GPU vs CPU

SpectraLayers
1

so, purely by chance (reading another post) I found that there is GPU support. My questions are:

why can’t we use both the CPU and GPU together?

In real world use, will a pretty good GPU (AMD 6700XT) be better/quicker than a 16 core 4.5mhz processor (AMD 5950x)

Thanks

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2

I don’t know the answer

I was looking into mobo and CPU upgrades; that’s gonna cost no less than 500 euros for hardware I’d be willing to purchase

then someone suggest just to upgrade GPU;
GPU upgrade for me is less than 200euros

AND could be used with CPU/mobo upgrade

so cheaper upgrade path is GPU first (if it works with mobo)

PCIe is backwards compatible =-D

3

A CPU and a GPU are built for different purposes. In short, you can not replace the CPU simply by inserting a GPU.

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4

This is software dependent…
If Spectralayers uses only one will be by design.

I use Premiere for video edit and it uses both at the same time or not in render tasks depending on the codec used.

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5

GPU are vastly faster than the fastest CPUs - so a CPU is not of big help when a GPU is available for acceleration.

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6

someone I’ve been communicating with on another forum for many years told me he is experiencing noticeably improved performance in SL after simply upgrading his GPU from a 1030 to 3060

7

Robin, thanks so much for confirmation on this

8

What would be great would be some sort of “test” function that will demonstrate the power difference in Spectralayers. I would assume my 4.5mhz 16 core cpu would perform better than the single 6700xt GPU but I’ve no way of knowing definitivly the actual benefit of either. A score (or test procedure) would be great, as would having all cores of the CPU work alongside the GPU in the de-mixing especially.

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9

You can do that for yourself. Just switch between CPU and GPU in the System settings

image

Run a test with the setting on CPU and then run the same test with the GPU enabled. You should see a difference.

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10

I didn’t see any noticible improvement when I switched to the GPU, hence asking the original question.

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11

@ondre What time does it take for Unmix Song with your CPU, and with your 6700XT, on the same song ?

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12

UnMix Song takes about 20mins for a 3min song on my
i7 8700K

I don’t do this very often tho and will happily do something else while SL uncooks

13

I’ve not got the stopwatch out, but the newer version seems a lot slower using extreme settings. Is this to do with the audio “improvements”? are they user noticible? (and worth re-visiting) unmixed tracks done in 11.0.10? I am considering upgrading as the 7800xt has dropped in price. Are your optimisiations equal for both AMD and Nvidia? Having an AMD processor and GPU has it’s benefits with resizable bar etc.

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14

Yes, Extreme mode is a bit slower in 11.0.20 due to the quality improvement. However it remains subtle improvements, it depends on the songs but you should not expect dramatic differences.
I usually recommend NVIDIA GPUs as have great performances and are generally more future-proof in term of API/AI capabilities, but SpectraLayers uses DirectML anyway, so it’s equally optimized for NVIDIA, AMD or Intel GPUs.

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