400 GB/s vs 200 GB/s Memory Bandwidth For Music Production Software

[ProgRocker]

I'm looking into purchasing either an M1 Pro or Max Desktop. The Max comes with 400 GB/s Memory Bandwidth whereas the Pro comes with 200 GB/s .

I'm hearing a lot of conflicting opinions on how Memory Bandwidth affects DAW (music production software) performance. Does the faster Memory Bandwidth actually make any difference in the audio/DAW world or is the higher speed memory bandwidth mostly for video/graphics users ?

Thanks, PR

 

[uller6]

The memory bandwidth of the base M1 (~60 GB/s) is already about 2X as fast as the previous Intel chips, but of course faster is always better. I've found the limiting factor for my recordings (16 tracks live rock music, 2-5 plugins per track) is single-core CPU speed and not memory bandwidth. The M1 is a huge speed improvement over my old quad-core i7 recording machine, and I haven't had any hiccups since the upgrade to M1. Hope this helps!

 

[yurkennis]

I'm not any expert in music production software, but here is the bottom line of Anandtech research:

• CPU cores together can only saturate 243GB/s of memory bandwidth
• Anandtech could not find any scenario to fully load 400GB/s bandwidth with CPUs and GPUs only
• only together with media engines and other parts of the chip, CPUs+GPUs can possibly utilize the 400GB/sec fully

In a nutshell, if music production software is driven mostly by CPU, you likely won't be able to benefit from 400GB/sec bandwidth.

 

[satcomer]

The only DAWs that were Universal or Silicone are Apple's Final Cut Ableton is also Universal so is ProTools too!

 

[ProgRocker]

Thanks for the replies guys. It does seem as though I wont get much benefit from the faster bandwidth.