What new computer should I buy?

[Tippe]

Hi.

I'm thinking of buying another computer. Either a new one or used but almost up to date.
So, what's the best CPU to be used for doing music -

Intel or AMD ???

I have one AMD computer with a six core CPU and another Intel Computer with four core CPU.
Both of them producing XRuns - but the Intel CPU produces lot more of them.

Any Musicians here?
Any useful hints?
What are you using?

Thanks.

[rockedge]

@geo_c is a professional musician and might be around to offer advice!

[geo_c]

Hi.

I'm thinking of buying another computer. Either a new one or used but almost up to date.
So, what's the best CPU to be used for doing music -

Intel or AMD ???

I have one AMD computer with a six core CPU and another Intel Computer with four core CPU.
Both of them producing XRuns - but the Intel CPU produces lot more of them.

Any Musicians here?
Any useful hints?
What are you using?

Thanks.

Yes I'm a musician exclusively using distros on this forum to produce music. All of my machines are intel CPUs, so I can not speak directly to the processor question.

I can say that xruns are caused by a combination of audio buffer sizes, ram size (and the way OS's handle it,) application and plugin settings, as well as the sound architecture (alsa, vs alsa/jack, vs pipewire, vs pipewire jack, etc)

So with all those variables it's hard to quickly evaluate how a particular machine will perform, as kernel's and hardware drivers, modules also come into play. In other words, the wrong combinations of the above mentioned factors will yield boggy results.

I don't have any machines newer than five years old, the newest of the procesors being a more recent i5, and none of my machines runs more than 8gb of ram. In reality, all of my machines are 10-20 years old except one.

But, I am able to run all of these boxes with Kennel OS's using pipewire-jack at a buffer of 256 with normal to heavy tracks and plugins, and at 128 with more modest 4 or 5 track projects. I can also run at a buffer of 64 on two of my machines if I'm simply using a virtual instrument or two.

These results vary based on whether I'm running virtual instruments with high quality multi-sample virtual instruments, or resource intensive plugins heavy on the graphical interface, which is another factor producing over runs, that is the processor is spending way too much energy on drawing the graphic windows of multiple plugins, and crowding out room tor the actual audio processing.

When I buy a "new" used computer, usually a laptop, I look at the hard drive (ssd is much faster) and usb ports, as well as the ram, and whether it seems to have rare or proprietary hardware configurations which might not play well with a standard linux kernel package, like many gaming computers might tend to have. Things like high performance keyboards, etc. On the flip side, a good video card with built in ram and cache could actually increase the performance of audio by taking a load off the cpu and ram.

Wish I could give you more of an expert answer, but sharing my experience and approach is the best I can do.