i3-4150 seems to be slow

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picur85

Member
Hi!

I've recently built a new computer with an i3-4150, but the CPU doesn't seem to be faster than my old Q8200. In Ableton I get the same CPU usage percentage, or sometimes even higher. (Although these are quite small sets). The i3 has never been connected to the Internet, so its Windows hasn't been update yet, while the older computer has the new updates. Can this be the problem? Or the i3 shows its advantages only in larger projects?
 
which os version?

have you optimised the os for audio production?

have you run something like crap cleaner (ccleaner) across it to remove unused kludge and temporary files?
 
It's Win 7 64 bit. This is a brand new system with only Windows and Ableton and VST on it. The interesting thing is that I use the older Q8200 machine for everything - browsing, games, Youtube etc. - and it has an old laptop drive which is almost full. And it can still keep pace with the new one. Neither of the two has been optimized.
 
start with ccleaner

then defragment your drive I use the application mydefrag with the system weekly setting regularly but you should start with system monthly to get a deep defragment to start (unless of course you are using an ssd for your system drive

then look into optimising audio for win 7 I have a few links which I can share later
 
bandcoach said:
start with ccleaner

then defragment your drive I use the application mydefrag with the system weekly setting regularly but you should start with system monthly to get a deep defragment to start (unless of course you are using an ssd for your system drive

then look into optimising audio for win 7 I have a few links which I can share later
Click to expand...

Jesus... He said it's a fresh install of Windows. running CCleaner is thoroughly unnecessary.

There's no need to "optimize" anything in 2015 (hell, not for over a decade). CPU's are far more powerful today than yesteryear when such a thing was necessary, so none of those old techniques are applicable anymore.

What's at work here is pretty simple: The i3-4150 barely outperforms the C2-Q8200 in most synthetic benchmarks. In heavily multi-threaded applications, the C2Q should be at an advantage over the i3 by being able to utilize 4 cores instead of just two on the i3. If the Q8200 machine has more RAM in it, that may affect performance. If the Q8200 has a dedicated professional audio interface yet the i3 is using on-board codecs, that will definitely affect performance.

There can be a number of reasons you're seeing better performance out of the C2Q. To better figure it out how about you post the complete specs of both machines?
 
Thank you both for the answers :)

Ironically, it's the Q8200 machine that would need a cleanup, the i3 is a completely new built and fresh install, with only Live 9 and some VSTs on it. The i3 has more RAM (6 vs 8 GB) but

Actually the Q8200's advantage by having more physical cores makes sense. I just thought that the i3 can compensate for its fewer cores with them being much more powerful. Would it have been worth getting an i5? Or even an i7?

By the way the specs are quite similar, the Q8200 has 6 gigs of memory and the new one 8 and both ones use the onboard soundcard. On the old machine everything is on one HDD ehile the new one has an SSD for the OS, Live, VSTs and sample packs.

After all I can live with it for the moment because the i3 doesn't seem to struggle by any means, I just thought it would perform noticeably better than a CPU from early 2008. By the way that's also true that the Core 2 Quad was rather the equivalent of the i5 back in 2008 than that of the i3 :)
 
logic7 said:
Jesus... He said it's a fresh install of Windows. running CCleaner is thoroughly unnecessary.

There's no need to "optimize" anything in 2015 (hell, not for over a decade). CPU's are far more powerful today than yesteryear when such a thing was necessary, so none of those old techniques are applicable anymore.

What's at work here is pretty simple: The i3-4150 barely outperforms the C2-Q8200 in most synthetic benchmarks. In heavily multi-threaded applications, the C2Q should be at an advantage over the i3 by being able to utilize 4 cores instead of just two on the i3. If the Q8200 machine has more RAM in it, that may affect performance. If the Q8200 has a dedicated professional audio interface yet the i3 is using on-board codecs, that will definitely affect performance.

There can be a number of reasons you're seeing better performance out of the C2Q. To better figure it out how about you post the complete specs of both machines?
Click to expand...

leaving aside all issues of right and wrong; my experience suggest that even with a fresh install of everything that running cleaner still has a benefit if marginal, defragging has a complete benefit

now knowing that the new machine has an ssd on it I would not suggest that we do those things

Optimising audio pathways is always worth the effort given that in most cases with a pc the OS is only about 20-30% optimised for audio production to begin with, compared to 60-70% for a mac
 
Latest gen intel CPUs vary their clock speed based on resources needed (to save power). It is very likely that your CPU might read 80% in a project, you add an instrument and it still reads 80% because the clock has now gone up to compensate.

Best thing to do is to go to control panel, power options and select high performance (used to be a laptop only feature, but now its on windows 8 and possibly on windows 7).
 
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