# Powerful PC and voice count? What is it?



## 10Dman (Dec 27, 2016)

Hello everyone! 
I'm planning on buying a workstation PC; Dual Xeon E5-2687Wv4 [email protected],256Gb ram with all SSDs (regular and m.2).
After having 2 computers for some time, adding another is not tempting and I'd rather have just one.

I read somewhere on the forum here, that even with a super powerful PC there is only so many voices that a computer can be played at a given time.
Can someone please explain what voices count is and how to deal with it when configuring/building a computer?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Dec 27, 2016)

It's how many "voices" in something like Kontakt or Play can be played simultaneously. The same as the polyphony number that you see on keyboards. Each note when played will trigger voices. If you have multiple mic positions running then you'll be using more voices. 

The realtime performance of the computer is what will limit you and this is based on things like how fast the data can be accessed and moved around in your computer. Because of this, I would advice against your PC specs. Filling up the 256GB with samples won't be a problem. The problem will be using a lot of it simultaneously. If it's just libraries that you barely use then it's OK but if it's something like your entire orchestra then you won't get a good enough realtime performance from that computer in order to be able to use all of those 256GB of samples. It doesn't matter how much processing power you have. You won't be able to use all of that processing power. A dual processor machine will only hinder the realtime performance since it needs to coordinate the 2 processors. 

I would suggest going with 2 machines instead as you'll get far more processing power available. Even if you get machines with only 6 cores each you would probably be able to run more than on that single machine. If you get something at 4GHz then I think you would definitely beat that machine. Even if you were going with a single machine, I'm not sure that having a second E5-2687 would offer much of a performance boost from having just a single one. I'd suggest going with i7 machines using 128GB. I think it has been agreed on here that i7 give better realtime performance than Xeons. I would only put 256GB if you have a ton of libraries that you'll never be using simultaneously (like massive amounts of ethnic libraries) but you just want to have loaded. Something like JXL's template where he has all of his custom samples that he wouldn't really use all of at any one time.


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## Vastman (Dec 27, 2016)

Xenon doesn't make sense. Go with multiple 6 core i7s. Spreading libraries across multiple SSDs multiplies simultaneous voice streaming


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## chimuelo (Dec 28, 2016)

You might want to wait for the new AMD 8 Core Ryzen CPU.
Intel should have been 8 core 2 years ago, but chose to up their iGPU designs and die shrink instead.
If it can't break through the ASIO barrier I'll still have a super synth box for under 1200 USD.


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## SpeakPianissimoAndCarry.. (Dec 28, 2016)

chimuelo said:


> You might want to wait for the new AMD 8 Core Ryzen CPU.
> Intel should have been 8 core 2 years ago, but chose to up their iGPU designs and die shrink instead.
> If it can't break through the ASIO barrier I'll still have a super synth box for under 1200 USD.



I'm building a system now with a 10 core Intel and they are working on more cores for future cpus now, from what I read.


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## rgames (Dec 28, 2016)

If you're truly CPU limited (not ASIO limited) then more cores might help - e.g. if you want to run everything on one machine. Regardless of the use, though, dual Xeons are "good enough" but multiple i7s are "better" for a given budget.

If your CPU usage is 100% at idle on a 4770k then you have other problems. Are you sure you're looking at CPU usage and not ASIO usage?

rgames


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