Which MacPro for DP8, VEPro, Kontakt and MIR? More cores or faster CPU?

[Steve Steele]

Currently I'm running Digital Performer 8 and VEPro (4 instances) on a single 2008 8-core MacPro. With 32GBs of RAM, and all SSDs my orch template pushes the CPU to the max, and uses 99.8% of the RAM. So, I'm going to buy a new Mac (I don't want a PC even if performance and price are better).

My question is this.. With DP, VEPro and Kontakt all MP aware, which MacPro would work best? The 3.5Ghz 6 core or the 2.7GHz 12 core MacPro?

Seems like having 12 cores (24 virtual)  would make sense with the four apps I listed above. Or am I wrong? Should I go for the faster CPU speed in this case?

I've also thought about buying a new iMac i7 32GBs RAM for DP, and a MacPro 64GBs for a VEPro/MIR slave. What do you think about that setup?

Thanks!

Steve

[Cyril Blanc]

If you calculate it in rough power :

12 core x 2,7 ghz = 32,4

6 core x 3.5 ghz = 21

[civilization 3]

I would want some input from developers to inform me per this choice.
I don't know.

I have an 8-core. I did what Cyril advised, thank you Cyril, and looked at the CPU history under the 'window' menu in Activity Monitor and, for instance in this project which I have to use a lot of latency to run - and to render - in realtime, having assigned to 14 cores I'm seeing it show me using 8, every other core which I take as the 8 physical cores and barely touching 2 of what I take as virtual cores. I think I could use more ghz here.

So I don't know, maybe a 12 core will use 12 readily. But that's significant clock gain and I've seen developers here like the clock speed.

With this information, I think I would not like less than 8 but this is just anecdotal.

[Cyril Blanc]

@civilization 3 said:

You say "having assigned to 14 cores"  where ? in VEP ? why dont assign to 16 ?

[civilization 3]

I leave 2 for Cubase; on the same machine.

[Cyril Blanc]

@civilization 3 said:

I leave 2 for Cubase; on the same machine.

I dont do that, I leave all the cores for Logic and VEP

Mac os know how do deal with that

[Steve Steele]

The Geekbench score for a combined iMac i7 3.5 and a current 6 core 3.5GHz is 35526. That's equal to the 12 core (just adding the scores). I'm guessing that in some ways the iMac/6 core system might feel quicker, but you have to factor in the 2 system latency not to mention any hassles with a 2 computer system (which I have no experience with). Perhaps I'd run DP, with a few VIs, plugins and maybe a light VEPro instance on the iMac, then leave the rest to the 6 core. 

iMac + 6 core = $9000 (more or less)

12 core = $9000 (more or less)

Any thoughts on that?

[civilization 3]

@civilization 3 said:

I leave 2 for Cubase; on the same machine.

I dont do that, I leave all the cores for Logic and VEP

Mac os know how do deal with that

You're probably right. I'm going to do that.

[civilization 3]

@thenightwatch said:

The Geekbench score for a combined iMac i7 3.5 and a current 6 core 3.5GHz is 35526. That's equal to the 12 core (just adding the scores). I'm guessing that in some ways the iMac/6 core system might feel quicker, but you have to factor in the 2 system latency not to mention any hassles with a 2 computer system (which I have no experience with). Perhaps I'd run DP, with a few VIs, plugins and maybe a light VEPro instance on the iMac, then leave the rest to the 6 core. 

iMac + 6 core = $9000 (more or less)

12 core = $9000 (more or less)

Any thoughts on that?

Same cost there, I would definitely go with 12 cores one machine. I used to use a MacPro quad core 4.1 to run Cubase and maybe a couple instances of Vienna Suite as I use it now, to write automation during playback interactively, but I ditched that machine and I don't know if there's any difference, I feel it definitely was something to get my money back out to some extent. Two machines was no hassle at all, though. "2 system latency" doesn't mean anything to me really. I don't think there's any more latency to speak of just out of the difference between running LAN through one CAT6 vs Local Host.

If it was two 6 cores at the same price I would have to get some developer feedback and weigh that carefully.

[civilization 3]

The point of me having two machines, following my experience, would be to have two machines running VE Pro full-on. Both with a lot of RAM.
VE Pro with all of the instruments and most of FX is doing so much more than a DAW running a sequencer and the consequent audio coming back from the VE Pro servers.

[Steve Steele]

I'm still on a 2008 8 core MacPro 32GBs. Hopefully that will change soon. When VEPro is running at about 18GBs of real memory is starts to act wonky. So I'll start loading VIs into DP and maybe use MIR Pro as an insert in DP. DP is pretty good as a VI host up to a limit. Then I'll start getting some communication errors between DP and VEPro.

That's just my experience, so that's my rational for the iMac/MacPro setup. I realize newer computers are much better but I guess I'm a little skeptical about one computer handling everything for a massive template. But it seems to work for some people.