chip-set or CPU

G

gurix

Guest
I am going to get som new pc hardware.

Should I get a CPU form intel or amd?
And with chip-set should I pic

Advice plz
 
I think a lot of the compatability issues of the past have been lived down. If you already have a sound card or interface you want to keep, I'd check their support site to make sure there aren't compat issues.

I, personally, lean toward Intel chips (bad experience long ago with an AMD K5) but I've heard from many Athlon owners who are happy with their machines.

However, I've also heard a number of complaints about fan noise on the hot running Athlons.

An Intel box with a thermo-controlled "quiet fan" would be the way I'd go. (I built my current machine and plan to build my next. But you can find a number of vendors who'll let you spec everything form power supply on up...)
 
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The first time I got into DAW I didn't have a clue and ran into compatablity issues.

The next machine I built around the soundcard and software I was using. Im an Echo and Sonar user/abuser. So my advice:

Decide on the soundcard you want and the software you like and build the box around it using CPU's and motherboards that are compatible for your soundcard and software.

I personally use only intel products and ASUS mother boards with intel chips. But thats me.
 
I use Intel and swear by it P4 1.9GB and chipset something quite new from Jetway, I use the Jetway 845 EPRO with 1GB DDR RAM. The advantages of this are that it has it's own build in soundcard which you can use for standard audio MP3's and MPEG's but use you soundcard for music creation thus avoiding conflicts and always make sure that you have the latest BIOS upgrade.

Resampler
 
I have a similar setup to the post above;

Intel Pentium 4 1800 (NW,RET,478)
ABIT BD7 II - RAID (INTEL 845e mobo)
60GB MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX+9 133/7200
Kingmax 512MB PC2100 FAST DDR SDRAM
Soundblaster live platinum
Delta 44
I recently put together this setup and it performs extremely well.

I think that if you have the money stay with an intel chipset. The 845e is highly recommended at www.sospubs.co.uk Manufacturers to note are ASUS, ABIT,GIGABYTE for a quality mobo. If I had enough money I would have bought the ASUS P4B53E mobo.
As these mobos are socket 478, you will have to go for an intel processor. Any of the P4 'Northwood' processors are v.good but will cost a bit extra. Try and get one with 512k level 2 cache.

Do a lot of research and compare prices to get the best deal.
 
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I am currently thinking about buying:

P4 1.7 GHz 256 cache
Seagate barracuda 4 80 GB ATA 100 7200 rpm
256 MB DDE PC2700-184 pin Samsung
Inni3D GeForce 4 MX4400 64 MB
Chieftec Workstation ATX 360W
ABIT BE7 Socket 478 Intel 845PE

810 €

Best price/support around my current location.
I know I can get a lower price but since I got to pay for the transport, even to switch faulty hardware.

I am on a very tight budget and I got what is missing from the list.
The price on memory is going up and I am going to get more when I can.
 
Over here in the states the "sweet spot" on CPU pricing for Pentium 4's is the 2.4 gHz chip... of course, it's probably different there because of differences in the way the supply chain works through stock... but over here in the States the difference between a 1.8 and a 2.4 is often only $30 or $40. So by adding only a small percentage to the total box cost you can milk another 33% of CPU speed.

The RAM sounds a little tight... just make sure you can add more without having to throw away your 256 MB chip. (A while back I bought a pair of 256's to add to the 128 already on my machine. I thought I'd properly checked the MBoard manual -- but it turned out that 2 256's and 1 128 was just about the only combination of chips it wouldn't take. I ended up giving the chip to my local coffee house (since they had given me a DSL router/modem it seemed like the least I could do. ;) )
 
It is moore like 110€ in price difference and the speed deference is not 33 % just because the Hz level is not equal to speed.
 
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Er... what I said was "...you can milk another 33% of CPU speed" [by buying a 2.4 gHz P4 instead of a 1.8 gHz P4].

Obviously any data transfer bottlenecks (to memory, HD, Vid, etc) you have will slow overall box performance so, depending on your particular activity you might notice no difference at all between the different processors -- or if it's processor intensive -- you may see something much closer to 1/3 more work getting done in a given time frame. But anyway... I didn't think I had to belabor that so I intentionally used the prhase "of CPU speed."


And of course using processor clock speed to compare different chip families is an obvious and completely erroneous notion. You can't compare a Pentium to a Celeron to a Athlon to a Power PC chip, etc, by clock speed to determine work throughput. And, as dueling test bench shoot-outs prove, you can pick and choose your testbed to favor a given processor, even then.
 
My AMD Duron 1.3ghz works just fine for what I do. As far as I can tell, there is no reason not to get an AMD....I mean ****, they are so much cheaper.

I bought my 1.3 duron for 39.99 from a local PC store because they were overstocked.

Compatibility issues are non existent. Cubase SX has AMD optimized processing as well as Intel.



Just don't get a Cyrix/VIA C3 650mhz. I have it as a backup cpu/motherboard combo and it is so damn slow for processing audio (great for anything else tho)

To do a hiss reduction in cool edit pro 2.0 on a 75 minute wave file...the duron 1.3ghz took 13 minutes and the cyrix took 1 hour and 20 minutes. Completely ridiculous. :)
 
As far as I know the Cyrix CPU are not mad to compete to Intel and AMD in the more demanding tasks.
If you take a lock at the cooling system at the Cyrix CPU you might not even find a fan on it. And it doesn’t have as big instructions-set as Intel or AMD have.
 
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