OK you AMD experts, tell me the real story

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Bulls Hit

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A friend of mine is building a DAW, & I can't talk him out of AMD, so can you tell me

1. Which chip - XP or 64? And which model - 2800+, 3000+?

2. Which mobo? He'd prefer Asus, A7V600, A7N8X, or something newer? What's a good board for the 64?

He want's something on par with my Asus P4P800, 800fsb, DDR400 ram, hyperthreading etc. He won't be using RAID.

Edit: He'll be recording with an M-Audio Audiophile 2496
 
a7v600 with a 2500xp chip and ddr3200 (80% of the 2500 chips clock to 3200xp).
2x sata drives, one 80gb for the system drive, and a 200gb for the music drive.

If the chip DOES clock to 3200 it will be faster than your P4 machine

64 bit...

Asus K8V Deluxe Motherboard
3200 64

The XP machine will run very very well, but the 64 bit athlon will be even better (but more expensive).

Try and get at least 2x512mb of ram.
 
Thanks for that shutup.
That a7v600 mobo supports 400fsb, but you have to go to a XP3200+ to get a 400fsb cpu, anything lower all seems to be 333fsb. Is this correct?

If so, would it be better to just go straight for the 64 bit athlon?
 
this thread got me thinking about the athlon64....i was looking on tigerdirect.com and it said its bus speed is 1600mhz...is that right? if thats the case then a 1.8 ghz processor with a 1600mhz bus would kill the motherboard wouldnt it? lol its getting on time for an upgrade.
 
The AMD64 front side bus is internal only, that's how it can be so fast, The memory controller is internal so there is no need for an external FSB which would always have speed limits due to the effects of the metal connections to an external memory controller.
 
Jim Y said:
The AMD64 front side bus is internal only, that's how it can be so fast, The memory controller is internal so there is no need for an external FSB which would always have speed limits due to the effects of the metal connections to an external memory controller.
Click to expand...

So what does the 400Mhz fsb mean? Is this running at half the speed of the P4 @ 800Mhz fsb?
 
Bulls Hit said:
So what does the 400Mhz fsb mean? Is this running at half the speed of the P4 @ 800Mhz fsb?
Click to expand...

No, because the P4's FSB isn't really 800Mhz, it's "quad-pumped"
 
No need to talk your friend out of it.
An Asus A7N8X and a XP2400+ would make a very affordable yet very powerful combination. You'll have a hard time trying to stress that combination to the limit. IMHO there is really no need for a more powerful setup for DAWs at this point. More is just a waste of money but some people seem to have money to burn.
 
Yes most of the Athlon FSB's are 333, but if you manually push that up to 400 fsb on a 2500xp chip - the chances are, you will get a stable system running at 400 fsb (essentially the same as a 3200xp chip).

Just make sure you get the 400mhz ram not the 333mhz ram (the 333 ram will stop the system going much faster).
 
I posted a setup on another thread about using an XP 2400+ mobile. This is a very similar seetup to what I have, although I'm actually running my mobile 2400+ barton at a true 2400 MHz. In the post I show the settings for 2375 just to make sure the results are bullet proof in case anyone tries it.
XP mobile chips are the best bang for the buck right now, and clock far beyond any of the regular desktop CPUs, including the 2500+ barton. You just need a mainboard that can adjust the multiplier in the bios to use a XP moble chip. Most higher end Nforce2 boards do multipliers, including all Asus Nforce 2s....but Shuttle makes a nice one with all the overclock goodies for around $55 or so.
The difference between something like regular barton 2500+ and a Barton 2400+ mobile is the mobile is made to run at 1.45v. Regular Bartons run 1.65v. The mobile also has no set multiplier since it's made to run at different clock speeds in a laptop. Bonus. What this all means is this 2400 barton chip is AMDs greatest gift to the overclocking crowd. While it's spec'd to run 1.45v it will run MUCH faster if you give it dektop cpu voltages. Since it's simply the cream of the crop of Athlon XPs, it can handle to extra juice just as easily as a desktop CPU. $77 for a chip that can outrun a $210 P4 3.0 800.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=120473
 
Daffy, thanks for the info. Those mobile chips, are they for mobiles as in laptops?

When ordering, do you just ask for a mobile XP2500+, or whatever?

Any reason you go for Maxtor drives over Seagate?
 
Maxtor drives might be a tiny bit faster and the noise level is still similar. I think the Seagate may be a tiny bit more quiet but the Maxtors are quiet as well. I mostly chose that in my spec for a cheap yet bad-ass DAW simply because New Egg doesn't have an 80 GB Seagate 8 MB 7200 RPM IDE drive availible right now, and going to SATA adds cost...

The XP mobiles are made for laptops but it's the same chip. Just doesn't have any hard set multipliers (although it will default to 6x if you don't manually set it in the bios) and the V-core at the rated speed is 1.45v. Basically they picked the best bartons and made them mobile since they would run stable at rated speed with less voltage. THis is what makes them so overclockable. 2400+ is probably the best bang for the buck and will still run 2400 MHz, although I'd probably recomend 2375 at 1.725v just to make sure the thing is drop dead stable. Mine is running at 2415 just fine though. Haven't tested it so see how far it will go but I didn't really want any headaches and or run the thing any higher than 1.725v. Bios health reports that my 1.725 setting is really only right around 1.7v though.
On my mainboard I didn't have a multiplier adjustment since it's an early Leadtek Nforce2, so I bought a rear window defogger repair kit at an auto parts store and did the pin mod trick to set the multiplier 12.5. (my older mainboard doesn't really like FSBs over 200) Since you are buying new, this won't be an issue as long as you make sure the mainboard supports multiplier adjustment in the bios. Most do at this point except the cehapest ones, and that super cheap Shuttle Nforce2 ultra gets good reviews for a no frills O/C Socket A board. Anther cheap overclocker is the ABIT NF7, and I've always had geat luck with various ASUS Nforce2 boards...
 
I just built a system built on an xp2500. It was cheap ($75) on newegg.com. I put it in my motherboard with some 400 mhz ram, and it shows up as a 3200+ in the system. It says it is only 333mhz fsb on the chip, but with a decent motherboard and ram, you can overclock to over 400 mhz fsb. I think mine is set at 424mhz or something like that. With some better cooling it would overclock even more. There is no need to spend the extra money to get a 3200+, the 2500 will run just as well. I highly recommend it.
 
I third that.

Although there comes a point when cooling doesn't matter and the chip just cant handle the extra MHZ.

Remember though - clocking your hardware shortens it's life (although when you need to keep a reasonably state of the art system for recording that becomes less of an issue), and can also cause permanent hardware failure if there is a piece of your equipment that is underspecced compared with the rest of your system.
 
yeah i'm still running the 5400 rpm harddrives and 133 sdr ram. at this point building a whole nother computer would be better than changing something out and killing it all
 
shutupandshave said:
I third that.

Although there comes a point when cooling doesn't matter and the chip just cant handle the extra MHZ.

Remember though - clocking your hardware shortens it's life (although when you need to keep a reasonably state of the art system for recording that becomes less of an issue), and can also cause permanent hardware failure if there is a piece of your equipment that is underspecced compared with the rest of your system.
Click to expand...

yea... It may shorten life, but if properly done, it will be something like.... lasting 10 years instead of 20. In other words, a properly OC'd processor will still be in the landfill as obsolete junk long before it's worn out. My Barton moblie running 2400 MHz still idles at less than 120f so it's not under too much stress, and it will run for days on end without booting.
 
Bulls Hit said:
A friend of mine is building a DAW, & I can't talk him out of AMD, so can you tell me
2. Which mobo? He'd prefer Asus, A7V600, A7N8X, or something newer? What's a good board for the 64?
Click to expand...

Stay away from Asus K8V SE Deluxe as humanly as possible.

I have the same and you don't wish to experience things I did with this MBO.

Entire Asus forums are filled with angry owners K8V owners.
Top on the list is message they all get : Overclocking Failed.

Needless to say none of then even had time to overclock anything.

There is good reason why Asus has so many endless MBO BIOS revisions.

At the moment (tested and true) MSI has most stable and trouble free MBO for AMD64, and this board has least revisions compared to competition.

As for CPU, cost of 3200 is not so much higher, something worth considering. :)
 
i have one machine running on asrock and another on asus(both using amd processors). A7V600, A7N8X both should be great. just make sure your friend doesn't buy any motherboard with sis chipset if he plans to use protools hardware in future.


-shami
 
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