On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 5:48 PM Bob AF9W <af9w@...> wrote:

I am looking to get a new computer for my shack. Currently I use a Thinkpad Laptop with an Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5200U CPU @ 2.20GHz with 2 cores, 16Gb of Memory, and an Intel HD Graphics on board. My usual software suite is Win4K3Suite with bandscope, DXLab Suite with everything but Warbler running and VE7CC. I may also run WSJT-X and CW Skimmer connected to the I/Q output of my KX3. The issue I run into is CW Skimmer seems to run out of cycles quickly. Without CW Skimmer CPU usage averages about 50%. Once CW Skimmer starts it goes to 100% and Skimmer can’t keep up with screen refresh. My question is would people suggest more i5 cores or should I go with i7? I am asking here because people on this forum run DXLab Suite and have similar workloads to mine.

I would go Ryzen these days... possibly 3700x.

That said; don't be disappointed if it doesn't resolve the CW Skimmer
issue. I've found it unusable recently when there are other apps
running (some seem to affect it more than others). It (skimmer) shows
100% "decoding capacity used", and the waterfall stops, but the actual
CPU usage (observed with Process Explorer) is nowhere near 100%. It
seems the skimmer is competing with the other apps for some resource,
but I've not been able to identify what it is. This happens on my new
3700x system as well as my old 2nd Gen Core-i7, which used to run
skimmer and the other apps with no problem. I think something changed
in Windows, but I don't know what.

73/GL!

~iain / N6ML