Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:46 am
I have only just completed an upgrade, going for the i5-750 and 8GB RAM. My original thought was a Q9400, but the i5 was only marginally more expensive, and offers better performance. The 1156-based MB that I chose (Intel DP55WG) was a bit pricier than the 775 alternative, however the benefit is DDR3 RAM, and what should be a future rock solid expansion to 16GB when the time comes, as I am sure it will! If the CPU ever becomes a problem, there are a couple of i7s for the 1156 MB today, and that will probably get better in the future.
So I think the total i5 option is now better value than the 775-based CPUs, but cheaper than the 1366 and Xeon systems, without ignoring the pricing differences between countries. With the wonderful advancements in HW performance from Ver 3.30, there should be a bit of breathing space before another forklift upgrade is required (after more than 40 years in the IT industry, I imagine that I should be a little more cautious about statements like that!!).
I had very easy Win7 64-bit and HW installation, with no problems restoring my original environment. I was intending to do a polyphony test, but I could only get 16 keys depressed on my Johannus, before keys started dropping. Martin pointed to this possibility in response to an earlier posting. However for what it is worth, with 16 keys (125 pipes per key), Task Manager showed around 10-11 percent CPU utilization. I don't exactly know how you extrapolate that.
HW and the MW Skinner running with all ranks in 24-bit stereo uses around 5.6GB, load time close to 40 seconds. I don't see a problem with the i5 and 8GB for your requirement, and you have more than a bit of room to grow.
Regards,
Paul White
Melbourne