New music machine

[EmotionComplex]

Ive been using the same pc since 2002 and now ive come to upgrade ive realised how far behind i am with technology, i was clued up when i got this pc (a P4 1.6 which feels like a zx spectrum at the moment) but everythings changed so much now, so i need peoples advice + info please.

how does the athlon fair against the pentium 4 now, ive noticed the actual clock speed of an athlon64 3500 is about 2.2ghz and the pentium equivilent is a p4HT 3.4, so music production wise is this clock speed difference significant or is the athlon performing in a differnt way and more powerful then its clock speed suggests.

i was originally planning on getting a p4 HT 3.4 based system but this new 64bit athlon looks interesting, am i right in understanding Cubase sx will run in the athlons 64 bit mode.
Any members of the forum producing music on athlon machines?, what are you thoughts about there performance etc.
i want to make sure im getting the most processing power music wise for my money, i dont care about games performance or anything like that as it will be a dedicated machine.


Im just a bit overwellmed by all the choice and new technology at the moment, any help or advice would be much appreciated :)

[dj vorny]

u would be best off getting a comadore 64 if after 64 bit mode there wicked man :clap: :rambo:

[dan the acid man]

well amd chips perform more efficiently than pentiums, if i was buying a chip now, i'd be going the amd 64bit route

this has a nice chart for you to look at, shows you the difference between the various types of chips, and the future ones planned for this year and next

http://www.c627627.com/AMD/Athlon64/

[BRADLEE]

well amd chips perform more efficiently than pentiums, if i was buying a chip now, i'd be going the amd 64bit route

this has a nice chart for you to look at, shows you the difference between the various types of chips, and the future ones planned for this year and next

I would have to agree. Even though the AMD's state that they have a slower clockspeed, upon benchmark, they really aren't much differant than the P4's.

Not to meantion that they handle many jobs with mulitmedia more efficiantly as well.

I'd say best bang for the buck with no doubt is the AMD64.

[detfella]

hmmm well i'd probably go amd becuase its cheaper. the new p4 u mays as well avoid, they have hyper threading, but it requires the program to use it as well (most don't...tho cubase does)

the pentium centrino m chip (the laptop cpu) actually out performs the latest p4 edition as well. some people are using pentium m chips in there desktop

[EmotionComplex]

thank you for the replys guys.

after some more reading up ive decided to build my new system around a AMD Athlon 64 3500

[EmotionComplex]

i just thought id share what i found out while ordering parts for my new machine.

I originally made an order which contained

Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 NF4 Ultra, ATX PCI-E motherboard
1Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair Ram
160Gb Western Digital Caviar SE 160 HD
128Mb Gigabyte PCI-E Geforce 6200 turbo cache GV-NX62TC128D
AMD Athlon 64 3800 32/64Bit CPU S93

there have been a couple of problems with stock while ordering so ive been waiting a couple of days for them to be sorted, and its lucky for me that there where problems as ill explain now.
Some of you more technology savy members will proboby know this allready but if your like me and are a little bit behind with whats going on it might help you from making the same mistake i almost did.

PCI express motherboards, especially ones containing NFORCE4 technology are actually rather bad for music production, i found out that theres a number of latency and compatibility issues with them for both software and soundcards and basically to avoid if your building anything other then a games machine.

ive just made a speedy email to scan.co.uk stating that i need to change the motherboard (and graphics card as its pci-e) and have opted for

Gigabyte K8V Ultra-939 K8T800Pro/8237R, FSB2000, 8xAGP/USB, DDDR400, 4xSATARaid

which is a very good board and will be totally compatible with what i want to do.

but for anyone who is like me and not totally wise to technology i think its a good idea to avoid pci-e and nforce motherboards

[Barely Human]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

[EmotionComplex]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=207512

ive ordered that with it ;)

[RDR]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=207512

ive ordered that with it ;)

thats the first time i have ever looked at an ordering screen for windows....

and you kn ow, i dont know if its wring ir right.

good on ya anyway.

[dan the acid man]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

true in a way, but the way these proccessors work make them faster than the fastest amd xp chips.

[EmotionComplex]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=207512

ive ordered that with it ;)

thats the first time i have ever looked at an ordering screen for windows....

and you kn ow, i dont know if its wring ir right.

good on ya anyway.

:lol: , ive been using a dodgy xp for years so i thought it was time to get a real one, and its cheaper then i thought it'd be aswell.
At least this way i can get all the proper updates for it and that.

[EmotionComplex]

Re: 64bit chips.

A 64 bit chip is prettry useless since even if the host program will run in 64bit, the OS is still running on 32, (until longhorn comes out), so you wont get really noticable improvements until you get a 64bit OS.

true in a way, but the way these proccessors work make them faster than the fastest amd xp chips.

yeah thats right, from what ive read there a great deal faster, the one ive ordered is comparable to a p4 3.8 apparantly