Best CPU for hqplayer

[firedog]

These are my stats for an i7 10700K machine running ASDM7EC and upsampling to DSD 256. The server is a QuietPC fan cooled model. I'm sitting a meter from it and can't hear it at all. And as you can see, it isn't having trouble with the demands of HQP, even in a room with an ambient temperature of about 29C or 84F.

 

[kelvinwsy]

No Overclocking at all on your 10700k ? Really?

[kelvinwsy]

The minimum is 3.8ghz for the default setting for the 10700k ! So you Underclocked?

[kelvinwsy]

I noticed your Hqplayer 4 panel is not playing any tune? No stuttering then?

[firedog]

3 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

No Overclocking at all on your 10700k ? Really?

Sorry, I forgot that I set it up to run at 99% speed, just to be on the safe side. Now that I see it has no heat issues, I'll probably change it back to 100%. BTW, I forgot to mention that I was also running Room Correction and PEQ in Roon along with the conversion to DSD 256 in HQP. So it did this all slightly underclocked.

 

edit: put it back to 100%. That apparently turns the Turbo Boost on, as I'm  now getting spikes of CPU cycles up to almost 4900. But as noted, the 10700K did it all even when limited to signicantly slower speeds

[firedog]

3 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

 

 

3 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

I noticed your Hqplayer 4 panel is not playing any tune? No stuttering then?

I'm running it through Roon, so It just says "Song: Roon" instead of the name of an artist, etc.  You can just see it above the border of the window with the stats. No, no stuttering. 

[Solstice380]

56 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

I'm running it through Roon, so It just says "Song: Roon" instead of the name of an artist, etc.  You can just see it above the border of the window with the stats. No, no stuttering. 

 

Great results!  Have you tried the xtr or sinc-m and -l filters?  Many were interested in running those.  

[StreamFidelity]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

That apparently turns the Turbo Boost on, as I'm  now getting spikes of CPU cycles up to almost 4900.

 

In my experience, it is better to set the cores to a fixed clock frequency. All cores of my i9-9900K run at 4.1 GHz. It increases the SQ.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

In my experience, it is better to set the cores to a fixed clock frequency. All cores of my i9-9900K run at 4.1 GHz. It increases the SQ.

I can give it a try. How do you set that up?

[Rune]

11 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

In my experience, it is better to set the cores to a fixed clock frequency. All cores of my i9-9900K run at 4.1 GHz. It increases the SQ.

Do you have your DAC directly connected to your HQPlayer computer when observing this?

Because when using a NAA I cannot see this affecting SQ. Generally it is better to run CPU at default if it can handle HQPlayer without OC.

[firedog]

13 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

 

Great results!  Have you tried the xtr or sinc-m and -l filters?  Many were interested in running those.  

 

I just tried the xtr's and it used less CPU. It's pretty obvious this setup will have no issue doing anything HQP can throw at it doing DSD 256 and below. Anyone who wants to HQP to their heart's delight should get the i7-10700k or the i9-9900K. Or a faster one that's been announced (I'm pretty sure there are a couple). You are then all set with no problems. 

Possibly some slightly less powerful CPU's will also manage, but I can't test that. Chris has one for trial from Intel. Maybe he can try it and let us know how it does.

[Rune]

3 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

I just tried the xtr's and it used less CPU. It's pretty obvious this setup will have no issue doing anything HQP can throw at it doing DSD 256 and below.

Does it do DSD256EC -> Sinc-L?

This is the exception I have found that my 9900KS does not do. In this case I have to go down to 128EC.

So I am probably going to get a GPU but are waiting for Nvidias 3000 series.

[firedog]

45 minutes ago, Rune said:

Does it do DSD256EC -> Sinc-L?

This is the exception I have found that my 9900KS does not do. In this case I have to go down to 128EC.

So I am probably going to get a GPU but are waiting for Nvidias 3000 series.

 

Okay, I'm surprised. it doesn't do Sinc-L-it stutters; it does do Sinc-M with no issue-even with convolution and DSP for EQ added in. 

The total CPU cycles were about 22% for Sinc-M and about 27%for Sinc-L, so it's not clear to me what's making the big difference.

If I was more interested, I'd try overclocking and see if that helps, but I'm not that curious....

[craighartley]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

 

Okay, I'm surprised. it doesn't do Sinc-L-it stutters; it does do Sinc-M with no issue-even with convolution and DSP for EQ added in. 

The total CPU cycles were about 22% for Sinc-M and about 27%for Sinc-L, so it's not clear to me what's making the big difference.

If I was more interested, I'd try overclocking and see if that helps, but I'm not that curious....

Does it do Closed-Form 16M with DSD256 ASDM7EC?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, craighartley said:

Does it do Closed-Form 16M with DSD256 ASDM7EC?

Sorry, not going to test every combo for every poster here individually. 

[craighartley]

24 minutes ago, firedog said:

Sorry, not going to test every combo for every poster here individually. 

I only asked about one!  I asked because it’s the only one apart from sinc-L that my 9900ks won’t do. 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, firedog said:

Okay, I'm surprised. it doesn't do Sinc-L-it stutters; it does do Sinc-M with no issue-even with convolution and DSP for EQ added in. 

The total CPU cycles were about 22% for Sinc-M and about 27%for Sinc-L, so it's not clear to me what's making the big difference.

If I was more interested, I'd try overclocking and see if that helps, but I'm not that curious....

 

Load wise sinc-S is similar to sinc-M, at DSD256 they have equal load. While sinc-L at DSD256 is much heavier than sinc-M (32x the number of taps). For sinc-L at higher rates your best bet is powerful Nvidia GPU with a lot of RAM.

 

[StreamFidelity]

14 hours ago, firedog said:

I can give it a try. How do you set that up?

 

The setting can be found in the CPU core ratio on ASUS boards. Here I have described it:

On 3/3/2020 at 3:27 PM, StreamFidelity said:

2.1.3 CPU clock frequency

 

The most important setting for high performance concerns the clock frequency of the CPU. The Intel Core i9-9900K has a base clock of 3.6GHz. Not enough for the EC modulators of the HQPlayer. At least 4GHz on 3-4 cores are required. The CPU has 8 cores. I experimented with different settings. For example, clocking the first cores higher than the following ones. I did not like it. I stayed with the simple configuration: all cores on 4.1GHz.

 

 

AO also recommends using a fixed value, see manual.

On 5/31/2019 at 8:29 AM, AudioPhil said:

You can find the Computer Audio Best Practices Guide here: https://pdf.highend-audiopc.com/computer_audio_best_practices_guide.pdf

 

The basic idea is that changing CPU frequencies and energy savings can have a negative effect on the sound. For the same reason, many prefer a linear power supply rather than switching power supplies. For me, both make a huge difference in sound. Others don't care. Everyone has their own preferences. 😉

 

5 hours ago, Rune said:

Do you have your DAC directly connected to your HQPlayer computer when observing this?

 

Yes, my Denafrips Terminator is connected directly via USB via the JCAT USB XE Card.

[kelvinwsy]

I volunteer to test Sinc M sinc L and Closed Form 16M tonight! I remember I tried on my 6700k /GTX 970M .. the 10700k wo GPU will most likely not make it. I will stick my old GTX970M in to see if it helps the 10700k 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Load wise sinc-S is similar to sinc-M, at DSD256 they have equal load. While sinc-L at DSD256 is much heavier than sinc-M (32x the number of taps). For sinc-L at higher rates your best bet is powerful Nvidia GPU with a lot of RAM.

 

Well, that would definitely explain it. The investment for one of those video cards isn't worth it for me. Those things are pricey.

[sledwards]

Just checked, and my i7-8700K w/ CUDA offload to ASUS RTX-2080 plays both sinc-M and sinc-L filters, ASDM7EC, DSD256 with convolution just fine.

 

Steve

[Gavin1977]

39 minutes ago, sledwards said:

Just checked, and my i7-8700K w/ CUDA offload to ASUS RTX-2080 plays both sinc-M and sinc-L filters, ASDM7EC, DSD256 with convolution just fine.

 

Steve

Take it that DSD512 is too much, even with RTX2080?

[sledwards]

You are correct. Won’t do it.

[Rune]

11 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Take it that DSD512 is too much, even with RTX2080?

If the rumor is correct the new 3000 series will probably do DSD512 sinc-L. The speculations is that Nvidia will anonce these cards  on August 31 event.

The apparent leak says there will be a 3080 with 20GB and a 3080 Ti with 24GB. 

[Bushikai]

On 1/29/2018 at 1:35 PM, sbenyo said:

I finally managed to build a PC for DSD512.

I am using AMD Threadripper 1920x and now I can easily play DSD512 with poly-sync-xtr-mp-2s filter!!

 

I don't even use CUDA offload and cpu utilization is not exceeding 15%!

 

My whole build costs less than $2000...