Hyperthreading

I know the consensus has been that hyper-threading can cause issues with playback but I haven’t had any problems. I am thinking that if users are leaning towards a new build there are probably a few myths we can dispel now about Nuendo and necessary hardware. I have a K series Intel chip with HT enabled and it only helps the VST, I have no issues with playback and can dedicate a thread to video. If I were doing a new build I would probably get the i7 with HT and take advantage of the processing overhead especially with the new haswell’s. The cost difference between an i5 and i7 really isn’t much now.

I am curious to know how HT on AMD works out for users of their architecture. N6.5 probably won’t take much more overhead than N6 so we should be fine on Ivy and Sandy Bridge chips for a while.

And… Discuss…

i7 4770K here, slightly overclocked. Runs wonderfully without issues with HT enabled. I regularly work at 128 and sometimes work at 64 sample buffer until track and VSTi counts get large. This with 64 active Ins/Outs via RME MADI.

Previous systems were AMD 6 core, which ran fine but is totally outclassed by the i7. AMD, no matter how many cores or what operating frequency, will not deliver anywhere near the low latency performance of a current generation Intel CPU, due to architectural differences. AMD does not do “hyperthreading” as such, though that is not the reason for the gap in low latency performance. Same performance gap at low latency vs AMD with the Intel CPU HT on or off.

Currently running the i7 as my main DAW with a pair of AMD 6 core systems slaved via VEP. Very stable, professional feeling system for me with N6. With SSDs for all streaming, it’s very difficult to bring the system to it’s knees.

In my humble (but possibly somewhat informed) opinion, it’s mainly the specific motherboard and video card/drivers that dictate stability, followed by audio hardware/drivers. Once you get that right, you could drop any number of different CPUs in the socket, with HT on or off, and have a stable system.

For Windows users, the biggest help to people building/buying a system would be a list of users with extremely stable systems to post specifics of:

  1. Motherboard brand/model/BIOS rev/chipset driver rev.
  2. Video card brand/model/driver rev

Just buying a known good combo of those 2 things would solve a ton of PC issues around here, IMO. Obviously, audio hardware and driver matter too, but I think people are less likely to toss what they have for what somebody else says works well in that scenario.