Want something faster....

[nickkbh]

Just a quick question.

My Hack is around 2 years old already, and i want to upgrade it.

Plan is to buy a new one.

I was thinking about building a sandy bridge customac.
With a 2600 and GA-Z68XP-UD3.

But will it be a lot faster than my old one.

Is possible to get a faster cpu than 2600.
I see i7 3930 ie.

Its for Audio stuff.

Thanks

Nicolai

 

[Coupz]

What are you doing with your hack?

For normal users, a 2600k is more then enough, 2500k is still fast enough. But if you are encoding videos professionally, then the difference to a 3930k is worth (in my view). But for personal uses, the difference is not worth.

I see you have a i7-930, which is still a pretty fast CPU. Do you have a SSD? Because SSD is the cheapest way to get more speed out of your computer/hack

 

[haylun98]

I agree with Coupz. I have 2600s at stock speed. Upgrading to SSD is extremely cost effective to improve overall performance. Waiting for system to boot and program to be ready will be thing of the past.

Back to your question:
Z68 boards should allow you upgrade to those latest 22nm CPUs if you upgrade the BIOS to late version. Check Gigabyte website for Compatibility for your particular board.

 

[nickkbh]

Thanks,

But i am already running a SSD.

I guess the only step up is an Ivy Bridge now a days.....
I mix and produce music, and i use many heavy plugins in Logic, and the load so freaking slow, it's driving me nuts.

 

[JohnnyMac2001]

Thanks,

But i am already running a SSD.

I guess the only step up is an Ivy Bridge now a days.....
I mix and produce music, and i use many heavy plugins in Logic, and the load so freaking slow, it's driving me nuts.

Have you any benchmarks on your disk speeds, Cinebench and other to compare other systems?

 

[Coupz]

Which SSD are you running? Do you have windows on the SSD installed or on a seperate HDD/SSD?
Can you post some Geekbench results?

Do you earn money with producing music? Then you could go with a 3930k

 

[nickkbh]

Thanks guys.

I have a OCZ agility 120 gb ssd.
No windows.

Geekbench 64 bit : 7579
Geekbench 32 bit : 7614

I works really well, but i am doing increasingly larger mixes, with heavy plugins, and i think it's time to build something faster.
Also, but really heavy plugs takes a long time to load.
It can take me up 5 mins to load a large mix.

Any advise is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[haylun98]

I have a Geekbench score higher then yours with slower CPU.

Geekbench 32bit: 9697 (with a few small background programs running)

i7 2600s @2.9Ghz (stock speed, not overclock)
2x4GB 1333MHz RAM (underclocked from 1600MHz)
MB: GA-Z68MX-UD2h-3B Bio:F13
Sandisk Extreme SSD 240GB (Sandforce Controller same as OCZ agility but with toggle mode memory chips)
Lion 10.7.4
Asus Radeon 6670 1GB graphic driving 2560x1440 LCD.

Your i7 2600 should run @3.4Ghz which is faster then my low voltage s version.

Is your memory might be running at lower speed? e.g. 1066Hz. Make sure it is configured correctly in BIOS. Avoid using "auto" unless you understand the settings. I underclocked mine to reduce power consumption and to match the stock speed of the 2600s.

Are you using discret graphic? My 6770 is the fasting and passively cooled type I can find.

Are you using the late BIOS version with proper DSDT support? I found I updated to F13 version and the CPU stepping is improved.

Is you SSD nearly full? I generally like to maintain storage on HDD/SSD to no more than 66% used and less if possible. I used NAS to store most my static data e.g. Video. I keep music of SSD for iTunes syncing with my iOS devices.

I think upgrading CPU if your build will definitely improve performance but not by much unless you are shelling out for the top dog. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to investigate and to optimise your current build so to understand and remove bottleneck(s).

SSD: Make sure it is connected to fastest SATA port it supports. (Agility 3 is SATA3). PCIe card with SATA3 is a great alternative to motherboard upgrade and in some cases out perform building controllers.

RAM Speed: BIOS settings to make sure it is running fastest and matching speed to CPU. Not all 1333Mhz RAM are equally in speed. Timing is another complex issue to distinguish high end parts from cheap value ones.

RAM Qty: Is it enough? Run a utility like MenuMeters to monitor used/free RAM and swap activity. When you load a large mix it might be decompressed and filled up or exceed your RAM size. So Lion need to swap back to SSD and cause more I/O traffic and greatly affect performance. Little or virtually no swap activity is good. Mine is using swap @128Mb but only 1Mb is actually used so its same is none.

Lately CPU: Faster is "nearly" always better but its only good when other supporting parts are not "choking" the potential of a CPU.

So the bottle line is that SSD doesn't make your CPU run faster. It feeds data to it faster then HDD so it wastes much less computational cycles of the CPU. Perhaps invest in faster and plentiful of RAM (with lower timing) is better service in your build to improve loading time of your large mixes.

 

[JohnnyMac2001]

Thanks guys.

I have a OCZ agility 120 gb ssd.
No windows.

Geekbench 64 bit : 7579
Geekbench 32 bit : 7614

I works really well, but i am doing increasingly larger mixes, with heavy plugins, and i think it's time to build something faster.
Also, but really heavy plugs takes a long time to load.
It can take me up 5 mins to load a large mix.

Any advise is appreciated.

Thanks.

This is my geekbench score with the i7 2600k with no overclocking.

 

[nickkbh]

Im afraid my bios is very outdated.
But i don't know how to update it.

Also, i just noticed that apple system profile doesn't register my ram.

My HD has 27 gb free out of 128.
Might be able to clean it up a bit.

Anyway, looks like a i7 2700, might be a good improvement.