# Intel Raptorlake Reveal / Discussion



## ibanez1 (Sep 28, 2022)

They just had the Intel Innovation event yesterday:








Intel Innovation 2022 Keynote: Live Blog (9am PT, 4pm UTC)







www.anandtech.com





Promising up to 15% single threaded performance and up to 41% multi threaded performance. If this is true, it should put Intel slightly ahead of the new Ryzen chips in single threaded and competitive on multi-threaded. It looks like the pricing is cheaper than AMD as well.

The cache has been substantially increased so if there are cache sensitive DAW workloads, there should be a huge uplift.

The E-cores have been doubled so this is now a 24 core chip at the highest offering.


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## PaulieDC (Sep 28, 2022)

I started getting components a couple months back for my new build (current is 4 years old, 7th Gen) and the i9-13900KF is the CPU of choice, mainly for the reasons you stated, and also DDR5 compatibility that actually works. My one concern, and this is just from preliminary info, is 128GB max RAM support. But I've seen CPU "claimed" specs like that in past years, and then BIOS updates come along and the ram ceiling is doubled, so we will see. 256 is where I'd get to eventually, not now anyway. And I have to wait out the typical issues of the first gen motherboards/drivers. And their prices.


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## MarcusD (Sep 28, 2022)

Could possibly be a 34 core around the corner too: 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-unannounced-34-core-raptor-lake-cpus-displayed-on-wafer


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## telecode101 (Sep 28, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> it should put Intel slightly ahead of the new Ryzen chips in single threaded and competitive on multi-threaded.


For which sorts of music applications does the thread count vs core matter more? Just curious.



ibanez1 said:


> The cache has been substantially increased so if there are cache sensitive DAW workloads, there should be a huge uplift.


Which sorts of DAW workloads are cache sensitive?



ibanez1 said:


> The E-cores have been doubled so this is now a 24 core chip at the highest offering.


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## ibanez1 (Sep 28, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> For which sorts of music applications does the thread count vs core matter more? Just curious.
> 
> 
> Which sorts of DAW workloads are cache sensitive?


I'm new to the DAW world but from what I've read so far, multi-core starts playing a larger factor once your templates are very large with lots of per track effects. For a lot of DAW users, this may not be a real concern.

The cache comment was because I vaguely remember some DAW benchmark numbers including the 5800X3D from AMD which saw a decent uplift and the major difference for that chip is the extremely large L3 cache. Raptorlake from most leaks / rumors so far seems to indicate that the L2 cache has increased for the cores and the L3 cache (LLC) has naturally grown to match the increase in E-cores.

Most of the prior info for Raptorlake before this announcement is here:








Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake Specs, Release Date, Benchmarks, and More


More cores, cache, and higher frequencies




www.tomshardware.com





I'm new to music workloads but I generally like keeping up with hardware developments as another passion of mine .


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## ibanez1 (Sep 28, 2022)

MarcusD said:


> Could possibly be a 34 core around the corner too:
> 
> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intels-unannounced-34-core-raptor-lake-cpus-displayed-on-wafer


Interesting. Hadn't seen any other leaks of this. I wonder if it would be P and E core or just P core. It would be a big die if it was only P cores.


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## ibanez1 (Sep 28, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> I started getting components a couple months back for my new build (current is 4 years old, 7th Gen) and the i9-13900KF is the CPU of choice, mainly for the reasons you stated, and also DDR5 compatibility that actually works. My one concern, and this is just from preliminary info, is 128GB max RAM support. But I've seen CPU "claimed" specs like that in past years, and then BIOS updates come along and the ram ceiling is doubled, so we will see. 256 is where I'd get to eventually, not now anyway. And I have to wait out the typical issues of the first gen motherboards/drivers. And their prices.


That is a lot of RAM lol. Is this for a huge orchestral template?


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> That is a lot of RAM lol. Is this for a huge orchestral template?


Potentially, my skill level needs to get to that point, lol. Right now 128GB on my current rig has never failed me, but I'm not loading hundreds of tracks yet. OK, fine, 128 works! Yay.


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## Xabierus Music (Sep 29, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> Interesting. Hadn't seen any other leaks of this. I wonder if it would be P and E core or just P core. It would be a big die if it was only P cores.


Very intrested in this too, if it not take advantages of the e cores, all the new intel will be the same as having the old 9-10 gen of intel processors


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## ibanez1 (Sep 29, 2022)

Xabierus Music said:


> Very intrested in this too, if it not take advantages of the e cores, all the new intel will be the same as having the old 9-10 gen of intel processors


Yeah it doesn't look like they're able to get the much higher core counts without including e-cores based on the current offerings.


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## ibanez1 (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> Potentially, my skill level needs to get to that point, lol. Right now 128GB on my current rig has never failed me, but I'm not loading hundreds of tracks yet. OK, fine, 128 works! Yay.


Yeah i'm sitting here with 16GB on my laptop and 32GB on my desktop and your comment got me scared I might need to upgrade my RAM if I start ramping up track counts. Admittedly 16GB is turning out to not be enough on the laptop even with my modest compositions at the moment.


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## Xabierus Music (Sep 29, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> Yeah it doesn't look like they're able to get the much higher core counts without including e-cores based on the current offerings.


the amd ryzen 9 5950x never looked so good xD


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> Yeah i'm sitting here with 16GB on my laptop and 32GB on my desktop and your comment got me scared I might need to upgrade my RAM if I start ramping up track counts. Admittedly 16GB is turning out to not be enough on the laptop even with my modest compositions at the moment.


Desktop RAM is very inexpensive right now, and it is definitely the one component that does rollercoaster pricing, so maybe peek at prices for your rig. I mention that because 64GB seems to be the first level of breathing room ram-wise.

Speaking of, I was thinking of pulling my 32GB (2x16GB) out of my new(ish) MSI laptop and putting 64GB in before prices rise again. Does your laptop take standard DDR4 260-pin SODIMMS? If so, I have no need of the 32GB if I upgrade, just pay the shipping and I'll send them to you. This way you can at least get your laptop up to 32GB and have some breathing room, if you plan on keeping it for a while. Normally I'd list things like that on eBay but at this point after fees and hassle I'd end up with 20 bucks which isn't worth my time, lol.I'd rather help out a fellow VI-C peer. Anyway, if you like, check your laptop for RAM type and let me know.


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## Xabierus Music (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> Desktop RAM is very inexpensive right now, and it is definitely the one component that does rollercoaster pricing, so maybe peek at prices for your rig. I mention that because 64GB seems to be the first level of breathing room ram-wise.
> 
> Speaking of, I was thinking of pulling my 32GB (2x16GB) out of my new(ish) MSI laptop and putting 64GB in before prices rise again. Does your laptop take standard DDR4 260-pin SODIMMS? If so, I have no need of the 32GB if I upgrade, just pay the shipping and I'll send them to you. This way you can at least get your laptop up to 32GB and have some breathing room, if you plan on keeping it for a while. Normally I'd list things like that on eBay but at this point after fees and hassle I'd end up with 20 bucks which isn't worth my time, lol.I'd rather help out a fellow VI-C peer. Anyway, if you like, check your laptop for RAM type and let me know.


I agree, 64 gb of ram is great for not being worried about how many tracks you will have to use, it gives you freedom to compose from 0 and maybe you can have 80 100 tracks with no worries, but if you are going to use a BIG template (200-400 tracks) i think 128 would be the minimum aceptable, it depends on the libraries of course, and if you deactivate the tracks you can save a lot of ram, im actually building a template with 200+ tracks and because i have 64gb of ram, i have to deactivate a lot of tracks (in cubase) in order to not saturate the system, so, in summary: if you can afford, go 64 or more, the more ram the better!


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

Xabierus Music said:


> the amd ryzen 9 5950x never looked so good xD


Well, for price and for gaming. But it's not the best choice for single-core performance which we need for audio. The Intel 13th Gen isn't going to disappoint in that category. But that's like saying the Aston-Martin is a better choice over the Ferrari, we are still talking top-tier performance regardless of brand.


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## Xabierus Music (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> Well, for price and for gaming. But it's not the best choice for single-core performance which we need for audio. The Intel 13th Gen isn't going to disappoint in that category. But that's like saying the Aston-Martin is a better choice over the Ferrari, we are still talking top-tier performance regardless of brand.


Im an intel fan over amd, but i see in their specs that the ryzen has a base clock speed faster than intel, thats my scare about the new cpus of intel, they are increasing the cores and lowering the base speed of each (e and p cores), but amd dont, for example: the ryzen 9 7950x has a base speed of 4.50ghz up to 5.70ghz (16 cores, 32 threads), the intel i9 13900k has a base speeds of E cores 2.20ghz and P cores 3.00ghz up to e cores 4.30ghz and p cores 5.80ghz (8 P cores 16 E cores, 32 threads)
I dont know if cubase would benefit of this new e cores and this new lower base clock speed, thats why im scared with this new 13 gen of intel (and 12 gen too)


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

Xabierus Music said:


> Im an intel fan over amd, but i see in their specs that the ryzen has a base clock speed faster than intel, thats my scare about the new cpus of intel, they are increasing the cores and lowering the base speed of each (e and p cores), but amd dont, for example: the ryzen 9 7950x has a base speed of 4.50ghz up to 5.70ghz (16 cores, 32 threads), the intel i9 13900k has a base speeds of E cores 2.20ghz and P cores 3.00ghz up to e cores 4.30ghz and p cores 5.80ghz (8 P cores 16 E cores, 32 threads)
> I dont know if cubase would benefit of this new e cores and this new lower base clock speed, thats why im scared with this new 13 gen of intel (and 12 gen too)


True. Until we get these things in hand and start running them out, it's hard to tell what's really going to work. I've been planning a new build but I wasn't totally comfortable with some of the 12th Gen stories regarding DDR5 ram, etc. So I decided to wait a year for 13th Gen and glad I did, because there also seems to be improvements, and as expected, DDR5 RAM has really dropped, prices are nearly half compared to the start of 2022.

Ultimately I decided to commit my new build to the i9-13900KF, Z790 and DDR5 RAM and I'm going to grit teeth and go for it! I'll be the guinea pig and see how all this works out.


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## Xabierus Music (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> True. Until we get these things in hand and start running them out, it's hard to tell what's really going to work. I've been planning a new build but I wasn't totally comfortable with some of the 12th Gen stories regarding DDR5 ram, etc. So I decided to wait a year for 13th Gen and glad I did, because there also seems to be improvements, and as expected, DDR5 RAM has really dropped, prices are nearly half compared to the start of 2022.
> 
> Ultimately I decided to commit my new build to the i9-13900KF, Z790 and DDR5 RAM and I'm going to grit teeth and go for it! I'll be the guinea pig and see how all this works out.


thats great! go for it ! i hope for the best, intel never disapoints (at least in my experience)


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## telecode101 (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> Well, for price and for gaming. But it's not the best choice for single-core performance which we need for audio. The Intel 13th Gen isn't going to disappoint in that category. But that's like saying the Aston-Martin is a better choice over the Ferrari, we are still talking top-tier performance regardless of brand.


How do you know you need single core? I check my system using proc explorer and I am seeing applications using multiple CPUs and cores.









Process Explorer - Sysinternals


Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more.



learn.microsoft.com


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## MarcusD (Sep 29, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> How do you know you need single core? I check my system using proc explorer and I am seeing applications using multiple CPUs and cores.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good info in this video.


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> How do you know you need single core? I check my system using proc explorer and I am seeing applications using multiple CPUs and cores.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great question. It has to do with how Windows processes audio, where everything goes through core #1 first, and it's up to the software developer to deal with that. Single core affects plugins too. This is why I abandoned Studio One back in v4, and switched to Cubase (what a difference!). Studio One v5.2 and later got much better with multicore to their credit.

This fella explains it better than me, hope this is helpful:









Single-Core vs Multi-Core Performance in Music Production: Everything you Need to Know


To find the best music production computer, you'll need to compare the single-core and multi-core performance for different models. These




prodjunkies.com





Also, thanks for the link, that's a great tool.


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## PaulieDC (Sep 29, 2022)

MarcusD said:


> Good info in this video.



He makes a great point in this video... if you use a smaller template where 64GB of ram is sufficient, then single core performance isn't an issue. At that point, save money and run cooler and quieter with the 5950X.


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## MarcusD (Sep 29, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> He makes a great point in this video... if you use a smaller template where 64GB of ram is sufficient, then single core performance isn't an issue. At that point, save money and run cooler and quieter with the 5950X.


Yep! Hence looking at a 7700x with 64GB or maybe a 7900x as the DDR5 makes a difference. Want to wait a little longer for Intel though. It's all so tempting at the moment!


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## telecode101 (Sep 29, 2022)

MarcusD said:


> Good info in this video.



Good resource. In my case, I don't make orchestra and can easily do project with 30 or 40 tracks on my old dual Xeon. But I do use lots of effects plugins and some cripple my system. So am looking to see if upgrading to a i9 or Ryzen 9 will solve that or won't make much of a difference.


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## rgames (Sep 29, 2022)

One comment I'll add is in regards to the old adage that real-time performance (i.e. latency) scales more with clock speed than with number of cores. That's still true but there's some nuance there that's become apparent as core counts have gotten so large. I've been discovering that as I've been setting up a new laptop (12950HX) over the past couple weeks.

The nuance is this: more clock speed is better, yes, but only if it can remain fixed.

When your clock speed jumps all over the place across a bunch of different cores it might actually be better to reduce the clock speed and limit the number of jumps. That is definitely the case on my new laptop: the cores max out close to 5 GHz but the real-time performance is better if I limit them to around 2.2 GHz. At that speed I get relatively few changes, up or down.

I don't know how that plays out with the new procs for desktops but it's probably worth looking at. Historically, desktops have enough cooling available that they can lock the clock speed. If that's no longer true then aiming for a lower max with fewer jumps might actually be better for DAW use.

Of course, when you do that you kill the CPU performance, so things like Cinebench benchmarks look a lot worse. But the real-time performance is a lot better.

rgames


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> Desktop RAM is very inexpensive right now, and it is definitely the one component that does rollercoaster pricing, so maybe peek at prices for your rig. I mention that because 64GB seems to be the first level of breathing room ram-wise.
> 
> Speaking of, I was thinking of pulling my 32GB (2x16GB) out of my new(ish) MSI laptop and putting 64GB in before prices rise again. Does your laptop take standard DDR4 260-pin SODIMMS? If so, I have no need of the 32GB if I upgrade, just pay the shipping and I'll send them to you. This way you can at least get your laptop up to 32GB and have some breathing room, if you plan on keeping it for a while. Normally I'd list things like that on eBay but at this point after fees and hassle I'd end up with 20 bucks which isn't worth my time, lol.I'd rather help out a fellow VI-C peer. Anyway, if you like, check your laptop for RAM type and let me know.


Thanks for the offer but I bought an Alderlake laptop so it's DDR5 only for me :(. Even though Alderlake supports DDR4 and DDR5, the motherboard is only designed for 1 at a time so I have to get a DDR5 kit. I might just settle for 32GB if the prices are too high but the comment about 64GB as a minimum starting point has me thinking I need to wait until I can afford that amount.


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

Xabierus Music said:


> Im an intel fan over amd, but i see in their specs that the ryzen has a base clock speed faster than intel, thats my scare about the new cpus of intel, they are increasing the cores and lowering the base speed of each (e and p cores), but amd dont, for example: the ryzen 9 7950x has a base speed of 4.50ghz up to 5.70ghz (16 cores, 32 threads), the intel i9 13900k has a base speeds of E cores 2.20ghz and P cores 3.00ghz up to e cores 4.30ghz and p cores 5.80ghz (8 P cores 16 E cores, 32 threads)
> I dont know if cubase would benefit of this new e cores and this new lower base clock speed, thats why im scared with this new 13 gen of intel (and 12 gen too)


I'm always curious what these base clocks even mean anymore for both companies lol. I usually pay attention to the max all core turbo and the max single core turbo. And of course, looking at the benchmarks on review sites to see how long they can hold those turbos on a decently cooled rig before throttling.


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> True. Until we get these things in hand and start running them out, it's hard to tell what's really going to work. I've been planning a new build but I wasn't totally comfortable with some of the 12th Gen stories regarding DDR5 ram, etc. So I decided to wait a year for 13th Gen and glad I did, because there also seems to be improvements, and as expected, DDR5 RAM has really dropped, prices are nearly half compared to the start of 2022.
> 
> Ultimately I decided to commit my new build to the i9-13900KF, Z790 and DDR5 RAM and I'm going to grit teeth and go for it! I'll be the guinea pig and see how all this works out.


The positive I see for raptorlake is that the stability and performance scaling are a well known factor since this is just alderlake with more cores, more clock, and more cache . I think you can't go wrong with this choice.


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

rgames said:


> One comment I'll add is in regards to the old adage that real-time performance (i.e. latency) scales more with clock speed than with number of cores. That's still true but there's some nuance there that's become apparent as core counts have gotten so large. I've been discovering that as I've been setting up a new laptop (12950HX) over the past couple weeks.
> 
> The nuance is this: more clock speed is better, yes, but only if it can remain fixed.
> 
> ...


I haven't noticed any realtime issues with my i7-12700H but I may not be piling enough effects on to notice . To further your argument, I would expect forcing your system to have a minimum acceptable performance base for all cores would give you the benefits you describe without necessarily pegging the clocks to only one frequency. With a hybrid core system like Intel has now, this may require performance matching the p and e-cores with different clocks. Honestly, this would be an interesting software utility they could add to control "performance parity" across the hybrid cores even if it meant sacrificing performance on the p-cores. You could click a button for a certain application to always enforce that behavior on the cores it runs on while the rest of the system can do whatever it wants with clocks, turbo, etc.


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## rgames (Oct 1, 2022)

ibanez1 said:


> I haven't noticed any realtime issues with my i7-12700H but I may not be piling enough effects on to notice .


Yeah the 12950 HX doesn't really have issues, it's "OK", it's just that my older laptop (i7 8850H, 6C/12T) is actually better in terms of latency.

For example, I have a 6-minute benchmark project that uses full orchestra with fast-moving lines, layered instruments, lots of perc, etc. It also has video associated with it that is playing back as well. I play it back a bunch of times and record the number of audio dropouts I get at various buffer settings.

On the 12950HX, I average 27 dropouts per run-through at 12.5 ms latency. On the 8850H I average 0.2 dropouts per run-through at the same latency. The 8850H will do 6.7 ms latency with an average of 1.8 dropouts per run-through. In order to get the 12950HX down to that level I have to run it at 24 ms latency. That's "OK" but not great.

So, in summary, the 12950HX will run "OK" at 24 ms latency but the 8850H will run "OK" at 6.7 ms latency. That's a pretty big difference. Also, the 8850H runs at 6.7 ms latency pulling about 10W less at the wall, so it's actually lower-latency and lower-power.

Needless to say, I'm returning the 12950HX and will continue on with my trusty 8850H.

rgames

EDIT: of course, the 12950HX kills the 8850H in terms of CPU benchmark - by a factor of about 2.0. But that's another good example of how CPU performance and real-time performance aren't necessarily related.


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## parapentep70 (Oct 1, 2022)

I suspected that this will not be uncommon in practical situations. If I try to run 1 super-heavy instance of Reaktor, there is a point when single core performance is the limiting factor. But when I run complex projects beyond 30...50 tracks, mainly Kontakt, a few synths and Fx, I think it is great the way my system + Windows 10 + DAW + multiple plug-ins distribute evenly the load among multiple (equal) cores. This is the key to avoid clicks beyond 80% load (or even more than 95% depending on how aggressve I am with audio buffers).

I seriously doubt that W11 + DAW (which one?) + multiple plug-ins from different vendors can distribute evenly a load like this among 8P cores and 8E cores so that none of them reaches 100% (with an instant click). It is in fact the WORST application for a system mixing cores with totally different performance levels (each one weighted by different VSTs / VSTis). 

And as @rgames mentions earlier, the problem when the system is loaded beyond some 50% or 70% is that the base speeds of these different cores drops much worse than in older Intel processors (or any AMD processor). 

In an "orchestral situation" like this, clicks will be limited by the weakest (probably "E") core that is (possibly wrongly) chosen to run a heavy VST at low clock speed.

For such scenario I prefer a guaranteed minimum speed when all cores are loaded, equal cores and disable certain Windows low power profiles.

I think that this whole new solution with different cores and W-11 distributing loads (possibly without proper information from the processes) cannot be mature enough for DAW applications, I'd need to see a few examples contradicting @rgames before considering upgrading to 12xxx or 13xxx systems. I am not saying they are better or worse processors, I say I seriously doubt that our DAWs and VSTs are designed TODAY to support new W11 distributing workloads properly among totally different cores.


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

parapentep70 said:


> I suspected that this will not be uncommon in practical situations. If I try to run 1 super-heavy instance of Reaktor, there is a point when single core performance is the limiting factor. But when I run complex projects beyond 30...50 tracks, mainly Kontakt, a few synths and Fx, I think it is great the way my system + Windows 10 + DAW + multiple plug-ins distribute evenly the load among multiple (equal) cores. This is the key to avoid clicks beyond 80% load (or even more than 95% depending on how aggressve I am with audio buffers).
> 
> I seriously doubt that W11 + DAW (which one?) + multiple plug-ins from different vendors can distribute evenly a load like this among 8P cores and 8E cores so that none of them reaches 100% (with an instant click). It is in fact the WORST application for a system mixing cores with totally different performance levels (each one weighted by different VSTs / VSTis).
> 
> ...


I imagine laptop headroom vs. desktop headroom may factor in as well. I really haven't seen that much frustration for real time on hybrid but I can't discount @rgames experience either. Personally, all of my dropouts have been hitting RAM limits but i'm probably not an orchestral template power user quite yet pushing the limits of the system . I will say the good news is that more and more software will become hybrid aware and it seems that intel is committed to pushing the perf of the e-cores to make "base" performance better all the time. Raptorlake is a good example where they made the e-core L2 cache much larger.

Honestly, i'm just glad the market has some competition finally. AMD and Intel are pushing performance aggressively now to earn our dollar.


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## rgames (Oct 1, 2022)

parapentep70 said:


> I'd need to see a few examples contradicting @rgames before considering upgrading to 12xxx or 13xxx systems.


Yeah agree, especially on desktops. There's a real possibility that the results will be different because of the vastly superior cooling. However, I'd be surprised if it were a vastly different result.

I did figure out that the laptop I was using (Dell 7670) had significant power throttling, presumably to keep the laptop from burning people's skin. The laptop would only briefly pull 180 W at the wall but then settle down to about 130 W. I measured about 25W for the screen, so assume another 5W or so for everything else and there's only 100W going to the CPU. It's supposedly a 157W TDP but if you look up the Intel spec there's this small print: "Maximum Turbo Power is configurable by system vendor and can be system specific". So... yeah....

Monitoring tools like HWInfo also showed power levels and core temps well below Intel's allowable limits. Even with all that throttling the laptop still got very hot. I think Dell was stuck with a dilemma: low performance or high likelihood of a lawsuit due to burnt skin? Obviously they chose to throttle it.

There's further evidence for Dell's ultra-conservative throttling (and/or lack of competent engineers...) when looking at other 12950HX-based laptops: ones from Lenovo, MSI and Asus supposedly perform significantly better in benchmarks like Cinebench, as in more than 50% higher than what I measured. Now that might be because they sound like a wind Tunnel and Dell wanted to avoid that, I don't know.

But all of that is to say yes, there's good reason to do some other comparisons, especially against desktops. However, the magnitude of the effect might be reduced but I'd be surprised if the newer chips wind up showing significantly better performance under the metrics I use. The might move from "worse" to "about the same" but I'd be surprised if they shift to "better."

Cheers,

rgames


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## ibanez1 (Oct 1, 2022)

rgames said:


> Yeah agree, especially on desktops. There's a real possibility that the results will be different because of the vastly superior cooling. However, I'd be surprised if it were a vastly different result.
> 
> I did figure out that the laptop I was using (Dell 7670) had significant power throttling, presumably to keep the laptop from burning people's skin. The laptop would only briefly pull 180 W at the wall but then settle down to about 130 W. I measured about 25W for the screen, so assume another 5W or so for everything else and there's only 100W going to the CPU. It's supposedly a 157W TDP but if you look up the Intel spec there's this small print: "Maximum Turbo Power is configurable by system vendor and can be system specific". So... yeah....
> 
> ...


As a side note, we need a version of your benchmark to collect the dropouts for various CPUs. I feel like DAW workloads are severely lacking a benchmark suite. We even have the problem that performance can vary between different DAWs. I'm assuming you have like for like or better RAM and hard drive for the 2 laptops?


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## PaulieDC (Oct 1, 2022)

I’d like to know why the System Interrupts service keeps running on my Win11 i7-12650H laptop. Once it finishes, things return to normal(ish). But when that and the search indexer run, I feel like I’m on a 1998 Gateway corporate office special. I don‘t remember my former i7-8750 laptop doing this even with Win11. What @rgames explained has me wondering if it’s more. Well, more than wondering. At least MSI gave me a 240W PSU, time to do some benchmarking.


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## rgames (Oct 1, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> At least MSI gave me a 240W PSU, time to do some benchmarking.


Yeah let me know what you find. I might get one of the Lenovo systems that (I think) has a 240 W supply. FYI my CBR23 scores on the Dell were ~13,000. Supposedly the MSI, ASUS and Lenovo get closer to 20,000 (https://jarrods.tech/laptop-cpu-performance-in-cinebench-r23/). My 13,000 score puts it basically on par with i7 11800H from other manufacturers.

I'm curious to know if MSI actually lets it draw that much power, so see if you can measure power draw at the wall. The supply on the Dell 7670 is 180 W and there's no way it could pull that much power without making the case too hot to touch. It's borderline at 130W, definitely the hottest laptop I've ever used. A 240W supply on that laptop wouldn't make any difference because of the throttling in the hardware. There's no way you could touch the keyboard if the Dell pulled anything close to 240W.

I wonder if the Lenovo or MSI or Asus really has cooling that's that much better. Seems unlikely, but I don't know. It would explain the significantly higher Cinebench benchmarks (if they're legit). Or maybe those manufacturers just let their laptops get too hot to touch!


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## PaulieDC (Oct 1, 2022)

rgames said:


> Yeah let me know what you find. I might get one of the Lenovo systems that (I think) has a 240 W supply. FYI my CBR23 scores on the Dell were ~13,000. Supposedly the MSI, ASUS and Lenovo get closer to 20,000 (https://jarrods.tech/laptop-cpu-performance-in-cinebench-r23/). My 13,000 score puts it basically on par with i7 11800H from other manufacturers.
> 
> I'm curious to know if MSI actually lets it draw that much power, so see if you can measure power draw at the wall. The supply on the Dell 7670 is 180 W and there's no way it could pull that much power without making the case too hot to touch. It's borderline at 130W, definitely the hottest laptop I've ever used. A 240W supply on that laptop wouldn't make any difference because of the throttling in the hardware. There's no way you could touch the keyboard if the Dell pulled anything close to 240W.
> 
> I wonder if the Lenovo or MSI or Asus really has cooling that's that much better. Seems unlikely, but I don't know. It would explain the significantly higher Cinebench benchmarks (if they're legit). Or maybe those manufacturers just let their laptops get too hot to touch!


Funny, just ordered a wattage detector from Amazon tonight, so yes, will do that. I got this MSI Creator M16 which has a LOT of vent slots on the bottom, and I do have it on one of those laptop vent doojiggies with a big fan inside when I run it, and with that it idles about 53C which isn't stellar. I did add a second NVMe, 2TB, upgraded to Win 11 Pro and I have 64GB RAM on the way from Newegg, so the stock 32GB is still in here. I disabled indexing and just tonight I turned off the paging file to see how that runs. I'll run a decent-sized Cubase project this week after the 64GB arrives, and see how that goes, and measure wattage and temps. And see how much the CPU throttles. In fact I'll run Dom Sigales' Cubase stress test project as well. I use a simple Focusrite Scarlett Solo Gen 3 on this laptop since I don't do the bulk of my stuff on it (babyface Pro on the tower). So there's the specs for my test lab... I'll get that posted this week.


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## PaulieDC (Oct 6, 2022)

rgames said:


> Yeah let me know what you find. I might get one of the Lenovo systems that (I think) has a 240 W supply. FYI my CBR23 scores on the Dell were ~13,000. Supposedly the MSI, ASUS and Lenovo get closer to 20,000 (https://jarrods.tech/laptop-cpu-performance-in-cinebench-r23/). My 13,000 score puts it basically on par with i7 11800H from other manufacturers.
> 
> I'm curious to know if MSI actually lets it draw that much power, so see if you can measure power draw at the wall. The supply on the Dell 7670 is 180 W and there's no way it could pull that much power without making the case too hot to touch. It's borderline at 130W, definitely the hottest laptop I've ever used. A 240W supply on that laptop wouldn't make any difference because of the throttling in the hardware. There's no way you could touch the keyboard if the Dell pulled anything close to 240W.
> 
> I wonder if the Lenovo or MSI or Asus really has cooling that's that much better. Seems unlikely, but I don't know. It would explain the significantly higher Cinebench benchmarks (if they're legit). Or maybe those manufacturers just let their laptops get too hot to touch!


Well, Amazon sent the wrong thing so I still don't have power consumption data for you yet on the 1240W PSU. *However*, I figured out what was making this new MSI laptop with an i7-12650H 8-core run so ridiculously slow, and your post above about the dilemma that manufacturers have with heat vs performance totally applies here.

Not long after startup, this laptop would CRAWL, and I mean click the start button and start counting, and 4 or 5 seconds later, up pops the Start Menu. Everything ran like that. I would start Photoshop and go make a sandwich while it loaded. Something was wrong and I thought it had to to with the System Interrupts service since that was usually running during the time I _did _look at Task Manager, once it finally came up. Turns out to be a red herring. I finally figured it out: it's Intel's PPM, Processor Power Management...

I discovered this while using a simply utility called RealTemp, which also shows live processor speed along with CPU temp. In regular use and navigation, the CPU never ran above 400MHz, and that's not a typo. And that's with the Min and Max power set at 100% in the control panel advanced settings. This proc is rated up to 4700MHz, so it was running at <10% speed. After a google search, I found the script to run to disable IntelPPM, and I did that (listed below but BE CAREFUL). *And it WORKED*. After rebooting, I'm running at the full 4.#MHz the chip is built for. However...

New problem arises: I was now running at over 4GHz constantly, and even with all of the vents in the laptop case underneath and being on my laptop cooler stand, my CPU was cooking, average 75-85! CPU fan was now on constant. I could see why MSI tried to "balance" power vs heat, but I had to do something and I was NOT going back to the old nightmare. Then I remembered that C-States was off in the BIOS (earlier attempt to get speed going), so I reasoned that a full-power CPU would now benefit from the C-States function that throws some threads into a slower state. I turned it back on in the BIOS, rebooted, and now this laptop is a JOY to use. It idles about 40C, CPU runs between 2.8GH and 3.5GHz with no heavy load and response to any mouse click or keystroke is instantaneous, and I don't have to worry about burning the house down. I never had this issue with Win 10, but that doesn't mean it only happens in Win 11.

NOW when I get the right device (I'm just going to order a Kill Watt), then I can get you some power data.

Here's the script to disable Intel PPM. Richard knows how to do this stuff, but for anyone reading this, *PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE INSTRUCTIONS, DO NOT PERFORM THIS, GET SOMEONE TO GUIDE YOU. *OK, disclaimer over:

Go into your BIOS and enable C-States, then boot up.
Open an elevated Command Prompt and run this script:
*sc config intelppm start= disabled*

You should get a SUCCESS reply from the system. *Intel Power Mgmt is now OFF.*
Reboot your laptop and login. Everything should run spiffy fast now. I waited a few days to see how my laptop would run since I use it all day for programming at the day job and Berklee class work at night. It's been stellar.
NOTE: if you have issues such as full CPU fan running 100% of the time, this could be cooling design issue in your laptop. Just run the enable script to put things back: *sc config intelppm start= enabled*, and then reboot.


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## ibanez1 (Oct 20, 2022)

Intel Raptorlake reviews are out. Besting Zen4 in a lot of gaming workloads and on par for productivity. Power draw is the downside. I'm guessing that affects mostly all core workloads. Plus side is pricing, options for cheaper motherboards, and compatibility with both DDR4 and DDR5:


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## MarcusD (Nov 4, 2022)

Upgrade time


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## ibanez1 (Nov 4, 2022)

The CPU is a beast but for orchestral DAW work I'm a bit envious of that 64GB of DDR5 in the picture .


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## MarcusD (Nov 4, 2022)

Just installing Windows 11… what a pain in the ass if you’re doing a fresh install.

Hopefully this will help someone. W11 requires an internet connection, but even when connected by Ethernet it’s not recognising it (probably because I need to install the drivers) thus won’t allow you to install. Which might be a pain if you don’t have an internet connection regardless.. 

HOWEVER! there’s a way around it.. Press Shift+F10 then in the command prompt type;

OOBE\BYPASSNRO

It’ll let you bypass it and continue the install.


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## MarcusD (Nov 4, 2022)

Won't be until Monday I'll get a chance to play properly and finish the build. Windows is installed, drivers are done. Started installing some VSTs & Cubase is also up and running. Yet to fiddle about in the Bios etc...

However, at stock settings I decided to a very un-scientific test by loading 150 instances of Massive X at 44K, 64 buffer. All instances selected and receiving a lot of MIDI messages from relentless elbow Strikes triggering MIDI keys. Seems to work relatively ok... few drop-outs but if playing melodies its no issue. 

Time to cook food. Brains fried after building this today.


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