Poll: Should I upgrade or not?

[tedlogan]

I'm getting fed up with my PC. Sick of audio crackles and terrible latency. The number one rule I have these days is that everything must flow smoothly when recording, otherwise everything sits on this foundation of shit.

I currently have a 2009 first-generation i7 2.6ghz quad-core, which I believe is far inferior to a quad-core of the same speed from the third and fourth generations of today. Stop me if I'm mistaken, but so the charts read.
6 GB RAM although I'm still on Live 32 bit, so let's make that 3.8 gig.
7200rpm WD 1TB hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium
A half-working GTX295 - the one GPU has failed so it's running in single-GPU mode. It's a piece of shit too.
I mostly use a Pod HD bean as my audio interface. Sometimes I switch to an Edirol UA-25 (also the first generation of these from around 2005) when I need phantom power for condenser mics. Both have poor latency on my system. The lowest either can achieve is 10ms round-trip, but then I better not be running any u-he stuff or many tracks. Even without CPU heavy-stuff like Bazille, audio will easily drop out and crackle on such low latency, 128 buffer etc. I don'ttend to use no more than 16 tracks anyway, if hardly ever. Usually around 8. Generally around two or three instances of either Bazille or Zebra, some Samplers.

Effects-wise I have M4L Conv Reverb Pro on a return, sometimes 2, and a few of Live's delays in various rack setups. u-he Satin is on every channel except returns. EQ8 is also on every channel. Maybe a Live native effect here and there.

Is my PC simply too old now? After windows has loaded the desktop after startup, everything takes forever to load initially. Live takes about 20 years to reach the splash screen. I guess everything is just starting to go off, like old fruit. My one guilty distraction when I really cannot get anywhere while working on sound is Left 4 Dead 2. This will sometimes fail and crash about 4/5ths of the way through a campaign. I'm just wondering if my ailing GPU is connected to my woes. Perhaps it interferes with something somehow causing everything to slow down, crackle, and fuck up.

Perhaps my audio interfaces are not the best driver-wise (both up to date). Maybe - and this is what I suspect - it's a combination of the lot - old CPU, failing GPU, 32bit Live, bad audio drivers, and demanding softsynths. Even with a buffer setting of 512, medium size buffer setting, the interfaces can reach crackling point (80-90% CPU used), and a roundtrip latency of 44ms! Unplayable. I don't want to use ASIO4All, i need the Hi-Z for guitar and phantom power for condenser mics of audio interfaces.

Anyone else had a similar setup/experience and upgraded to find good latency and generally good performance?

I should mention that a whole new PC will most definitely benefit my 3D-modeling and animation experience with Autodesk Maya etc.

Thank you for reading.

[tedlogan]

Very true, but I cannot completely agree with string 5. Thanks for your input though.

[XSIMan]

I use an i7 2.6Ghz I have run it at 3.6Ghz for four years. I can manage a mix using a few DIVAs and Bazilles at 10ms latency.

I would save and get the six core i7. and a decent cooler and over clock it to 4Ghz.

[tedlogan]

I use an i7 2.6Ghz I have run it at 3.6Ghz for four years. I can manage a mix using a few DIVAs and Bazilles at 10ms latency.

ah but 3.6 GHz - that's a huge increase in power from 2.6Ghz. I should probably try and overclock mine. Never attempted anything like that before though. Which audio interface and platform are you using?

[tedlogan]

I would save and get the six core i7. and a decent cooler and over clock it to 4Ghz.

I have been thinking about doing this yes. Been eyeing either a six-core to overclock with a hydro-cooler or simply an un-overclocked quad-core 4790k 4 Ghz with an EVO CPU cooler.

[XSIMan]

I use Windows 8.1 64bit
Live 9 64bit
Sound card Creative X-fi Titanium
CPU cooler is Coolermaster V8 but the best one is by Noctua now.

Why are you using Live 32bit? Wouldn't make a difference in CPU using 32 or 64bit anyhow.

[tedlogan]

I use Windows 8.1 64bit
Live 9 64bit
Sound card Creative X-fi Titanium
CPU cooler is Coolermaster V8 but the best one is by Noctua now.

Why are you using Live 32bit?

Because when I first installed it long ago I was blindly following Ableton's advice. I know they've changed that recommendation now, and I'm a bit less ignorant regarding the technicalities.

I know it only enables using more than 4GB RAM, which is only useful mainly for large sample libaries.

[XSIMan]

Do you use u-he synths in multicore mode? That spreads the workload across all CPU cores.
Another thing you can do to save CPU is use effects on sends and u-he have a new Synth out in a few days called HIVE that's for EDM and trance and uses far less CPU than Sylenth1.

[tedlogan]

Do you use u-he synths in multicore mode? That spreads the workload across all CPU cores.
Another thing you can do to save CPU is use effects on sends and u-he have a new Synth out in a few days called HIVE that's for EDM and trance and uses far less CPU than Sylenth1.

Oh yes, always in MC mode. The most demanding effect I use, Conv Reverb Pro, is on a send. I know all about Hive and am constantly watching u-he's activity on KVR It won't offer me Bazille's power, but I will still check it out definitely! I have no time for EDM or trance though, it numbs me.

I try to keep my synths to a bare minimum in order to master them. I know at this point Bazille is certainly all I need, it's what I've been looking for for many years. Zebra is its co-pilot now and then. I digress.

[tedlogan]

I always thought Filth Pig was the best Ministry album, and now I know it is.

[eyeknow]

I think a couple of things:

-you need a volvo
-you need a virus
-you need cprezzzz

Still, regardless of how much cash you pay out, there will always been remaining issues. Though I do hope you get it sorted.

[tedlogan]

I think a couple of things:

-you need a volvo
-you need a virus
-you need cprezzzz

Still, regardless of how much cash you pay out, there will always been remaining issues. Though I do hope you get it sorted.

-I agree fully
-Hive will do
-He is a giant amongst men.

Cheers. I will eventually. Right now just finished some guitar recording, quite painful process really, switching back and forth between 10ms/freezing tracks/disabling tracks and unfreezing/44ms/enabling. Well, at least stuff gets done.

[lapieuvre]

What about purchasing SSD drives?

RME Babyface is also a great purchase.

[rlauriston]

I spent the last month troubleshooting latency problems (dropouts with as few as two Kontact virtual instruments if I set the buffers below 1024). Finally I bought a new computer (CyberPowerPC through Costco, same price as direct but doubles the warranty and if you're not happy you can return it to a local warehouse within 30 days).

Seems to have solved the problem, ONCE I DISABLED THE NETWORK ADAPTER. Even on the old computer (Dell E5420 laptop), doing that reduced the problems by maybe 90% (though it's just fundamentally underpowered).

Presonus FireStudio Mobile on an SIIG NN-440012-S8 card ($30 from Sweetwater)

The CPU fan is too noisy, I'll replace that with a quieter one.

CAS: AZZA Silentium 920B w/ USB 3.0, Noise Reduction Material [+4] (Black Color)
CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.50 GHz Eight-Core AM3+ CPU 8MB L2 Cache & Turbo Core Technology [+24]
CS_FAN: Default case fans
FAN: AMD Certified CPU Fan & Heatsink
HDD: 250GB Samsung 840 EVO Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 540MB/s Read & 520MB/s Write [+113] (Single Drive)
IUSB: Internal USB 3.0 4-Port Hub [+25]
MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory (AMD RADEON MEMORY)
MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990 ATX w/ Ultra Durable 3, On/Off Charge, GbLAN, 4 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 1 PCI [+71]
NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
NOISEREDUCE1: Power Supply Gasket [+5]
NOISEREDUCE2: Anti-Vibration Fan Mounts [+9]
OS: Microsoft® Windows 8.1 (64-bit Edition) + Office 365 FREE 30 Days Trial
POWERSUPPLY: 350 Watts - 350W Power Supply
VIDEO: AMD Radeon R7 240 2GB GDDR3 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card (Single Card)

[rlauriston]

I take it back, disabling the network adapter on the new PC did not solve the problem, just reduced it. I was unable to completely eliminate dropouts except by increasing buffers to 1024, which is no better than on the old PC.