Topic by hvaartsen

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  • hvaartsen
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  • From: The Netherlands
  • Registered: 13-07-2009
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Topic: Interesting small form factor board?

As a fanatic pianoteq user, I read some posts about the search for the ultimate small form factor board, suitable to be built into a keyboard. I came across the following kick-starter project:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/80...i2-form-fa

Would this board be capable of running Pianoteq decently? Although it is based on an Atom, it has 4 cores (Intel Cherry Trail Atom Quad Core x5-Z8300 64 bits). Wouldn't it be great to have such a small board running pianteq?

Reply by Mossy

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Re: Interesting small form factor board?

I think these guys won't be able to compete with what's available already from China.  Take for example this product:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Intel-Co...87078.html

In China (in local currency), these boxes sell for $125 USD barebones -- $180 w/ 4GB RAM + 128GB SSD.  If you opened it up, I bet the MB is already about the size the KS project wants to do.

This would make for an easy cheap/small/silent Pianoteq box.  I'm going to order one to replace my existing work computer as I'm tired of hearing fan noise at night.

https://soundcloud.com/mossy456/

Reply by hvaartsen

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Re: Interesting small form factor board?

Hi Mossy,

Interesting indeed. Though only having 2 cores I'm very curious about your findings. Please let me know/keep me posted. Thnx.

With regards,
Herman

Reply by Mossy

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Re: Interesting small form factor board?

My current Pianoteq laptop is a Celeron 2955U which is a dual core 1.4ghz Haswell and it can easily handle Pianoteq at settings of 44Khz external/22Khz internal/256 polyphony/8ms buffer.

The computer posted above has CPUs 25%+ faster than that due to hyperthreading (both i3 & i5) and turbo-boost (i5).  My wife's laptop is a dual-core i3 w/ hyperthreading -- I locked both computers to the same GHz and dual core+HT renders the same MIDI file to WAV about 15% faster than just dual core.

Last edited by Mossy (26-10-2015 17:37)
https://soundcloud.com/mossy456/