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#1
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Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
Hey,
I am new here ;-) I need a new mac and think about getting a Mac Pro. I have large Sessions @96kHz, my main job is arranging and producing. (not mixing) Would you go for the 6 Core 3,5 or for the 10 Core 3,0?? Thanks Bern |
#2
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
Working with Pro Tools for some time now, I can see that it is a multicore application that will use all the cores you throw at it...
As a systems engineer I can tell you that we no longer look at CPU sockets and cores, but rather at all available compute power. In your case you are thinking about 6 x 3.5GHz or 10 x 3Ghz... Math here is very simple... with 6 core systems you get the total compute power of 21Ghz while with the 10 core system it is 30GHz. Just my 2 cents.
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Chris M. Horns-Up - Mac Pro (Mid 2010) - OSX 10.13 - Pro Tools 2018.4 - Apogee Ensemble - Firewire - Eleven Rack |
#3
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
Well you wouldn't know sometimes, e.g. the excruciating amount of time it takes to render X-Form elastic audio.
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#4
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
You are right...
I am not sure if all functions of PT are multicore "aware"... I based my comment on what I can see while using it.
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Chris M. Horns-Up - Mac Pro (Mid 2010) - OSX 10.13 - Pro Tools 2018.4 - Apogee Ensemble - Firewire - Eleven Rack |
#5
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
Split the difference. Get an 8-core. That's what I did for our new workstation at the theatre. Especially if you are using HDX, I don't think your native processing is going to be the bottle neck. .
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Justice C. Bigler www.justicebigler.com Lenovo P50: quad-core i7-6820hq, 64GB, 2TB SSD, Win 10 Pro / Protools Ultimate 2023.6 / HD|Native-TB 2018 MacBook Pro: six-core i9, 32GB, 1TB, Monterey / Protools Studio 2023.6, / DVS / DAR, L-ISA Studio Home/mobile: Focusrite Red 8Pre+HD32R / Clarett 4Pre Road/hotel: Roland OctaCaputre / Apogee One |
#6
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
HI, can you give us any more info on the rest of your system ?? what are you using now, computer and pro tools wise .. etc ..
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Macmini M1 8/512 -OS 12.3.1 and PT2022.4 Logic Pro X 10.7.4 RME BabyFace Pro Macbook Pro july 2014 2.5ghz 16gb ram 512gb SSD - OS11.6.5 - PT 2021.3 Logic Pro X 10.7.4 RME BabyFace Pro |
#7
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Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
The Mac Pro Trashcan is old, lacks PCIe or internal storage expansion and is only Thunderbolt 2 and only USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1. Apple has admitted it was a mistake and are coming out with something modular/expandable. I would wait, buy a Cheesegrater or build a Hackintosh, or at most a used Trashcan that can be resold again at lower loss when the new one ships.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
#8
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
Quote:
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Justice C. Bigler www.justicebigler.com Lenovo P50: quad-core i7-6820hq, 64GB, 2TB SSD, Win 10 Pro / Protools Ultimate 2023.6 / HD|Native-TB 2018 MacBook Pro: six-core i9, 32GB, 1TB, Monterey / Protools Studio 2023.6, / DVS / DAR, L-ISA Studio Home/mobile: Focusrite Red 8Pre+HD32R / Clarett 4Pre Road/hotel: Roland OctaCaputre / Apogee One |
#9
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
All things being equal, faster core speed trumps the number of cores.
That said for audio, it's really about floating point calculations per second so you always want the latest CPU generation. An older 12 core can be significantly less powerful than a newer 4 core having the very same speed spec. Multicore awareness is as big of a requirement for each individual plug-in as it is for the host application.
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Bob's room 615 562-4346 Interview Artists are the gatekeepers of truth! - Paul Robeson |
#10
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Re: Mac Pro - higher Single Core Speed or more Cores
I have access to some pretty high-end hardware (how and why is not important) on the workstation and server level and I have conducted this experiment many, many times. I've tried all sorts of set ups, dual cpus, single cpu with high ghz count, single cpu high core count and lower ghz count.
More cores less ghz, or Less cores more ghz??? It all comes down to how the APPLICATION is utilizing multi-cores/multi-threads. It also comes down to how clean the coding of the application is and what technologies are being taken advantage of. Actually, by the end of the week I'll be conducting the same experiment one more time since Windows Pro for Workstations now allows us to utilize 4 socket CPUs on the motherboard on the workstation level instead of needing a server OS. When it comes down to it, although pro tools supports high multi-core setups, when rendering, sometimes I'll see 20% usage across all cores which tells me, the thread counts are splitting up but are not being utilized to the max for each core. But if you have a 16 core / 32 thread xeon cpu at 2ghz /core vs a 6 core at 3.7ghz a core (i7-8700k) and 4.7ghz burst, I'm going to take the lesser core count at the faster speed to outperform it in pro tools. I'm not coding for pro tools, but it seems that pro tools performs better at faster core than high core/lower ghz. Again, I'm pretty sure this is code-related. But if for example, you are using Vegas 15, or doing 3d or type of video encoding that utilizes ALL cores to their maximum (Vegas 15 absolutely does as it EXTREMELY CPU intensive) than multicore is the way to go. I also have reason to believe given the freshness of AMD ryzen / threadripper, pro tools does not get even close to taking full advantage of these technologies despite the insane core /ghz count. (Vegas is a program that does seem to do so) This is a subject actually take a lot of interest in, since I don't believe what I read and I have a coffee lake 8700k coming in this week to test and see how it handles the rendering process in pro tools and vegas. I'll be testing a quad cpu vs dual cpu, vs single cpu (high ghz) vs single cpu (high core) etc etc. Should make for some interesting results. My hypothesis is that the coffee lake will end up winning with its insane core speeds. We will see... Last edited by PowerofEight; 11-28-2017 at 04:10 PM. |
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