Best CPU for hqplayer

[Fleecyears]

Thanks Miska.

 

I have a question, could I go with a lower spec graphics card if I stay with the Intel Core i9-10920X ?

 

Intel is releasing a Intel's Core i9-12900K sometime later this year (maybe), which reportedly has 16 cores and 5Ghz clock, but by the time it's readily available in Australia with suitable motherboards, it could be some time away yet.

[Miska]

23 minutes ago, Fleecyears said:

I have a question, could I go with a lower spec graphics card if I stay with the Intel Core i9-10920X ?

 

For GPU to make sense, it needs to be faster on it's tasks than the CPU. Otherwise the CPU will just end up waiting for the GPU to complete it's work.

 

But keeping the GPU you could maybe go with cheaper CPU and motherboard.

 

[Fleecyears]

Ok, if choosing the RXT3060Ti graphics card, then which processor below would be best suitable.

• AMD Ryzen 7 3,800XT (8 Cores, 3.9Ghz)
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (12 cores, 3.2Ghz)
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT (12 cores, 3.8Ghz)
• Intel Core i7 11700K (8 cores, 3.6Ghz)
• Intel Core i9 9900K (8 cores, 3.6Ghz)

 

If not those, then are you able to kindly recommend an alternative, either Graphics card and or Processor.

 

Appreciate all your help.

 

 

 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, Fleecyears said:

Ok, if choosing the RXT3060Ti graphics card, then which processor below would be best suitable.

• AMD Ryzen 7 3,800XT (8 Cores, 3.9Ghz)
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (12 cores, 3.2Ghz)
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT (12 cores, 3.8Ghz)
• Intel Core i7 11700K (8 cores, 3.6Ghz)
• Intel Core i9 9900K (8 cores, 3.6Ghz)

 

If not those, then are you able to kindly recommend an alternative, either Graphics card and or Processor.

 

If you are on Windows, certainly no AMD. If you are using Ubuntu Linux, then Ryzen 7 5800X is what I have.

 

On Windows or Linux, other alternatives I use are Core i9 9900KS and Core i9 10900K.

 

I don't yet have any Intel's 11th gen (Rocket Lake) CPUs.

 

[AudioDoctor]

We've discussed, at length, what is the best NAA, but what about the best hardware to run HQPlayer? Is it the new M1 Mac mini? Something else? What are your thoughts?

[Miska]

For Embedded, latest high clock rate Intel and AMD CPUs are good, using the respective builds. And you also have option for using AMD GPU.

 

For Desktop, it depends on the OS you are using... If you are using Ubuntu Desktop or Fedora Workstation, you have also CPU options from AMD.

 

So far, even though not as fast based on specs, Nvidia GPUs are still somewhat better choice for HQPlayer than AMD. RTX 3080 for example is quite powerful!

 

[ted_b]

There's already a 43 page thread dedicated to nothing but the best cpu for HQplayer.  Check it out for more ideas.

 

[AudioDoctor]

9 minutes ago, ted_b said:

There's already a 43 page thread dedicated to nothing but the best cpu for HQplayer.  Check it out for more ideas.

 

 

The CPU is just one part of the hardware needed to run HQPlayer. I am considering the total package, but if Chris wants to he can erase this topic.

[AudioDoctor]

I am considering selling a bunch of stuff I bought for my Roon/HQP server and just getting another M1 mini to run HQP Desktop and call it a day. It has the benefits of being silent, efficient, and powerful. It also costs less than a GPU and some high end processors.

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

I am considering selling a bunch of stuff I bought for my Roon/HQP server and just getting another M1 mini to run HQP Desktop and call it a day. It has the benefits of being silent, efficient, and powerful. It also costs less than a GPU and some high end processors.

 

Note that it is still quite limited to specific use cases, so it cannot compete with big CPUs. If you combine such big CPU with a big GPU you can get massive amount of processing power.

 

Whether M1 is enough for your case depends on what exactly you want to do. But I'd expect Apple will launch a bigger version of their CPU during fall, maybe in September or so.

 

[ted_b]

I understand.  Will your M1 (or whatever) also have an NAA, or are you going direct?

[AudioDoctor]

Just now, ted_b said:

I understand.  Will your M1 (or whatever) also have an NAA, or are you going direct?

 

nah, I always use an NAA. Either my Sonore device or one of the RPi4s around the house here.

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

 

Note that it is still quite limited to specific use cases, so it cannot compete with big CPUs. If you combine such big CPU with a big GPU you can get massive amount of processing power.

 

Whether M1 is enough for your case depends on what exactly you want to do. But I'd expect Apple will launch a bigger version of their CPU during fall, maybe in September or so.

 

 

Thats what I am trying to figure out Miska.

[AudioDoctor]

I am also low key pissed that Roon is such a crap piece of software that it can't run at the same time as HQP on the monster machine I built to run them, and another M1 is the easiest solution.

[Miska]

On M1 it takes twice as many cores to run EC modulators at DSD256 rate. The reason why it can be done is that the communication between cores is so efficient. But it also means that all four high performance cores are occupied by the modulators and you have only four low power cores left for running filters and everything else. This limits what kind of filters and other DSP you can perform.

 

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

On M1 it takes twice as many cores to run EC modulators at DSD256 rate. The reason why it can be done is that the communication between cores is so efficient. But it also means that all four high performance cores are occupied by the modulators and you have only four low power cores left for running filters and everything else. This limits what kind of filters and other DSP you can perform.

 

 

That's good info Miska, thanks.

[AudioDoctor]

Is there a reason to go for the 3090 over the 3080 or 3080 ti?

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

I am also low key pissed that Roon is such a crap piece of software that it can't run at the same time as HQP on the monster machine I built to run them, and another M1 is the easiest solution.

 

I have two locations (home and office).

 

At home I run Roon (full, with GUI) on macOS on my old 2011 Core i5 27" iMac on top of equipment rack.

 

At the office I have old Core i5 NUC running Roon Core under Debian 10 (Buster).

 

These both are practically completely dedicated for running Roon. I don't run HQPlayer on these machines. I have a lot of separate HQPlayer servers. In many cases though, I run HQPlayer Desktop on my Linux workstation while working and responding to these messages with a browser. Works perfectly fine, even though I have about 100 tabs open in browser, etc!

 

[AudioDoctor]

Just now, Miska said:

 

I have two locations (home and office).

 

At home I run Roon (full, with GUI) on macOS on my old 2011 Core i5 27" iMac on top of equipment rack.

 

At the office I have old Core i5 NUC running Roon Core under Debian 10 (Buster).

 

These both are practically completely dedicated for running Roon. I don't run HQPlayer on these machines. I have a lot of separate HQPlayer servers. In many cases though, I run HQPlayer Desktop on my Linux workstation while working and responding to these messages with a browser. Works perfectly fine, even though I have about 100 tabs open in browser, etc!

 

 

Yes, I have no problems using HQP desktop while I am using a machine, it works flawlessly and sounds great Miska. Running Roon and HQP on the same machine dedicated to only that is where I run into problems. So Now I need to separate the two.

 

Is this an acceptable machine for HQP?  https://www.ekfluidgaming.com/fluidgaming-275-vanquish

[Miska]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

Is there a reason to go for the 3090 over the 3080 or 3080 ti?

 

You get even more power, if you have the money. But I would get started first without GPU and see how things work, you can always add GPU later. But I'd say for most normal work RTX 3080 is well enough, pay more attention to amount of RAM though! Newer Nvidia cards may have more RAM than the older ones!

 

I have HQPlayer also working fine on my laptop with Ryzen 9 5900HS + mobile RTX 3060. But it naturally gets loud because of small high speed fans!

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Yes, I have no problems using HQP desktop while I am using a machine, it works flawlessly and sounds great Miska. Running Roon and HQP on the same machine dedicated to only that is where I run into problems. So Now I need to separate the two.

 

You said you built monster machine? You could get along much cheaper by moving Roon Core to some small relatively cheap machine, like I'm doing.

 

3 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Is this an acceptable machine for HQP?  https://www.ekfluidgaming.com/fluidgaming-275-vanquish

 

Looks very nice for Ubuntu Desktop or Fedora Workstation! But not if you insist using Windows for running HQPlayer... Note! If you want to use the Nvidia GPU, least pain will be with Ubuntu Desktop LTS, because Nvidia officially supports it. Fedora has so quick release pace that Nvidia is all the time failing to keep up. Ubuntu LTS releases with bi-yearly release schedule are good baseline.

 

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

You said you built monster machine? You could get along much cheaper by moving Roon Core to some small relatively cheap machine, like I'm doing.

 

Currently, I am running Roon Core on my M1 mini.

 

1 minute ago, Miska said:

Looks very nice for Ubuntu Desktop or Fedora Workstation! But not if you insist using Windows for running HQPlayer...

 

 

Why would that not be good for HQPlayer?

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Currently, I am running Roon Core on my M1 mini.

 

I think that is probably quite OK. Although I don't know if they support ARM64 natively, or if it's running under Rosetta.

 

2 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Why would that not be good for HQPlayer?

 

Because at the moment HQPlayer performance under AMD + Windows combination is not so great. Maybe things will improve over time, but at the moment I'd recommend to stick with Intel CPUs if you want to use Windows.

 

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

Because at the moment HQPlayer performance under AMD + Windows combination is not so great. Maybe things will improve over time, but at the moment I'd recommend to stick with Intel CPUs if you want to use Windows.

 

 

The first thing I would do is erase windows.

[AudioDoctor]

@The Computer Audiophile Chris, can you just merge this into the HQPlayer desktop and embedded thread, or whivchever one you feel is more appropriate. I see @ted_b's point.