDX has about 2,5 rimes the power of HD2 Accel. But on 64 bit, does it have only 1,25 times the power, so it's very much like HD2 is today. Maybe AVID could chime in?

Since HDX shares processing power with the host (able to use the card and the host) performances could be seen to be much higher than just 5 times. And not to mention that the dsp chips on the hd cards were not 32 bit word length but 24 bit word length. That means it's even more powerful now than the hd accel system.

Pt HDX 1 is more powerful than a hd 3 system that says a lot already. Some say it's even more powerful than hd 4 and 5.

The faster the host will be the faster the HDX card will be, to a limit of course.

[mike connelly]

Originally Posted by bad jitter

That's a very good question. I believe HDX has about 2,5 rimes the power of HD2 Accel. But on 64 bit, does it have only 1,25 times the power, so it's very much like HD2 is today. Maybe AVID could chime in?

Generally, 64 bit is the same or a bit more efficient than the same app in 32 bit. Before other audio apps released 64 bit versions, some people mistakenly assumed things like performance getting cut in half but that wasn't the case at all. It's not 64 bit audio we're talking about, it's the code and the CPU - a better comparison is like a road getting upgraded from 4 lanes to 8 lanes, it lets it move the data around faster.

[Cloud_9]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

Another question (if we are looking to the future) would be; how will this compare to the next generation of Native processing? Intel is not standing still either.

Very relevant question,

[PaulV]

But if 11 goes 64 bit, doesn't that mean it has to do more calculations thus reducing that difference to.... what? I don't want to upgrade and come to the conclusion I need another card to get comparable performance in the future.

HDX has the same audio processing power whether the Pro Tools software is built as a 32 bit application or 64 bit application, and its capacity won't change when a 64 bit Pro Tools is released.

In the simplest terms, a 64-bit application runs almost the same as a 32-bit application, except for the amount of memory it can use. The main reason for wanting a 64-bit Pro Tools application is for using more memory, such as happens with really big virtual instrument plug-ins, or in rare cases, with giant post-production sessions with hundreds of tracks and hours of audio. Running as a 64 bit process doesn't usually change the performance of the application.

It's perhaps confusing because we use "32 bit" and "64 bit" to refer to different things. A 32-bit application is independent from using 32-bit audio. Pro Tools uses 32 bit audio, and will continue to do so once a 64 bit version of the application is released.

Hopefully that helps clarify it.

[drumster]

Thanks for weighing in Paul! We appreciate your presence on the forum.