Mac CPU upgrade - more cores or higher clock speed?

[JZilla]

I think I'm going to do a combination of upgrading the CPU and also thinning out my aux use to make the whole thing more efficient.

Yep, that's the issue I've just been running into. It's the auxes into stereos. Cut them down, the machine becomes responsive again.

Just out of curiosity (I'm in the middle of a project now so can't screw around too much for a couple of weeks), do you find that the big CPU hit also happening with lots of instrument returns coming in from VE, or is it mainly when using auxes for submixing?

And a related question when looking at the CPU upgrade for all the computer smartypantses: I've found the list of compatible CPU chips on OWC, and see that a Xeon E5-2697 v2 is the 12-core chip Apple uses. Does this mean that any E5-2697 v2 found on Amazon/eBay/etc. would be likewise compatible, or are there differences I'm not seeing?

[HCMarkus]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ma ... t.1954766/

A big 10-4 good buddy on the chip for your nMP. Note the 10 core option... could be the sweet spot.

[doodles]

doodles wrote:
Yep, that's the issue I've just been running into. It's the auxes into stereos. Cut them down, the machine becomes responsive again.


Just out of curiosity (I'm in the middle of a project now so can't screw around too much for a couple of weeks), do you find that the big CPU hit also happening with lots of instrument returns coming in from VE, or is it mainly when using auxes for submixing?

Instrument returns are fine form VE. It's just the magnitude of auxes in DP grind it to a halt.

[JZilla]

Cool, good to know. I dove in today, buying a kit with a 12-core 2.7 GHz CPU and 64 GB of RAM, might as well go for broke. I'll probably have a chance to install in the next week or so, and will report back with how it all goes.

Thanks for all your help folks, much appreciated.

[philbrown]

I'm also thinking that my heavy aux use might be a problem, so figuring out a new method of template management is probably also in the cards.

In case it's applicable to you; I used to have a template where I'd pre-loaded 3-5 commonly-used plug-ins on each track, but in bypass mode, so they'd be available quickly when I needed them. I was shocked at the load an empty project had on my (pretty robust) machine. MagicD explained that plug-ins are active in the system, even when bypassed (which is so you can click them in and out without a glitch or delay). Needless to say, I lightened up on the plugs in my base template significantly after that, which had an immediate effect.

What about the enable buttons (the round track enable button, not play-enable)? Disabling the tracks reduces CPU load. Not sure how enable works if the track is routed to an aux though, per the aux track discussion above. I know it's a peripheral issue here, and I don't use large templates myself, but at least you could have all tracks and plugs in place but disable the tracks not being used at the moment. I just went from an 8 core 2.26 to a 12 core 3.46 and before I upgraded the enable button helped me get through songs without having to delete tracks I might need later.

[JZilla]

I've tried disabling the unused aux tracks but haven't seen any significant improvement, so I'm not sure if that's really accomplishing anything.

[doodles]

I've tried disabling the unused aux tracks but haven't seen any significant improvement, so I'm not sure if that's really accomplishing anything.

pretty sure disabling doesn't do anything. you need to get rid of the number of auxes and NUMBER of tracks. I'm sure someone will chime in that knows more than me...

[daniel.sneed]

Just my two cents:
Spreading your Fxs and Vis in different V-racks, will achieve *some* improvement whenever you disable unused ones.
This has been my first DP CPU strategy for long, mainly for Fxs and for Master track inserts. Second one for VIs. And third, of course, is buffer settings.