Hello,

 

I'm looking to purchase a computer (maybe a laptop) for use with Dragon Professional Individual 15, but have realised that I'm no longer sure what is required to obtain top performance. I know that, in the past, lots of ram plus a cpu with 8+ mb L3 cache was ideal. However, they're now relying on neural networks rather than hidden markov models, which means that these requirements may have changed.

 

I've used DPI 15 and I still don't believe that just any computer will perform silky smooth with it. However, there will definitely be a point where improved specs add nothing.

 

So, for those more technically minded than me:

1. Does Dragon use multiple CPU cores? What about it's accuracy tuning? Have you seen a big difference between dual and quad core machines?

2. Same question but for GPUs. Does Dragon use the GPU during real-time recognition? What about during accuracy tuning? Nuance doesn't give explicit recommendations here, but given that they're now using neural networks, I would've thought that they'd use the GPU somewhere, to deal with all the matrix multiplications.

3. Has the optimal cache size changed?

 

N.B. Don't bother about the ram requirements. Ram is cheap

 

The sort of answer I'm looking for:

1. If you have telemetry (say graphs) monitoring your cpu/gpu usage while working with Dragon in everyday office work.

2. Subjective feelings about reliability and responsiveness on the 'max accuracy' setting in Dragon.

 

I'm hoping to use this information to inform my computer purchase, in particular whether to get a laptop this time around. I'm not interested in brand recommendations at this stage, as I don't yet know what model within a brand I'm looking for.

 

Also, for the sake of future reference, once I get my new computer, I'll also post my cpu/gpu statistics using whatever methodology we settle on here.

 

Those of us who've been using speech recognition for a while know that it's more expensive than generic computing. As such, I think it will be really helpful if we're able to determine precisely what makes Dragon work well, to inform buyers who are facing questions like: 'notebook vs desktop vs ultrabook', 'i7 vs low voltage i7', 'integrated or discrete GPU' etc.

Updated on April 3, 2019. We recommend Windows 7 or 10 but Windows 10 is our preference. We additionally recommend 16 Gb of RAM (8 Gb minimum) for most end-users; 32 Gb of RAM or more for power users. We prefer Intel i9, i7, i5 or AMD equivalent processors. Note that Dragon 15.3/DMPE 4.3 require notably less processing power than previous Dragon releases.

SSD (solid-state hard drives) have recently become much more affordable and recommended over traditional HDDs. We recommend 512 Gb SSD (256 Gb minimum) or larger.

From a Dragon/business point of view, video card speed and processor speed are not important.

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Thanks lunis. Does the l3 cache thing still matter? I ask as the i5 and i7 chips come in different wattages, with significantly different cache sizes. For example, an ultrabook's i7 has 4mb of l3 cache, compared with 8mb for the desktop version.

We go along with the adage “the more cache the merrier” but in our opinion, the amount of available cache isn't critical. We doubt you'll even really notice the difference. To put it another way… Doubling your RAM from 4 Gb to 8 will likely have a drastic effect but doubling again to 16 may or may not even be noticeable. Cache falls into that category.

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Change "No" to "Know" w/KnowBrainer 2022
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Dragon/Sales@KnowBrainer.com 
(615) 884-4558 ex 1

I'm a guy who spends on computers like most people of my father's generation spent on cars and hifi systems - ie I base my purchases around my business/practical needs, but I base my 'business/practical needs' on:
- 'ooh SHINY! No, it doesn't make any sense to upgrade your threadripper system already, the big improvement will come when 3950x arrives"...
- "buts IT is the future of litigation it is, and our precious will.."
- "IT is only the future of litigation because none of your colleagues know what powerpoint is, so they haven't changed the slides in 20 years.
- "buts we cans use it to make our own deep learning softwares for lower spine injury litigation..
- "but all that software is junk, some of it literally uses adobe acrobat to put a shell over public, and then they call it 'deep l

Go with a core i5 computer or a higher grade of processor. Your computer will perform better with 16 GB of RAM if you multitask. AMD processors are equally good and Intel processors are not in any way superior for speech recognition. A good microphone is a must, otherwise recognition accuracy will be frustrating.
Any core i5 computer or similar AMD equivalent would perform very well as Dragon is not as demanding as it used to be.

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DPI 15.3, XPS 9575,  Intel Core i7, 16gb ram, 1TB SSD. Sennhesser ME3,  Philips Speechmike Premium 3500, Windows 10, Office 2016.