Optimal Intel CPU for REAKTOR and AVX Support (in 2025)

domomo

Hi,

I'm looking to optimize my setup for Native Instruments REAKTOR and was wondering which Intel CPU is currently considered the best choice for performance. My current CPU only supports AVX, and if I remember well from the past, REAKTOR benefits from AVX2 instructions. Do you think it would also take advantage of AVX10 if it becomes available in the future? And I assume that this would depend on updates from Native Instruments to fully utilize any new instruction set. Is that correct?

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Or any aspects of todays CPU's I haven't thought of.

Thanks!

domomo

colB

Best single core performance, and largest cache would be a good place to start.

domomo

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/229008#Comment_229008

ColB my old friend! How is life ? Glad to hear from you again after such a long time and to acknowledge that you are still on !

I guess your answer is especially designed for Reaktor on Standalone Mode.

So let’s separate my global question into two /two+b rows:

• 1. Reaktor Standalone Mode
• 2. Reaktor as a single VST3 in a DAW
• 2b. Reaktor as several VST3s in a DAW

Let’s imagine for purpose: latest Windows Pro, latest Cubase Pro.

My more detailed question would be:

• For Point 1: Does it still not matter for Reaktor in Standalone Mode how many Intel „performance-cores“, „efficient-cores“ or „total threads“ are provided? Reaktor wouldn’t use more than a single core ?
• For Point 2: is it possible that the DAW allocates multiple CPU cores or threads differently as VST3, than Reaktor would do in Standalone Mode?
• For Point 2b: If I have a channel strip of three heavy coded effects as one ENS, would seperating those into 3 VST3 Reaktor instances being better allocated on multiple CPU cores by the DAW ?

And for my initial question on AVX, I just detected that already a „AVX2+“ update exists on nowadays latest 14th gen Intel CPU i9 14900k. Does this alone would make Reaktor performe better or would it need a Reaktor Software Update, which utilizes a new instruction set?

Thanks

colB

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/229035#Comment_229035

Point 1, in standalone, its a single core application. You need optimal single core performance.

Point 2. It depends on the DAW. Multiple instances of Reaktor plugin could be allocated to different cores by the DAW, but there are lots of DAWs, and they are not all equal in that respect.

Point 3. Again, it depends on the DAW.

in terms of AVX, SIMD, whatever, as far as I understand, only Primary layer takes advantage, and Primary modules are VERY OLD, so won't take advantage of newer instruction sets, but might take advantage of improved performance in the older extended instruction sets.

Do not underestimate the importance of large cache, L1, L2, L3…

Reaktor core is not good at code reuse, so with larger ensembles, and even instruments, there can be a lot of inefficient memory usage. e.g. adding more instances of the same cpu heavy Block can cause cpu usage to increase exponentially. IIRC, this is more significant on systems with smaller cache, and/or less effective (in Reaktor terms) cache allocation schemes.

IMPORTANT NOTE. my system is very old now, and my knowledge is somewhat out of date as a result.

domomo

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/229124#Comment_229124

"IMPORTANT NOTE. my system is very old now, and my knowledge is somewhat out of date as a result. "

I know, as mine, TOO!

however after 13 years I still have fun with a 3,2 Ghz CPU clocked to 4,5Ghz permanently since so many years. (6 cores).

12 mb cache.

where as for single core 14 years later I read 2,2 Ghz single Core and 36 mb cache.

(but 24 cores)

Could get confusing, somone could think ITS A DOWNGRADE ACCORDING TO A SINGLE CORE WITH SOFTWARE USING SINGLE CORE ;))

LOve

Domomo