Yo Bud.
The only thing I ever saw since we hit 3GHz to give any extra oomph to a PC is the cache on the CPU, if it's well designed, if it shares too much gunk making audio slow.etc.
Bloomfield i7s were not that much better than a Wolfdale E8600 from the Dual Core Conroe era,
The only thing I see that consistently gives a better advantage since we hit 3GHz is related to memory.
Cache is basically the first leg of memory.
2 Cores using the same cache design are better than 4 Cores as there's no SSE instructions to make better use of the cache from a previous design.
So it is now slower as it must take in twice as many instructions since the core count has doubled.
Going from 4MB L3 cache to 6 and 8MB L3 cache gave me more instances of Time based FX like reverb and delay without gagging.
So if I were to build again for Native, which I seem to be departing from more and more, I would go for the upcoming Xeon E3 1585 v5 CPU.
The GFX are the supreme Iris Pro 4k, but also comes with 64MB's of Level 4 cache.
That cache can be handed to audio chores by giving the System RAM (usually 500-1k MBs of System RAM. to the GPU in the BIOS)
It has never interfered with audio buffers in RAM.
The Clarksdale I bought years ago sucked ASS.
Ivy Bridge is when the GPU/CPUs from Intel starting making 1U designs properly.
But the new Xeon is already seeing an M.2 version from Supermicro.
That means I could use PLAY or other lower optimized resource hogs on a 400GB Intel 750 NVMe device.
OS could be an MX-100, same for Kontakt since NCW optimizations make it work on an ancient HDD like my old Raptors.
But that particular Xeon could possibly give PC/Native audio a huge boost in performance, unintentionally as it was designed for gamers.
But we get gamers leftovers which are usually tasty for audio too.
Imagine 8MBs of level 3 from a 4 Core, where only 4 threads are needed, none of the gay turbo shit, or hyperthreading.
Very audio specific chores like samplers and waves for synths would probably be a huge benefit.
Strictly an opinion based in previous experience.
AMDs use to kick the shit out of Intel.
They used 2MBs of cache against 512k of L3 on the Intels.
And even had 2-300 MHz slower speed....?
The last factor I've yet to explore.
But I am finding such great hardware these days I am thinking of retiring the XITE-1 to a giant Modular project in spare time.
And hardware for gigging.
As soon as I find a sample player or ROMpler with Horns as good as mine it's done.
The only thing that approaches the level of mixing quality I get with the XITE-1 is the Crest XR20 w/ 2 x TC Fireworx, and a dbx 166.
The mixer use to be 5 large I got it used for 375 on ebay.
Paid that much for the ATA Case...!!
Cheerz
