On my previous machine (2.8 Ghz c2d macbook pro) at 512 sample buffer, I'd get around 48% on the 8 track performance test, my new one not even half that percentage. But if I would duplicate the tracks on my old machine, I'd max out at 17 tracks in the performance test. This was probably around 75% cpu. Well I just tried the same thing and I couldn't believe how many duplicated tracks I could pile on. It eventually started to glitch out on the 65th track. 64 played smoothly. This sat at about 85% cpu on the Live meter. Now you wouldn't want to keep that going long, as the fans were going nuts and it was starting to get pretty hot, but the interesting thing is that it was smooth sailing up to then, so the power did ramp up nicely.
What I didn't realize was that the system actually sees each core as 2 cores. So in the activity monitor you actually see 8 cores on the meter, same in Logic there are 8 bars.
I was expecting to double my performance, didn't realize it had this much more power...
However the beast does get quite hot. In fact it's fairly warm at all times, even when not stressed, but when you do start to push it a little, she really heats up...
