Does Cakewalk handle Intel p-cores and e-cores well? (Intel gen 12 and forward)

[pulsewalk]

Is there any information about whether Cakewalk handles Intels "new" efficiency cores well?

So if one want to upgrade from a 10850K (that only have "performance cores" (10 of them)) to a 13900K which have both 8 performance cores (p-cores)  and 16 efficiency cores (e-cores), will this in reality give a good increase in speed?

Cakewalk need to be handle the p-cores and e-cores well to fully utilize the newer CPU's with e-cores.

Any info on this?

[Larioso]

E-cores are just slower cores and see no use for it at all. I turned off E-cores in bios even.

- essentially half speed threads on those cores

It just make the system jump up and down in frequency, looking in task manager in how it calculates.

Now am I running my i7-12700F constantly at 4.5 GHz on new daw since beginning this year.

- I turned off C-states as well

 

I run old Sonar, but Windows 11 place threads on E-cores anyway process support it or not.

- why would we have two speed threads in a process???

I don't get it at all.

 

There is no advantage at all with E-cores as I see it. My MB rate 29000 at cpubenchmark.net without E-cores and in then is 31000 rating as I ran their software benchmark.

 

I got 16+4 cores, and you can set Sonar/CbB to use 16 if you want, pretty much same from daw point of view, but system jumps up and down whatever else is running.

[pulsewalk]

@Larioso so you mean that e-cores are not only slower and worse than what one might think and hope, but in fact, and on the contrary, also even a disadvantage?

So Cakewalk runs faster wtih e-cores disabled? Than with e-cores enabled? This is horrible news, since a lot of that extra speed that you can see in the benchmark comparisons with older processors, like with the 10850K for example, is in that case just "on paper" and will not affect the use of Cakewalk positively.

The 10850K have 10 cores (comparable to p-cores (performance cores) I presume), which is 2 more than the 8 performance cores on the 13900K. Could it be so bad that the 10850K thus is as fast as, or perhaps even faster, than the "only 8 core" 13900K?

In that case, it might not be an upgrade to get the 13900K, it could be a downgrade?

Edited September 3, 2023 by pulsewalk

[Larioso]

It it was me, having 10 cores, meaning 20 logical cores, I would not bother upgrading it.

- it's 50-100% theoretical performance boost, remember benchmark is not you every day daw boost

Your i9-10850K rate 22 000 in cpubenchmark, and newer 12th or 13h generation give you about 30 000(if I take my i7-12700F) or 40 000 13th.

So they are more efficient, but not due to E-cores.

 

As my example measured, 29000 or 31000 does not matter and I get even speed all threads(it seems to taskmanager anyway).

 

I upgraded from an i7-860 13 years old, with about 5000 in rating, and then getting SSD which are superfast and 29000 rating so was happy with that. Mostly to do multi camera video edits, not for daw purpose, my old computer was good enough, with hdd and everything.

The E-cores, even running at half speed give you some theoretical boost in ratings, and you have to decide if worth it with 13th generation.

I'm just giving you a perspective what to expect. Maybe you have a MB that you can swap cpu alone if that socket is there, and not an awful amount of money.

[pulsewalk]

@Larioso this is the difference:

Link to Passmark comparison: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3824vs5022/Intel-i9-10850K-vs-Intel-i9-13900K

The performance increase is a 51,3% on Single Thread performance, (from 3087 to 4670), according to Passmark, and there's no e-cores involved in that as far as I know.

My current CPU

Intel Core i9-10850K (from Q3/2020)
Socket: FCLGA1200 Typical TDP: 125 W
Clock: 3.6 GHz, Turbo: 5.1 GHz
Cores: 10, Threads: 20
Average CPU Mark: 22618, Single Thread performance: 3087

 

Planned CPU

Intel Core i9-13900K (from Q3/2022)
Socket: FCLGA1700 Typical TDP: 253 W
Clock: 3.0 GHz, Turbo: 5.8 GHz
Cores: 24, Threads: 32
Performance Cores: 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 3.0 GHz Base, 5.8 GHz Turbo
Efficient Cores: 16 Cores, 16 Threads, 2.2 GHz Base, 4.3 GHz Turbo
Average CPU Mark: 59782, Single Thread performance: 4670

[pulsewalk]

5 hours ago, Larioso said:

The E-cores, even running at half speed give you some theoretical boost in ratings, and you have to decide if worth it with 13th generation.

Yeah, and this is what's bothering me. AFAIK, Cubase had some problems with the new e-cores in 2022, I'm not sure if that problem is solved or if it is solved in a Windows 10 or 11 update etc.

Question is if Cakewalk can handle e-cores well, and only The Bakers can answer that I guess, or if there's been a test that verifies this.

Quote

I'm just giving you a perspective what to expect. Maybe you have a MB that you can swap cpu alone if that socket is there, and not an awful amount of money.

Unfortunately, the socket is different for 13th gen CPU from 10th gen, so I can't easily swap CPU's just like that. Need new mobo and even memory if I go the DDR5 route.

Waiting for 14th gen (14900K) is not much of an idea I guess, except for the case that it'll cost just the same as the 13900K on release, because then one could as well go with the 14th gen, and thus get more or less a 13900KS on steroids. But other than that, the only thing is to wait for the new architecture with that 15th gen, but that's quite far away.

So yeah, there I am. Cakewalk is just to slow for me with the 10850K right now, too big projects for it to handle it well I'm afraid.

So the questions remain, does Cakewalk handle e-cores well?

[Larioso]

There is a setting for number of threads for Sonar to use, default is zero, meaning no limit.

- this is actually number of cores.

- and you see in performance module this happends too, it's fewer bars

Average project by me Sonar use about 80 threads, and OS runs 1100 threads, so there are always many threads each core.

 

E-cores comes last as I found, having 16 p-cores with ht and 4 e-cores. If I set Sonar to use just 16 threads(as the setting is called) the last 4 is never used, meaning no e-cores. Looking in Process Lasso I can see which cores are working real well.

 

I had loads of issues with usb audio interface as well, so fiddled a lot with many things. Not sure if E-cores were a real problem or not.

- I could not get rid of pops in between, were doing this for 3 months troubleshooting

- what solved that was to create a second usb 3 controller with PCI Express card, with NEC chip, and it was solved.

New MB's of Intel seem to use a single usb 3 controller for all usb on the system. And I bought both an Asus and a Gigabyte troubleshooting this.

- just mention if you go route buying new MB and find yourself having worse audio performance

 

And that Cubase actively warn about E-core cpu's tells a story, it's not good with two speed threads for such complex applications with loads of different software as plugins working together with host.

- just turn E-cores off and be done with that problem

- I had zero implications doing that

 

It's one thing in future when newer software find a special use of E-cores and target those and don't mix up with every other thread.

- I saw in Gigabyte bios, they were called Atom cores, meaning the really weak cpu of Atom computers.

 

Anyway, another bunch of ideas...