Ableton Forum

A bit off topic, this, but I just played the four same stereo tracks in Logic Express 9.1.1 and Live 8.1.5b2, and the CPU load on the OS (OS X) certainly went in Live's favour.

Logic was using between 37-43% in the Activity Monitor (for OS X), while total CPU load for the system hovered between 20-23% (using iStat).

However, Live only used around 18% in the Activity Monitor while playing back the four tracks, and the total CPU came out around 10-14%.

Hmm. Don't if this is useful for anything, but I was certain Logic would use less CPU than Live during this simple operation, not considerably more.

In my experience Live takes more CPU-power than Logic. At least I have only encountered CPU-glitches once in Logic. If I had been a fly on the wall that day I had asked "are you trying to make your computer crash"?

Also get glitches in Live in heavy projects but the CPU meter jumps a lot sometimes. Between 35 and 65 in CPU-usage.

MBP, 2 ghz intel core 2 duo, 4 gb ram

You are absolutely right, Ayers Rock: I did some more stress testing, and Logic is the definite CPU winner.

The difference between the two is that while Logic is certainly feeling the strain, it will NOT glitch, even when both CPU meters (if you have dual core) are almost hitting the roof.

Looks like Live has its work cut out.

I'd have to agree also, especially since Logic went 64 bit. I've noticed a big difference.
Shortly after that I purchased Live and it appears I'm back to where I was before the Logic upgrade.
Logic is a great daw, but Live keeps pulling me in with Session view. The CPU spikes in Live are daunting though ..