E
ecc83
Well-known member
The current (October) issue of Sound on Sound magazine contains an article on the relative performance of lots of processors as they would be stressed in an audio context.
Much of the text is impenetrable to this old valve jockey but I have gleaned s few conclusions, hope they are right!
For the home recordist, even one doing pretty big multitrack projects an i5 processor is the best bang for buck.
It is processor SPEED that is most important for audio work not number of cores.
There are some i7 variants that are powerful yet consume less power than most. These are suitable for a totally silent, fanless, no mechanics build.
The top line Xeons are more suitable where you need shedloads of memory (in excess of 64G!) and are thus the choice of the video boys.
Just my understanding.
Dave.
Much of the text is impenetrable to this old valve jockey but I have gleaned s few conclusions, hope they are right!
For the home recordist, even one doing pretty big multitrack projects an i5 processor is the best bang for buck.
It is processor SPEED that is most important for audio work not number of cores.
There are some i7 variants that are powerful yet consume less power than most. These are suitable for a totally silent, fanless, no mechanics build.
The top line Xeons are more suitable where you need shedloads of memory (in excess of 64G!) and are thus the choice of the video boys.
Just my understanding.
Dave.
....dammn....at 20nanometer geometrys(tiny transistors!) 
). But the inherent issues and possible maintenance with water cooling makes a passive cooling solution more realistic and certainly practical. But really, the best cooling solution is a low RPM high CFM fan (think 120mm) on a huge heatsink. I use a 92mm low RPM fan to accomplish a mostly noise-free recording environment. I often track mic'd acoustic parts 3 feet from my computer case.
