Core i7 not providing the performance increase I expected...

WaveLab
1

Got this laptop…

Dell Studio 1557
Processor: Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz
Mainboard: Intel PM55
Memory: 4096 MB, DDR3-1333
WDC WD3200BEKT-75F3T, 500GB 7200rpm
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
Cubase 5.5.1 in 32 Bit.

I find that it can handle about the same amount of plug-ins (even if I just use Cubase plugs) and audio tracks as my 4 year old white Bootcamped XP Macbook 13" with a Core 2 Duo 2 GHz processor, 5400rpm drive and 2GB RAM.

Very, very frustrating.

Any tips on improving the performance?

2

You didn’t mention perhaps the most important thing: what soundcard do you use? What soundcard driver do you use? Have you tried to adjust the audio buffer setting? Anyway, you can check some general DAW optimization tips for Windows (for instance) here: http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1071

–
Miloslav

3

I use a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 with the latest driver.

Thanks for the tips. I tried the tweaks and messed around with the Audio Buffer settings. Unfortunately it did nothing to increase the performance.

:frowning:

4

Changing buffer should help a little.
It’s not a system I have, but you could turn off any power saving options in the Bios and make sure hyperthreading is enabled as that is what is supposed to give performance advantage over older quad cores and having read the review watch the temperature when under load.

5

installed asio4all… helped a lot. except that it now stops me from using winamp or any other sound application while cubase is open.