P3 vs P4 vs Athlon

N

Nigie

New member
Could anyone tell me if there is any reason to stick with a P3 motherboard for soundcard recording? I currently have an 815E PRO (MS-6337) ATX S3 motherboard (815 intel chipset) with a celeron 566cpu and I desperately want to be enabled to record more tracks and add more effects in my songs (ie I basically need a more powerful computer). I'm terribly envious of homerecordists who run the newer AMD machines as their processing power looks to be better than P4's and they are cheaper. I've ordered an echo mia soundcard and read their webpage info which claims no problem at all with compatibility with Athlon cpu's and a whole list of AMD motherboard chipsets.

BUT I'm always hearing these niggling reports of pops and crackles and the like when not going intel the whole hog. On top of this two homerecording associates have reported to me that P3's are still the best machines to use!!! One of these advisors told me they were more stable and also Win98se was still the most stable os and the other advisor even suggested P3's were more powerful for soundcard recording than P4's!!!! Mumma Mia!!! Can anyone throw any light on these statements or back them up in any way before I go out and sell my trusty P3 and take the leap of faith toward AMD supercomputerdom???

Thankyou I would really appreciate some illumination.

Nigel
 
Nigie said:
Could anyone tell me if there is any reason to stick with a P3 motherboard for soundcard recording?
Click to expand...

Stability...at least vs. AMD motherboards. P4 is again excellent in this regard when you stick to intel motherboards.

Try overclocking that Celeron. My 566 did 850 even with the stock intel heatsink.
 
I would say Intel "chipsets", not Intel motherboards. Intel motherboards (e.g. motherboards made by intel) are pretty weak. I've never had one that performed well or didn't have some glitch, and weak BIOS too.

Slackmaster 2000
 
What is all this hype about overclocking?
Overclocking was an issue when AMD was nowhere near good, Intel was expensive and getting few extra hz from your expensive processor was important.
These days overclocking is more of a fun sport rather then practical thing. I am running Athlon XP 1700+ at its nominal speed. My system does 16 tracks with 12 live inserts and 2 verbs and does not even sweat. Do I need to overclock? Not worth the trouble.
BTW, you can overclock Athlon XP, you just need to unlock it...
 
Thankyou all for replies.

Dolemite I am not much of a computer technician I'm afraid and a friend of mine who is wasn't any help either when it came to trying to overclock my 566 - 850mHz would have been delightful!! But now I'm wanting to go a bit further than 850 and am looking at the best and safest way to go about it.

sm2k - thanks I wasn't aware of those facts

webstop- what's 12 live inserts? Do you mean 12 inputs recording at once? I'd be interested to know how your system is running since you began using and athlon - ie assuming you once had a little old pentium- is it stable? And what software are you using? I envy your fast wicked machine as I am a track hog (use lots of tracks of different takes initially and then pair them down).

Much appreciation everyone.

Nige
 
lol

P3 is still good..P4 is stable as well. AMD works for a lot of people..does for me.

But, Win98se is NOT GOOD. heh. i mean, it is possible to get a system up and running with it and work..but, as long as your soundcard drivers are good (i.e - not an Aardvark owner)....Win2k is the only way to go. I wouldn't touch XP or 98 with a 10 foot pole.
 
Nigel,
Yes, I started with P233 box. I would sequence 16 tracks on the synth and then record the whole composition as a single stereo feed. Although Audiophile 2496 manual stated otherwise, my box was able to handle 24/96 recording with no problems. Main limitation here was that although I could set reverb and chorus to each of 16 channels individually, only one FX effect could be applied to composition as a whole. I was using Wavelab for recording.
Then I assembled a new box. For price considerations I got ECS k7s5a board with Athlon xp1700+ CPU and Seagate Barracuda IV hard drive. First board that I got would not post POST at all, but replacement board worked right out of the box. Athlons are very good at floating point calculations, which is what you need for audio. To run Athlon smoothly you will need to use a good AMD approved power supply. And finally, since Athlons are running hot and sensitive to heat, you will need a good BUT quite cooler. After a lot of research I got Alpha PAL8045 heatsink with Panaflo 08a12l fan. 90% of all Athlon instability problems are related to heat or unstable power.
So now I can record each of my 16 channels individally in stereo at 24/88.2 with their individual effects using Nuendo. I am recording one channel at a time while all previously recorded channels are playing. Even if I mute some of the channels during recording, they are still "playing" at the hardware level, so unless I completely turn them off it makes no difference for the computer load. On top of that Nuendo allows to apply several types of live effects to each channel. Yesterday I tried playing 16 channels with 14 live insert effects (1 effect on 11 channels each, and 3 chained effects of one channel) of different kind and 2 reverbs on 2 channels. No problem. In fact system performace indicator showed little over half processor load, and would hardly indicate anything at all for hard disk load. At this time my Athlon was running at 42 - 43 C, which I think is pretty low temperature, considering that CPU fan is not the most powerful around.
I just started using Nuendo and it is very impressive piece of software. It is very good at handling multiple takes of the same track and has tools for assembling "a perfect take".
Hope it helps. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
 
As far as intel vs athlon, Ive done alot of reading on the topic and heres what about 80% of the articles confirm:
http://news.com.com/2009-1081-256386.html
Athlon all the way. (Ive also read some interesting opinions on the P4 as a soon extinct processor type, but from what I know thats just speculation about intel's next move)
I myself am running an athlon and I love it. Kudos to Webstop for mentioning the AMD approved power supply and the Heat issue. VERY VERY Important to get a good heatsink and power supply.
As far as win98SE vs other windows platforms. ME is unstable as hell. Has lots of hardware issues and compatibility issues. 98 second edition is exatcly that, a 4 year old OS with lots of patches and fixes built into a 95 frame. 2000 is STABLE as hell, makes great use of memory and processor power and has buffers built into the OS that allow one program to lock up without it affecting anything else on the PC, which for anybody thats ever gotten a blue screen or had to reboot due to a frozen screen (anybody running windows 98) will realize is a huge improvement. 2000 is awesome and I have no need to get anything else. The only downside to 2000, as was previously mentioned is that it only came out as a "proffesional" OS, like NT, and therefore not alot of "home" applications are compatlible with it, or are not rushing to make drivers. XP is new and as a rule, you should never buy anything from microsoft thats new. Wait until the first or second service pack has come out (and it may have already). Ive heard really good things about XP, and I would love to get my hands on it, but Im not running anything on it until they figure out all the little quirks and fix them.
 
Thankyou so much guys for your replies.

I read them a couple of days ago and just didn't know what to say in return at that stage as I'm in a bit of overload from the subject at the moment - trying my best to become a computer nerd and understand what I'm hearing from guys like you and places like Logic forums where the language can get extremely technical.

My new echo mia card arrived today and in the manual it recommends either a pentium with intel chipset mobo or Duron/Athlon with via kx-133, kt-133, kt-133a, or AMD 760/761 chipset mobos. I have a very old version of Logic Audio (v2.4) which I used years ago which I thought I might as well upgrade to v5 and so I've been hunting around on Logic forums as well. The AMD/via/760/761 pattern crops up a lot on those forums also which is encouraging - I would love to feel confident enough to trust the Athlon alternative (opposed to intel) for stability as there is so much enthusiasm around for their power performance and I do want to be able to work with as many tracks and effects as possible.

By the way it's not uncommon for members on this forum:

http://community.sonikmatter.com/cgi-bin/emagic/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum&f=25&DaysPrune=20

to use dual processor motherboards and sci (not sure of spelling) hardrives - point of interest only at this stage!!!!! But if some people are clever enough and financial enough to make it all work maybe we can take inspiration from that and remember the technology side of things is only getting better and more accessible all the time.

Thankyou again for some very specific answers. Thankyou for that lead on win2000 gbondo and wes. I am trying hard to follow all these things up albeit slowly and I really appreciate your invite for even MORE questions webstop after your already comprehensive answer!!!!
 
what exactly IS overclocking?

so if i was buying a new computer - say for mainly recording, but also for internet/network use - and maybe something like word on it as well, etc.... POSSIBLY used for video editing too..... would you suggest a P4 or P3 or Athalon?
 
shackrock,
Overclocking means having your computer, most often processor, to run at a higher then its nominal clock rate. Its fun. I used to play with it 3 - 4 years ago. Who wouldn't want to have 600 mhz computer having paid for Celeron 400 only? Overclocking requires that many things are taken into account. Now that technology is so cheap, and develops so fast its not worth the trouble (I think).
From the list of functions of your new computer, sound and video editing are most demanding. Internet and office applications are like nothing... You don't mention it, but gaming MAY be very demanding. Incidentally, most common tests for video performance are based on selected games.
Intel or Athlon? Or maybe Mac? Its an age old question and I think its a matter of personal religion. There is no simple answer to that. One thing, is that AMD solution appears to be cheaper these days.
 
And Nigie,
Both chipsets you mentioned are getting old. Via kt-133a for one thing has been replaced by better and faster 266a.
Best you can do is call Echo tech support and ask for their most current recommendations.
 
hmm ok.
but is it true that a p3 is actually just as good as a p4 when it comes to most things like recording and everyday use (not games..)?
 
Personally, I have a bias against the P4 due to design faults. Here's a link to an article explaining it in detail:

http://www.emulators.com/pentium4.htm

Now, between the P3 and Athlons...

I'm a recovering hardware junkie ;) so I would usually choose the most complex system I could afford just for the sake of having it. This led me to running an SMP P3 box with linux (I hate Windows). At the time there wasn't really much support for multiprocessor AMD machines, so I stuck with the P3 in that regard, however...for a "regular" machine I would have to say go with the AMD. It has better performance than the P3 and P4 and its cheaper.

I wouldn't want to mess with overclocking these new processors right off the bat and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really know what you're doing. The AMD chips already run hot and its a really easy way to lose a few hundred dollars if you screw it up.
 
Thanks webstop - yes I'm just picking up on facts like the chipset one you pointed out as I read more - am having to learn the new language as I go as well! Thanks a lot for the advice I will certainly get the latest from echo before buying the computer..

However I'm inclined to do more reading on everything to do with computers before making the launch - it seems a good time to find things out now.

That is a great link bnoji - that whole emulators website is unreal for up to date rigorously ground out info. I have passed that one on and will keep a look out for new postings there.
 
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