[SOLVED] Gaming and audio production, Upgrading from I5 4690K.

[bhsguyjesse]

Hello all!

I am a casual gamer and have recently found myself doing more and more audio production for my band since we updated to our digital mixer. I have been contemplating for a while now on upgrading to an eighth or ninth gen intel but I've hesitated due to the outrageous cost of components due to what I understand to be people building mining rigs.

ANYWAYS. My Intel 4690K paired with my GTX-1070 FTW has been fine for gaming so I don't have much to complain about in that department and I thought it was doing OK with music production however.......

I use my laptop to record the live music but usually adjust and render everything using my desktop since I have triple 24" monitors and can lay everything out nice and wide when mixing.

I rendered a few tracks on the laptop the other day and noticed it was 2-3x faster than the desktop.

What is making this process so much faster on the laptop?

Is it the processor? Could it be the OS, the ram speed, amount of ram, or is there something else I'm missing?



Laptop
HP X360 14" Touch Screen
CPU: Intel i5-8250U
OS: Windows 10 Home
RAM: 8GB DDR4 unknown speed
Storage: 128GB M.2 Solid State Drive (most audio rendered while on this drive)
Graphics: Intel UHD 620 Graphics


Desktop
MB: MSI Z97 Gaming 3
CPU: i5-4690k OC to 4.2Ghz
OS: Windows 7 (Upgrading would be difficult due to separated Users & Program Files on different storage devices)
Ram: 16GB DDR3 1866Mhz Kingston HyperX Fury
OS Storage: ADATA 120GB M.2 2280
File Storage: Crucial MX300 750GB SSD (Audio rendered while on this drive)
Graphics: EVGA GTX1070 FTW

Comparing the two CPUs online showed very comparable results.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-4690K-vs-Intel-i5-8250U/2284vs3042

Is DDR4 that much faster?

Can everything being on the m.2 on the laptop make it that much faster?

I look forward to your replies.

Thanks!!

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

The laptop CPU is a 4c/8t CPU. Assuming it maintains the the max turbo on all the cores at 3.4Ghz, then that could be what makes it faster compared to your 4c/4t desktop CPU at 4.2Ghz. While the desktop CPU has higher speed, it has half as many threads.

That and the overall efficiency of the CPU's ability to process information is 4 generations old compared to the laptop CPU.

Overall, I would say it's because the laptop CPU, while having a bit slower speeds on the cores, has hyper threading and it's efficiency is better because it's 4 generations newer.

Your desktop could be faster if you had an 4th gen i7 instead of an i5 though overclocked past 4Ghz.
so you could look around your local used market (or eBay if you trust that) and get an i7-4770K or a 4790K of you make sure the BIOS is on the latest version.

The average going price for either of those CPU's where I live is around $200. And on eBay for the US, the 4770k can be had for anywhere from $150-180 and the 4790K goes for anywhere from $200 to $230

The RAM could be what makes things a tiny bit faster, but since you're talking about audio processing on the fly or when it comes to encoding, the RAM speeds don't have much to do with it. Not enough to make that kind of a performance difference.

It would come down to the CPU more than the RAM.

 

[rookieGamer]

Night owl explained it well why you laptop is faster.
well look for used i7 if you dont want to spend a lot.
other option is
move to AMD ryzen5 they are better for work(6c,12t), its better to get AMD ryzen5 than getting new i7 if it is not purely for Gaming.
AMD chips are also cheaper but you will need a new motherboard and RAM. you looking at $400-$450 bill here

 

[bhsguyjesse]

So with the 4790k I'll have hyperthreading, I'll have 8 threads instead of 4 which would make the 4790k much more comparable to the 8250? Am I understanding this correctly?

If you think I'll notice that much of a difference I think this is a much more viable option than rebuilding the whole computer. As I said before, gaming is just fine on this machine so I really don't want to spend all that dough just for audio processing.

 

[rookieGamer]

So with the 4790k I'll have hyperthreading, I'll have 8 threads instead of 4 which would make the 4790k much more comparable to the 8250? Am I understanding this correctly?

If you think I'll notice that much of a difference I think this is a much more viable option than rebuilding the whole computer. As I said before, gaming is just fine on this machine so I really don't want to spend all that dough just for audio processing.

it would be little bit faster than you laptop at most .. it would be faster than your current desktop.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

overclock a 4790K past 4Ghz (most likely to 4.5Ghz assuming you have adequate cooling) and it'll be better than the laptop.
probably about 1.5x faster than the laptop on average most likely upwards of 2x faster depending on the workload given to it.

Faster RAM would do you better too with the 4790K but to get faster DDR3 RAM, you'll end up spending a little bit more money.

In case you were interested in a basic upgrade to a newer platform, here's what you get

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($87.83 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($92.99 @ Newegg Business)
Total: $345.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-22 18:54 EST-0500