It's Official... Woodcrest Destroys QUAD Opteron

[AlexLakis]

I may not have the UAD-1 card but I do have their TDM Plugin Compressor Bundle (which they cease to support past PT 6). I agree with Shane that if Uaudio wants to continue to be in this business, they will HAVE to return to offering their plugins as software only...or risk losing market share dramatically as their cards become worthless...

Yeah, we can only hope. All native, all the time!

As far as cards becoming worthless is concerned....that's just what happens in computerland. I have a whole box of worthless cards that probably costs me thousands over the years....hey they make good lamp bases and coasters!

Ah, yes, the bitter-sweet march of technology. I've probably got enough old, worthless computer parts lying around to be considered a biological threat. Keeping up with the latest technologies is definately a crazy investment.

It just makes me sad because it's not the cards that I miss (truuuuust me...grrr...), it's the plugins. It's like if somebody walked into your studio and unplugged your 1176s and told you you could never use them again. Oh well, this finally gives me incentive to break down and buy some MC77s for my project studio.

Woodcrest, AMD, Intel, whatever, as long as it works and you can track and mix without living in underlying fear, it's all good!

[Shan]

hey shan or anyone who been on the conroe setups.. how close are they to the Quadzilla as far as CPU permance in audio the 265 or 270 Quads versue the 2.6 COnroe Dual?

Untested at this point. But we'll have a Quad Woodcrest going very soon. We are getting a spec going.

Shane

[marspe]

Just an update for all of you guys following this thread... The Nuendo user I previously mentioned just got his QUAD 3.0GHz Woodcrest, a pre-built DELL workstation. The only tweak he did was to the 'Background Services' setting. The results are nothing short of spectacular. At the 512 buffer setting, the improvement over the 2.0GHz QUAD Woodcrest is 25%. At the the 256 buffer setting the improvement is 30%. At the 64 buffer setting the improvement is UNMEASUREABLE SINCE THE TEST WAS NOT CAPABLE OF RUNNING AT THE 64 BUFFER SETTING ON THE 2.0GHZ QUAD! And for the clincher? On the new 3.0GHz Woodcrest, the benchmark CAN RUN AT THE 32 SAMPLE BUFFER SETTING!!!!!

That has NEVER BEFORE BEEN POSSIBLE ON ANY PLATFORM, AT ANY TIME, UNTIL NOW. That's right, 32 sample buffer recording is now possible on the 3.0GHz QUAD Woodcrest.

Impressive no?

[AlexLakis]

At the 64 buffer setting the improvement is UNMEASUREABLE SINCE THE TEST WAS NOT CAPABLE OF RUNNING AT THE 64 BUFFER SETTING ON THE 2.0GHZ QUAD!

Which Quad were you testing it out on? Mine can do 64 samples in any real world application multiple times over. The next time I don't need to run 140 reverbs at once, I'll keep the extra money I didn't spend for processing power I didn't need in mind.

That has NEVER BEFORE BEEN POSSIBLE ON ANY PLATFORM, AT ANY TIME, UNTIL NOW. That's right, 32 sample buffer recording is now possible on the 3.0GHz QUAD Woodcrest.

But...the minimum buffer size Pro Tools supports is 64?

[Shan]

But...the minimum buffer size Pro Tools supports is 64?

Thst'a correct. The lowest buffer setting in LE on the 002 is 64 and HD is 128. And 64 we've already been doing on the Quad Opteron with no problems at all. 32 we dont have at this point in time.

Now of course if your buffer is at 64 and you have 5 BFD's and 10 Hybrid softsythns going, then it's not gonna happen. That's were the 'better/faster' CPU's come in.

Shane

[Shan]

At the 512 buffer setting, the improvement over the 2.0GHz QUAD Woodcrest is 25%. At the the 256 buffer setting the improvement is 30%.

Now THAT is quite a huge gain increase.

On the new 3.0GHz Woodcrest, the benchmark CAN RUN AT THE 32 SAMPLE BUFFER SETTING!!!!!

VERY impressive!!!!

That will start to raise eyebrows over the latency debate with HD and native. I think we will see some amazing things in regards to latency improvements with native when we get to the 8 and 16 core rigs.

Those latency woodcrest numbers are impressive.

Shane

[Shan]

It's Official... Woodcrest Destroys QUAD Opteron

...the initial results of the QUAD Woodcrest (Xeon) cpu's are in and it's not pretty for AMD...The Quad Woodcrest running at 2.0GHz is outperforming a QUAD Opteron 285 system running at 2.6GHz by over 25%!!!...

It's Official... Woodcrest does not Destroy QUAD Opterons when running PT LE

The first initial tests are in for PT LE and it's not looking pretty for Intels "hype".



Mac Pro Quad Xeon 2.66 GHz CPUs - 155 Dverbs


Quad Opteron 270 2.0 GHz CPUs - 158 Dverbs



The real world is showing quite diferent results compared to the marketing hype. But then again, PT is a different beast altogether. Looks like the current Opterons hold up just fine with these new generation Xeons as far as running PT goes.

Let's see how the next generation Opterons compare with the new Xeon for more of a fare test.

Shane

[polkbrosmusic]

Shane,

I thought that Nikki K was waiting on some Ram.

How much ram does Nikki K have now? How much ram will Nikki K receive? and what will be the result after the Ram Upgrade?

Maybe the Jury is still out, What do you say?

The Chipset on the Mac Pro is the 5000X have you seen any MBoards with that chipset that look promising? I need at least 1 pci 32 slot for my HD core.

I will probally look at building a Dual Xeon with either 2ghz or 2.33ghz processors and 4 gig s of ram.

Please explain the Corsair ram and what you know about and why it is the best for our applications?
I'm not questioning it I just want to know.
I know that you all have received wonderful results with it and I won't change the protocol.
I have a need to know.

Thank You

[polkbrosmusic]

Shane look at thei MB and tell me what you think?

http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...000X/X7DAE.cfm

[Shan]

The jury is still out. She will get a higher Dverb count when she get's all 4G of ram going. but it doesnt look like we will see the 30-40% increase in PT that has been hyped. PT is just a different beast. I'd love to get my hands on one of these to see what I can do with it in PT. Maybe soon.

The Xeon and PT is brand new ground. We dont even know if this thing will be stable at this time in regards to PT.

Shoot me a new email and let's get a 'build your own' Xeon rig going.

Send me your top two posts in an email so I can keep all this stuff in the same place.

Thanks,

Shane