What computer to use? Multicore?

Dear fellow Native Instruments lovers,

Since I am using my laptop on the move a lot and I am done with the hassle to setup everything every time again before I can make a beat I have decided to get myself a dedicated music making computer.

My interest goes out to a mac. But there are a few things I am wondering.

1. Is Maschine Multicore Standalone?
2. Are the AU's or VST's Mulitcore? Komplete9?

Now for the relevant question:

What would be faster:

-i5 2,7Ghz Quad core / 16gb 1600Mhz. (4 cores)
-2x Xeon 2,26Ghz (8 Cores or 12 core) 16Gb Mem

Both are equal price...

One being a new Imac 21,5 and the other an 3 year old Mac Pro. Please let me know your thoughts, I've been looking to figure this out for a while, in this while I miss combining the Roland TB-3 and Massive to majestic old school hights.

 

1) yes
2) part 1: yes, part 2: Reaktor 5 is not multicore

There are websites online that let you compare processor performance.

 

Hi Lethal_pizzle, thank you for your swift reply. So I would need to check for multicore calculation benchmarks?

What is the thing to look for in a computer you want to use AU's and VST's? Raw Processing power or Memory?

Looking forward to your reply!

 

Well the i5 isnt multi core and the Xeon is an old video/CAD workstation at a guess. The Xeon Mac will have a shitload of multi tasking capability whereas the i5 Mac doesnt. Maschine does use multi-threading, as LP says Reaktor doesnt, but you should also consider other applications you may want to run in the background or at the same time. If you're a power user then go for muli tasking heaven. thats all I can really say on the subject as I dont know how Apples OS does its work. i use PC, which does its thing differently. I would like to try a Mac, but the combination of a high cost and my perception of Apple politics is hard for me to swallow.

As far as how a computer works with plugins, its likely to be a CPU thing as theyre used to do number crunching. Unless the VST your considering is a sampler then being able to hold all the samples in RAM is usefull too. However 16 gig RAM is more than enough. Personally I found the best performance gain for the cheapest outlay is a Solid State Drive. Go for a 256 GB one to put the OS, programs and most used samples/librarys etc. The rest put on a 7200 HDD. Doing this resurrected my old and tired AMD Athlon PC to live and fight another few years.

My one line of advice is do plenty of research. And dont believe what one person says on a forum, find other sources to back it up.

 

Sell both and do a new hackintosh. I run a 6core 17 with 32gigs and havn't had a hickup yet. I run maschine, video serato, and ableton, all as stand alone and at the same time and ive never had a performance issue. Watching the ram sometimes it exceeds 8gigs worth.