Best CPU for music production

[Tenacious]

Hello,
I have an AMD Phenom 11 Quad core on GeForce6100PM-M2 motherboard. My CPU has reached it's limit during music production and is lagging whilst mixing effects etc. I need to upgrade, any suggestions please?

 

[yawnny]

Hello,
I have an AMD Phenom 11 Quad core on GeForce6100PM-M2 motherboard. My CPU has reached it's limit during music production and is lagging whilst mixing effects etc. I need to upgrade, any suggestions please?

AMD's in general overheat more and perform less than Intel chips. Yes, AMD is cheaper, but it sounds like you're at least semi-serious about music production (otherwise you wouldn't have made this post) so I'd say #1 is spend a bit more and buy an Intel CPU.

As for which CPU I suppose it depends on your budget? No need to go for something ridiculous such as the 3930K.. But other than the high end i7's there's basically just $100 jumps between i3, i5, i7.

The i5 2500K is four solid cores and is priced around $235.. I'd say look at that one!

Also, What program do you use for music production and How much RAM do you have?

Have a good one!

 

[Brett928S2]

AMD's in general overheat more and perform less than Intel chips. Yes, AMD is cheaper, but it sounds like you're at least semi-serious about music production (otherwise you wouldn't have made this post) so I'd say #1 is spend a bit more and buy an Intel CPU.

As for which CPU I suppose it depends on your budget? No need to go for something ridiculous such as the 3930K.. But other than the high end i7's there's basically just $100 jumps between i3, i5, i7.

The i5 2500K is four solid cores and is priced around $235.. I'd say look at that one!

Also, What program do you use for music production and How much RAM do you have?

Have a good one!

Hi

Amds overheat <<< lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Please give at least reasonably honest advice , not total rubbish....

After that statement, I wouldnt believe anything you said, even if you said the sun would come up at dawn tomorrow...

All the best Brett

 

[jay_nar2012]

A good upgrade would be an i5 or i7 would be a decent upgrade, not entirely sure how CPU intensive music production software is but if it uses all cores and threads available then go with an i7, the 3770K would be good, the 3930K would be better if music production uses all CPU resources.

If you get an i7 you would need to either get a LGA1155 mobo for the 3770K or ivy i5 or get a LGA 2011 mobo for the 3930K

 

[jay_nar2012]

Also what are the rest of your specs?

 

[stant1rm]

AMD's in general overheat more and perform less than Intel chips. Yes, AMD is cheaper, but it sounds like you're at least semi-serious about music production (otherwise you wouldn't have made this post) so I'd say #1 is spend a bit more and buy an Intel CPU.

As for which CPU I suppose it depends on your budget? No need to go for something ridiculous such as the 3930K.. But other than the high end i7's there's basically just $100 jumps between i3, i5, i7.

The i5 2500K is four solid cores and is priced around $235.. I'd say look at that one!

Also, What program do you use for music production and How much RAM do you have?

Have a good one!

Do yourself a favor and actually know something before using the keyboard next time, ok?

As for the OP's question, you're overall best bet for performance is probably depending on budget is socket LGA 2011 mobo + either a Intel Core i7 3820 or 3930K. Either one would do phenomenal for what you're looking at. If you're more budget limited, then an LGA 1155 board and either 3570K or 3770K is a good choice. Sandy Bridge is also a consideration if you're willing to overclock. The older SB chips can really get up there performance wise thanks to major overclocking potential.

 

[Tenacious]

Hey thanks to all of you for the advice so far.
It does sound as though Intel is the recommended processor so far.

As for my spec...

AMD Phenom 9350e Quad core CPU 2.01GHz
3.0 GB RAM
1 x 2TB Hard drive
1 x 500GB Hard drive
Cubase SX music software

Audio is powered by MOTO 8pre which is an outboard preamp so puts no strain on the CPU whatsoever. However, once mixing lots of effects then the CPU is steaming!

If i'm totally honest, I'm not sure if the music software uses all cores.

If it means spending a bit more than so be it...no cutting corners here.

Thanks so far guys

Martin

 

[yawnny]

Thanks a lot friendly Tom's Hardware community!
It's great to know that if an opinion is expressed that you guys don't agree with one is going to get lambasted.

Nice knowin' ya.

 

[stant1rm]

Thanks a lot friendly Tom's Hardware community!
It's great to know that if an opinion is expressed that you guys don't agree with one is going to get lambasted.

Nice knowin' ya.

Opinions are one thing, but poor or just plain wrong information is another. See ya.

OP, Here's a high end socket LGA 2011 Mobo + CPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157289&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116492&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

You'd also need some more RAM. 16GB should be plenty. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231556

If you're not looking to spend that much, lemme know. You might want to just consider a whole new build at this point.

 

[womble]

For music production I would tend to avour the Intel solutions, a lot of audio tends to favour multi core and decent floating point/avx performance. The Phenoms were a reasonable budget choice but the Bulldozer architecture seems to suffer a bit. There have been a few benchmarks and discussions in the Sound On Sound website forums on the matter.