Calculating CPU usage ? How fast is 337% faster ?

[eightyeightkeys]

Well, it looks like the PC thing is out for me. Just too "risky." I don't want to spend all of time troubleshooting. That's out. So..... The new Macs are now the question. How fast are they ? Really ? On the apple.com web-site they compare the new Macs with Pentiums, the last generation Macs and older SP(Single Processor) 877Mhz Macs. For example, a new Mac(dual 1.25GHz) running Final Cut Pro is 206% faster than a SP-G4500. Also, the same new Mac renderring Digital Video is 337% faster than a SP-877Mhz G4. But what does that mean to us audio folk ? There are no comparisons of new Macs to old nor to Pentiums running digital audio. Anyone using one of the new Macs and using, for example, Waves products that can give me an idea of the power of these new machines? My G3/233/Desktop with an XLR8 2X500Mhz G4 CPU upgrade can run 1 TrueVerb with a 20% CPU usage. 1-Renaissance Reverb uses 32% of the CPU. Just opening CubaseVST32/5.0r2 with no audio tracks and no MIDI, ie. totally idle, uses 8% CPU. Any numbers would be much appreciated.

[phaeton]

Unfortunately, all these numbers that hardware and computer manufacturers are throwing out are pretty much bullshit. Well, not bullshit, because they are real data, but by themselves they are pretty much useless. There are sooo many different variables involved in "how fast is X" that will depend heavily from machine to machine and usage to usage that it will do minimal good to try to invest too much time into it. Probably the best way to find out, is to either ask (folks on this forum) who own macs (running OS X since that's what you'll get with a new one) and use the software that you want to use. Whether a certain machine runs it "no trouble" "simply adequately" or "it could use some more oomph" sounds pretty vague, but this will be more useful than looking at numbers with nothing to really reference them to. $5 says that any newer mac should be an order of magnitude faster than what you're currently used to, even after you take in consideration the memory hungriness of OS X.

[Stephen Fortner]

Those percentages, AFAIK, are based on various benchmark tests which for the most part emphasize graphics and raw number-crunching. [geek] They have some use as a rough guide, because CPU-intensive plug-ins are all about floating-point number crunching. They're also doing it in real time to information being streamed from disk or coming in from a live input, though, which is something your garden variety computer speed test doesn't take into account, because it's still not how most apps work. Even in high-end graphics and animation, people still work with power-conserving representations (like wire frames) and then "render" the final product. That's analgous to our "bouce to disk" or final mixdown, before which we're already making the CPU sweat. [/geek] More than you ever wanted to know about how computers work: [url=http://www.arstechnica.com]www.arstechnica.com[/url]

[Rog]

All I know is that the disk craps out in my new 600 MHZ iBook WAY before the cpu, in real-world apps. I haven't got it above 50% so I'm guessing but it seems faster than my 800 MHz IBM Intellistation I use at work. It's so hard to compare ... if Channelstrip ran under Windoze I'd have a better idea. As an aside, my Mac purchase has been a godsend because of Channelstrip alone, it just sounds ... better :D

[Dylan]

I'm not looking to start a flame war here, but I thought some of you might find [url=http://www.macedition.com/nmr/nmr_20021112.php]this[/url] article interesting. What risks are you scared of by going with a PC? You might now be aware that there are several companies who build PC's solely who can setup everything up including your audio and MIDI hardware. They ship it to you ready to rock right out of the box. Not even a Mac is THAT plug n' play right out of the box.

[Rog]

[quote]Originally posted by Dr. Flaven: [b]I'm not looking to start a flame war here, but I thought some of you might find [url=http://www.macedition.com/nmr/nmr_20021112.php]this[/url] article interesting. What risks are you scared of by going with a PC? You might now be aware that there are several companies who build PC's solely who can setup everything up including your audio and MIDI hardware. They ship it to you ready to rock right out of the box. Not even a Mac is THAT plug n' play right out of the box.[/b][/quote]Blah ... Bluegh ... Bleeegh. But thanks, really. I mean it, truely :)

[eightyeightkeys]

I'm currently working on a project that has about 32 audio tracks running and a few, but not many MIDI tracks. 8 tracks of drums and a stereo pair of acoustic GTR's that pretty much play from top to bottom. All of the other tracks come in and out at various points, including the bass GTR. I've got various RenComp's running and a few RenEQ's running, a couple of PSP Vintage Warmers and a PSP 84 and I'm MAX'ed out CPU wise. No TrueVerbs or CPU based Verbs of any kind. That's it. I haven't even recorded the vocals yet. Just opening Cubase VST32 on my machine is an 8% CPU load ! So, with my next computer I want to be able to record, playback, process, run MIDI tracks and VST instruments with CPU head-room to spare. Will the G5's get there ? Who knows ? The VSTSystem Link seems to be quite a ways off. Is anybody there yet ? Gimme track counts and a plug-ins count with the type of machine you're using. I need to know where we're at with some concrete stats.