[jaminjamesp]

I find myself using more and more virtual instruments and CPU hungry plugins. Pretty normal for my system to hover in the 80% CPU usage, and I'm getting somewhat regular CPU playback errors.

I was looking at OWC and their turnkey CPU upgrade. Including the rebate for my 6 core, their upgrade price is as follows:

$1049 - 8 Core 2.6GHz Xeon E5-2650 v2
$1449 - 10 Core 3.0GHz Xeon E5-2690 v2
$1849 - 12 Core 3.7GHz Xeon E5-2697 v2

This is my livelihood, so I don't mind investing in the tools that put food on the table. However, it's still a pretty big chunk of change that could go to other gear that I've got me eyes on.

Maxing out my ram would be cheaper, but I'm just not computer savvy enough to know if that will make more of a difference or if the CPU will make a difference. I'm not entirely sure if this is a correct assumption on my part, so correct me if I'm wrong, but do certain plugins take advantage more more cores/threads depending on how they are programmed? Or do they simply rely on Pro Tools to determine how they use system resources?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!