Ableton Forum

superistic : you result of 16% on your i7 2.93GHz is with an iMac 27' ?

Quite likely - my 2.3Ghz 2011 MBP17 in real use (ie normal projects) is about the same performance for live 8 as my PC desktop with win7/64 - the desktop is overclocked to 4GHz and has 1600Mhz memory in it.

Geekbench FPU perf test actually shows the sandy bridge i7 at 2.3ghz to be faster than the bloomfield i7 is at 4ghz. Of course faster other hardware in the PC makes it overall much more responsive to use, but raw audio DSP performance is about the same and the MBP can usually manage a slightly heavier processing load in Live before audio breakup.

If I run the PC at its stock 2.8Ghz and reenable its normal turbo boost etc (3.4ghz I think), then the MBP is very definitely faster than the PC for pure audio processing in Live. Audio processing in Logic 9 totally out performs equivalent audio processing in Cubase 6 on the PC, though cubase on the PC always remains far more responsive than logic to UI interactions, and thus much easier to make accurate EQ tweaks with mouse etc for example.

plush303 wrote:superistic : you result of 16% on your i7 2.93GHz is with an iMac 27' ?

no its on a custom built PC

1 ) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 27%
2 ) Laptop/Desktop Make/Model: 13" Apple MBP (Feb'11)
3 ) Operating System: OS X 10.6.6
4 ) Ableton Live version: Live 8.2.2
5 ) CPU Make, Model, and Speed: Intel Core i5 (sandy bridge) 2.3ghz
6 ) Amount of Ram: 4GB 1333Mhz
7 ) Soundcard: NI Audio 2 DJ
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed: 5400 RPM SATA
9 ) Number of playback tracks? 8

i just bought this mac to replace my 15" unibody macbook pro, core duo 2,4 which score 50%, so i'm really happy !!!
This little beast score the same as my desktop PC with a quad Q6600 CPU@2,4ghz!! (27%)
i'm really impressed by this new generation of MBP!!

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 17
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? asus p6t mb, ocz 1333 ram,
3) Operating System? win 7 64
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2.1
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? intel 920 2.66 ( stock )
6) Amount of Ram? 3gb
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it ? rme hdsp9632 3.085
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

i arrived here after i install a free vsti and the cpu meter showed 41 !!!
somebody in other forum suggest that maybe the numbers are too high.
i download this test ( btw the name of the test is "live 6-7" hope i did it right... )
at first the cpu meter showed 24,
after a searche on google i disable c-state and c1e from the bius and it went down to 17
i try disable other things in the bius but it didn't do nothing to performance.

i hope this test really emulate my process on ableton... because now the buffer size on 32 and the cpu meter shows 21 !!! thats great comparing to some people on this thread with oc pc.

only time will tell ( if it will, i will come to share it here )

thanks again for helping me improving my daw

1 ) Ableton Live CPU Meter: 32%
2 ) Laptop/Desktop Make/Model: 15" Apple MBP (ca. April'10)
3 ) Operating System: OS X 10.6.7
4 ) Ableton Live version: Live 8.2.2
5 ) CPU Make, Model, and Speed: Intel Core i7 2.66 Ghz
6 ) Amount of Ram: 4GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
7 ) Soundcard: NI Audio 4 DJ
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed: 7200 RPM
9 ) Number of playback tracks? 8

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter? 74%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook Pro from 2006
3) Operating System? OSX 10.4.11
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2.2
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2 GHz Intel Core Duo
6) Amount of Ram? 2 Gb 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Motu Ultralite
8) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)?
9) Number of playback tracks? 6

Maybe someone can get some use out of the info from this old mule...

Great thread and posts! :D

How come I have the same RAM, a 3.06Ghz core 2 duo imac, and 40% in the test? Actually my RAM is only 1067 MHz

anyone any ideas?

You can't compare a Core duo with a core I5
a Core I5 sandy bridge, even with a slower CPU clock is a lot more powerful than a core duo...
simple as that
i had a core duo before, a 2,4 ghz and it score 50%
so, your result is perfectly normal

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter %: 57%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Macbook pro
3) Operating System? Mac os x 10.5.8
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2,4 Ghz intel core duo 2
6) Amount of Ram? 4 gb 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? TC electronic konnekt live newest driver
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 rpm
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter %: 13%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Custom Built Sandy Bridge Tower, Sabretooth P67 Rev 3 mobo
3) Operating System? Win 7 64bit
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2.2
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel i7 Sandy Bridge 2600k (stock clock speed)
6) Amount of Ram? 16gb Corsair 1600mhz (stock clock speed)
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? M-Audio Firewire 410
8 Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? Plextor PX-M2 SATAIII 128gig SSD (6.0Gb/s)
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

Note: I cannot get it to 512 samples, it will only allow 256. Need to play with it more. I feel my old sound interface is a weak link. I'll bet I can get it to +/-10% with a CPU OC and a modern sound interface. This machine which I built a week ago is silly fast.

Something wrong there - even allowing for the 256 sample buffer. I would have expected it to be much faster as even my 2011 Macbook pro manages 14% with all the NI and RME audio interfaces I have tried it with and my old 4GHz i7 PC manages 12% with the same RME and NI audio interfaces.

Maybe the audio card is really really crippling it.

If you duplicate the 8 tracks over the first few bars where all 8 tracks are playing and loop them - how many tracks can you manage before it starts to break up? Should be able to manage 64 easily without any breakup and maybe 72. If you cant - either that PC is buggered, or bin the audio card.

Khazul wrote:Something wrong there - even allowing for the 256 sample buffer. I would have expected it to be much faster as even my 2011 Macbook pro manages 14% with all the NI and RME audio interfaces I have tried it with and my old 4GHz i7 PC manages 12% with the same RME and NI audio interfaces.

Maybe the audio card is really really crippling it.

If you duplicate the 8 tracks over the first few bars where all 8 tracks are playing and loop them - how many tracks can you manage before it starts to break up? Should be able to manage 64 easily without any breakup and maybe 72. If you cant - either that PC is buggered, or bin the audio card.

I'm personally not really all that worried about it. I cannot discern any VST latency at all, and an extra 2 or 3% is so minuscule I seriously doubt I would notice any real world difference. The PC is new so it probably needs some optimizing anyway, however I haven't had any real time to put it through its paces. Funny thing is during the test, the cores aren't going over 18%. The sound interface must be six years old at this point but seems to do everything I need it to. I would guess a new, modern interface would help.

Keep in mind I'm coming off a 6 year old single core AMD with 2 gigs of RAM. This is like night and day.

1. CPU - 22% (Peak)
2. Apple Macbook Pro 15" MC723PL/A (03/2011)
3. OSX 10.6.7
4. Live 8.2.2
5. Intel Core i7 2.2 GHz quad-core
6. 8GB of RAM 1333 MHz DDR3
7. Built-in Audio
8. HDD 500GB 7200rpm
9. 8 tracks

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % (if it bounces around, please list the peak) 34%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Laptop/Apple/ Macbook Pro 13" 2011
3) Operating System? Mac OS X v10.6.7 Snow Leopard
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2.2
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with 3MB shared L3 cache
6) Amount of Ram? 4GB 1333MHz DDR3
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? Built-in CoreAudio
Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 5400 rpm SATA
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

1) Ableton Live CPU Meter % (if it bounces around, please list the peak) - 18%
2) Laptop/Desktop? Make/Model? Intel (Custom Built)
3) Operating System? Win 7 64
4) Ableton Live version? 8.2.2
5) CPU Make, Model, and Speed? Intel i7-2600K, 3.4Ghz
6) Amount of Ram? 8GB (1866Mhz)
7) Soundcard (and driver version if you know it)? PreSonus Audiobox USB
8 ) Hard Disk Drive Speed (if you know)? 7200 rpm, SATA
9) Number of playback tracks? 8

For kicks, I took the above project and duplicated the set until I had 64 tracks. CPU stabilized at 71%. This was the same if the samples were 256 or 1024. I think this benchmark needs to be updated to work the system a bit more.

I can clock the CPU around 5Ghz stable, on air. However, I figured posting the non-overclocked numbers would be better in case someone is seriously considering a Sandy Bridge based system. Just make sure you get a B3 stepping motherboard. Then go forth happily knowing you spent $650 less, but have almost the exact same performance as a high-end i7-980X. In my opinion, the second generation i7 2600 Intel CPUs are the best bang for the buck right now, especially for audio/video work. I'm not the oldest dog in the shed, my first Intel system was a 386, but this 2600K is the nicest Intel system I have ever owned.