Something people forget is how much was done with so little compute power in the early days of the digital synth and how powerful modern microprocessors have become today. Rough order of performance from top to bottom.
[edit] 20240607 Thanks to all the comments and suggestions from r/synthdiy. Added Ksoloti Core rev 0.5/Axoloti Core rev 1.2 which are both 168MHz STM32's.
| Microprocessor | Cores | CPU Speed (MHz) | Application | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snapdragon X Elite | 12 | Up to 3800 | Copilot+PC | 12-core Oryon CPU, 4nm process |
| Apple M1 | 8 | Up to 3200 | Mac Mini, MacBookAir/Pro, iPad Pro, iPad Air |
8-core CPU 4 performance 4 efficiency cores 5nm process |
| Intel Core i3-1115G4 | 2/4 | 1.7-3.0 GHz base 4100 turbo |
Ableton Push 3 | Dual Core Hyperthread |
| Apple A10X Bionic | 6 | Up to 2380 | iPad Pro (2nd gen) | 6-core CPU 3 high-performance Hurricane cores and 3 energy-efficient Zephyr cores 10 nm process |
| Raspberry Pi 5B | 4 | 2400 | ARM Cortex A76 @2.4GHz | |
| Raspberry Pi 4B | 4 | 1800 | Korg Opsix Mk2, Wavestate Mk2, Modwave Mk2 |
ARM Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-bit SoC at 1.8GHz |
| ARM? | 4 | 1800 | MPC Live/2/One/+/X MPC 61/MPC X SE |
1.8GHz quad-core 2GB RAM 4GB RAM |
| VisionFive 2 | 4 | 1500 | RISC V | starFive Jk 1110 64bit SOC with RV64GC, up to 1.5GHz |
| Raspberry Pi 3B | 4 | 1200 | Korg Opsix,Wavestate, Modwave,MonomeNorns Critter&GuitariOrganelle |
ARM Cortex-A53 SoC processor running at 1.2 GHz, |
| Atom D510 | 2 | 1660 | Korg Kronos | x86 standard Intel D510MO motherboard with a dual-core Atom D510 at 1.66GHz. |
| Raspberry Pi Zero 2W | 4 | 1000 | ARM Cortex-A53 CPU at 1GHz. | |
| Raspberry Pi Zero W | 1 | 1000 | Mini Dexed | 1GHz ARM11 single core |
| Teensy 4.1 | 1 | 600 | M8 Trakcer, | ARM Cortex-M7 |
| Daisy DSP (Cortex-M7) |
1 | 480 | Daisy DSP | ARM Cortex-M7 MCU running at 480MHz |
| Renesas RZ/A1L | 1 | 400 | Synthstrom Deluge |
ARM Cortex-A9 core running at 400MHz with 3MB of on-chip SRAM |
| ESP32 | 2 | Up to 240 | Woovebox | Tensilica Xtensa LX6 |
| Raspberry Pi Pico | 2 | Up to 133 | pikoCore, zeptoCore | ARM Cortex-M0+ Dual-core |
| STM32F446ZET6 | 1 | 180 | Korg NTS-1 | ARM Cortex-M4 core |
| Teensy 3.6 | 1 | 180 | MicroDexed, MicroDexed Touch |
ARM Cortex-M4F |
| STM32F427/429 STM32F427 |
1 | 168 | Ksoloti Core rev 0.5 Axoloti Core rev 1.2 |
STM32F429ZGT6 ARM Cortex-M4 core |
| DSP563xx | 1/2 5/8 |
upto 150 | Virus A/B/C/TI/TI2 Waldorf MicroQ Nord Lead3/Modular Korg MS2000/Microkorg NovationNova/Supernova |
24bit DSP |
| Adafruit NeoTrellis M4 | 1 | 120 | Adafruit NeoTrellis M4 with Enclosure and Buttons Kit Pack |
ARM Cortex-M4 Single Core 120Mhz |
| ArduinoDue | 1 | 84 | Linnstrument | ARM Cortex-M3 Single Core 84Mhz |
| STM32l476VGT6 (or 475) |
1 | 80 | Plinky | ARM Cortex-M4 |
| STM32 Blue Pill | 1 | Up to 72 | ARM Cortex-M3 | |
| Arduino UNO R4 | 1 | 48 | ARM Cortex-M4 microprocessor and a 16-fold increase in memory 32-bit |
|
| Spin Semiconductor FV-1 DSP | 2? | 33.55 | Various Effect Pedals | Parallel Processing DSP sample rate at 32.768 KHz.t |
| ATmega328 | 1 | 8/16 | ATmega328 | |
| Motorola 68000 | 1 | 7 to 25 | Yamaha TX16W Akai MPC 60? Amiga/AtariST/Mac |
16/32bit |
| YM21290 EGS "envelope" chip YM212805 OPS "operator" chip |
1 | 2 | Yamaha DX7 | Generated frequency+envelope data Generated sound waveforms I think the chips were about 2Mhz |
| SID 6581 | 1 | 1 | Various Hardware Interfaces Various Software Emulations Commodore 64 |
Three oscillators Four distinct waveforms per audio oscillator One multi mode filter Three ADSR volume envelopes Three ring modulators Oscillator sync for each oscillator Two 8-bit ADC External audio input Random number/modulation generator I think the chips were about 1Mhz |
