intel i5 750 cpu good for ableton or i7?

[#1thelark]

I haven't found any performance tests results with the i5 750 cpu, so I was wondering if there are disadvantages of this cpu I don't know of which keeps you from buying it? Maybe the turboboost feature, does it cause problems/audio glitches?

If you bought a new pc or mac with this cpu, please share your experiences and/or test results... also if you picked a different cpu please tell me why you decided against the i5. The i7 offers 8 virtual cores and triple channel ddr3...is this worth the extra money compared to a i5?

Thanks for your thoughts about this

happy new year

[#1thelark]

bump... no i5 750 users here?

[loquat]

I guess not. I'm a Dualcore Quad 6600 guy myself. I wish I were an i7 or i5 user. I'm going to upgrade eventually though.

[Sibanger]

A mate of mine runs an i7-920 and it kicks arse!
Don't know anyone with an i5 atm, but you can pick up an i7-920 in Aust for less than $350.

[v00d00ppl]

i run an i7 920 for live 8, reaper, and emulator x3. It works really well in windows 7 64 bit professional and has worked well ever since live 8.0.5.

if its a money issue then go with the i5.....if you've got money to burn then go with the i7. Both chipsets are still above the q6600 and 8300 style and i think those chips will get the job done for running sAmplers and virtual synths already.

I tend to make boom bap hip hop shit and with live by itself.......i went overboard on my i7 920....but it is cool to freak samples out with the emu z plane filters on emulator x alongside live so i am a happy camper. Now with live suite alone any of those i5, i7 or i9 should run all of lives features smoothly. I tend to use sampler, electric, and corpus the most in live 8 and i tend to get the job done in 4 tracks or less.

[Homebelly]

Are you asking because you are looking at iMacs?
If yes, i would say go for the i7.
The i5 if all well and good, but the i7 will have a longer shelf life as more and more apps
start to take better advantage of the virtual cores.
Alternatively, and if you are looking at mac's, you could hold out till the MacPro's get a CPU change and then get your self a refurbished quad core mac pro, there are some strong rumors that the upgrade might happen as soon as February...

[jamief]

I,m running an i7 920 with 6gb ddr3 on win 7 64 ultimate. Also running mac intel 2.16 ghz and a win xp 2.16 ghz duo core both excellent performers and i was only just starting to reach their ceiling with my very latest writings with 60 + tracks and a lot of vsti and fx( cant remember how many).
The i7 is fantastic and gives alot more performance that the two laptops. The i5 will be a fantastic performer as well. I dont really think you can go wrong there. But if you have the money the i7 chipset will be a better performer. Either way you wont be disapointed and dependant upon the complexity of your mixes or wsong writng say 50 plus tracks and maybe adozen vsti,s and vst fx
( dependant on vsti,s and vst fx maker and cpu overheads) you should even with the i5 (not slow by any means or a poor performer) have 3 + year machine.
Best

[netchaiev]

Hi guys,

I was looking to also change my CD2 MBP to either the latest one at 3,06Ghz or wait for the i7/i5
I need the GPU to to run video.

Get the best of the last or wait for the first new ones???

Cheers and HAPPY NEW YEAR

[jamief]

Hi guys,

I was looking to also change my CD2 MBP to either the latest one at 3,06Ghz or wait for the i7/i5
I need the GPU to to run video.

Get the best of the last or wait for the first new ones???

Cheers and HAPPY NEW YEAR

New ones definately big diffence in power

[ryanisflyboy]

I haven't found any performance tests results with the i5 750 cpu, so I was wondering if there are disadvantages of this cpu I don't know of which keeps you from buying it? Maybe the turboboost feature, does it cause problems/audio glitches?

If you bought a new pc or mac with this cpu, please share your experiences and/or test results... also if you picked a different cpu please tell me why you decided against the i5. The i7 offers 8 virtual cores and triple channel ddr3...is this worth the extra money compared to a i5?

Thanks for your thoughts about this

happy new year

I have studied and benchmarked this architecture in-depth at work. Get the i7-870 if you can. It is probably the best price/performance, performance/watt processor on the market today. The 'turbo' feature can switch very fast (faster than you're likely to ever notice). Consider replacing the stock fan with something bigger as thermal plays a huge part in end performance. Running things on Windows 7 is recommended, and is likely to improve over time. The OS needs to be aware of what is going on so it can either decide to stay in turbo on one thread (stuck to one core), or start a new one and use more cores (increasing your thermal, thus lowering your cycles). The i5 line is crap, and is Intel's way of making a fast buck. The i5 line insults people's intelligence as it is essentially an i7 processor with parts disabled (really Intel? Really!?).

Doing certain multimedia tasks with this processor line is likely to excel based on my tests. Particularly with the i7-870 (which is the only processor in the line to have a couple of extra goodies that make things nice). Operations like rendering audio or video should be much faster (MUST HAVE GOOD THERMAL). However, I have yet to test Ableton specifically.

[jamief]

Do you own search on the i5 people it is not rubbish at all.

[halley]

they are both good... whatever you choose you won't regret it,
because you'll feel the performance boost compared to previous processor families
especially in/for some areas/tasks. Just to say some of my songs went from 30/40% average CPU
to 5/15%, mostly the same preformance gain on i5 and i7 apart from a few songs.
It depends very much on what you're actually using in your tracks (I used to avoid or
use reaktor and melodyne with caution, now I'm way more confident...).

apart from that, if you try to balance what you 'play' live and what you simply 'hear' 'pre-freezed'
you don't really need new families of processors, we all used to do music anyway before i5/i7.
I always stick to the "don't go over 30/40% rule" and I've never had a problem live.
Do you always use your car as you're driving a ferrari?

for a general use a lot of the tests out there put the i5 750 near the i7 920.
Think about it if you use the machine for a general use, i mean
not only for audio or other specific use, like video, 3d or similia
that can really benefit some of the 'disabled' i5 parts.

Also, IMHO it usually isn't only a matter of processor...
I spent a lot of money to upgrade to a new i7 machine.
i5 wasn't out yet, really needed a new machine, I use it
also for some video and 3d work sometimes.
My girlfriend just bought an i5 pre-assembled machine.
How will this evolve according to intel roadmap?
the i7 socket (1366) should be usable with new processors (whether they call them i9 or not)
so most of the motherboards cost more but have a longer life.
the i5 socket should have a shorter, less upgradable path ahead.
I'll spend the money for a new processor, my girlfriend will probably get
a new computer sooner than me...
Will any of us have problems working? Don't think so...
Who will spend more? Who will get the best "quality/quantity/work vs price/money/hassles" ratio?
Difficult to say, she'd probably be in a better position when upgrading.

Also... If you use the machine mainly for audio, you can think also
of going for the i5 and then take the UAD-2 option,
you'll get also a bunch of plugins you also won't regret.

[Formic]

I've just built a core i5 box. My understanding is the main difference between i5 and i7 is that i7 uses hyperthreading, which Live does not support at present. My system is running very smoothly with win7 64 bit. I only have my old athlon machine to compare it to though

[davepermen]

I've just built a core i5 box. My understanding is the main difference between i5 and i7 is that i7 uses hyperthreading, which Live does not support at present. My system is running very smoothly with win7 64 bit. I only have my old athlon machine to compare it to though

live doesn't need to support it. the os does. for live, it's just threads.

[Formic]

just quoting what customer support told me:


Hyperthreading is not supported by Live, only the presence of multiple physical CPU´s.
Please see also this thread about Win7:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=127770

best,
Christian Kleine
Ableton Technical Support