Do these temps look normal with i7-7700k at 5.1GHz OC?

[luckyal]

I have been playing all day with trying to push my Hack to the brink. I dialed in OC to about where I want it which is at 5.1GHz right now. Granted, this is a de-lidded i7-7700k (thanks for the tip @pastrychef, but at 5.1GHz do these temps look normal or is something wrong with iStat? This track I have up is pretty beefy. I have tons of plugs and orchestral sounds playing back. Audio is pretty much glitch free at 96KHz and I/O buffer set to 256 Samples. About the only thing that introduces a few clicks and pops is if I start playing back a youtube video using Chrome.

But most importantly, why is 2nd thread of the 1st core not being utilized at all? Logic people, help me out. @BoomR ? You're the designated audio expert here.

 

[pastrychef]

I have been playing all day with trying to push my Hack to the brink. I dialed in OC to about where I want it which is at 5.1GHz right now. Granted, this is a de-lidded i7-7700k (thanks for the tip @pastrychef, but at 5.1GHz do these temps look normal or is something wrong with iStat? This track I have up is pretty beefy. I have tons of plugs and orchestral sounds playing back. Audio is pretty much glitch free at 96KHz and I/O buffer set to 256 Samples. About the only thing that introduces a few clicks and pops is if I start playing back a youtube video using Chrome.

But most importantly, why is 2nd thread of the 1st core not being utilized at all? Logic people, help me out. @BoomR ? You're the designated audio expert here.

Those temps are nowhere near being hot. You don't have to be concerned with temps until they start approaching about 80C.

In the image, it doesn't look like the CPU is being extremely stressed. Temps should not be a concern with this sort of CPU usage.

If you want to really stress the CPU, try converting a video using Handbrake. Use the "super high quality 1080p" setting, or a synthetic app like Prime95 with "MIN FFT size" and "MAX FFT size" both set to 12K in the Torture Test.

 

[luckyal]

Those temps are nowhere near being hot. You don't have to be concerned with temps until they start approaching about 80C.

In the image, it doesn't look like the CPU is being extremely stressed. Temps should not be a concern with this sort of CPU usage.

If you want to really stress the CPU, try converting a video using Handbrake. Use the "super high quality 1080p" setting, or a synthetic app like Prime95 with "MIN FFT size" and "MAX FFT size" both set to 12K in the Torture Test.

Is prime available for macOS? Also, most of pro audio work relies heavily on real time tasks, which is why I typically go for clock speed over core count. Handbrake would be more offline processing and so it would distribute load across all cores. In terms of real world scenario, would it be a valid test?

 

[pastrychef]

Is prime available for macOS? Also, most of pro audio work relies heavily on real time tasks, which is why I typically go for clock speed over core count. Handbrake would be more offline processing and so it would distribute load across all cores. In terms of real world scenario, would it be a valid test?

I think Handbrake is real world. I use it not just for testing but to convert videos.

Prime95 is synthetic but if you want to test stability under the hottest conditions your CPU can possibly experience, it's a great stress test. I run it for 2 hours to see if the system crashes and monitor if the CPU throttles. Some people run it for 24 hours.

macOS version of Prime95 can be found here.

 

[jaymonkey]

.. at 5.1GHz do these temps look normal or is something wrong with iStat? This track I have up is pretty beefy.

@luckyal,

Your temps look fine, Logic is not particularly hard on the CPU .. especially on something like a i7-7700k .. I would not worry about the #2 thread on the 1st core not showing a high load ... MacOS will always try and reserve one or two threads on the CPU for its-self so the the UI can be responsive and keep background processes running.

The CPU frequency behaviour that you highlighted is normal for a iMac SMBIOS using the X86Plugin Type 1, in that it will never drop below the base frequency and only throttle between the turbo frequencies. As shown in your graphs macOS is regulating the Power demand of the CPU rather than extreme frequency throttling, this results in better performance.

Cheers
Jay

 

[luckyal]

Your temps look fine, Logic is not particularly hard on the CPU .. especially on something like a i7-7700k

If I take my I/O latency in Logic down to 128, I will get pops and clicks. But more importantly, when I run the quick test that @kgp supplies as part of his build (see section: E.14) Logic-X and Audio Studio Software Functionality , my machine craps out even at 44.1. System Overload messages all over.

 

[jaymonkey]

If I take my I/O latency in Logic down to 128, I will get pops and clicks. But more importantly, when I run the quick test that @kgp supplies as part of his build (see section: E.14) Logic-X and Audio Studio Software Functionality , my machine craps out even at 44.1. System Overload messages all over.

@luckyal,

What audio interface are you using ?

I use Propellerhead Balance for my audio work and have never had an issue with sample rates or latency .. if your using on board codec then those are not very good for complex audio work as they can only take so much before they overload.

I have i7 4790K CPU @ 4.8Ghz (see White Knight spec in my sig) and logic will play a 96 channel file at 48Khz with no problems (file has lots of large vocal and guitar samples)

Cheers
Jay

 

[luckyal]

@luckyal,

What audio interface are you using ?

I use Propellerhead Balance for my audio work and have never had an issue with sample rates or latency .. if your using on board codec then those are not very good for complex audio work as they can only take so much before they overload.

Cheers
Jay

Using Slate VRS8. It was a pain in the neck to get it going but I did. When you say, using onboard codec - could you elaborate? The interface itself is using onboard codec? Slate doesn't use their own DSP chips for processing audio, instead I think they push it to the CPU - they trademarked LLN - Steven goes into some detail here:

Keep in mind that I'm trying to do this at 96KHz and 128 Samples. If all I had were audio tracks with audio processing plugins, this would be a breeze, but I like to keep my projects in flux in case I want to change something later.

Tell you the truth, coming off of a late 2009 iMac which had a i7 @ 2.8GHz, I was expecting a huge jump in performance.

 

[jaymonkey]

Using Slate VRS8. It was a pain in the neck to get it going but I did. When you say, using onboard codec - could you elaborate? The interface itself is using onboard codec? Slate doesn't use their own DSP chips for processing audio, instead I think they push it to the CPU

@luckyal,

I'm not familiar with the Slate VRS8 so can't really comment, but like you say I would expect you to have far better performance on your i7 770K Hack than your old 2009 iMac.

With regards to on "board codec" I was referring to using a Realtek ALC Codec that many motherboards have. I see so many people trying to use Logic with on board codec's and running into issues .. they seem to think just because it can make sounds that it will work well with pro audio software ... sigh .

My Propellerhead Balance uses custom DSP's that take of all the down or up sampling and mixing before passing it to the analogue outputs ... sounds like your Slate VRS8 relies on the CPU to do all of that so it may be CPU bound .. however I believe that its a quality bit of kit that outshines my humble balance interface and your i7 7700K should be able to cope with anything logic can throw at it so not sure what the problem is ?

Is it possible that the issue may lie with the TB connection to the device ?

Cheers
Jay

 

[jaymonkey]

@luckyal,

What SMBIOS are you using ?, presumably its iMac 18,3 ?

If you load your CPU with a synthetic bench mark such as GeekBench what is the maximum Power the CPU draws in Intel Power Gadget (Top Graph) ?

Cheers
Jay