P4 vs Athlon XP

[Bannon]

Which do people like better for audio recording and rendering? It's tough to find audio rendering benchmarks for these two proc's to get a good comparison. The only audio related benchmark comparing P4's and Athlon XP's that I've seen pitted a 2.8ghz P4 against an Athlon 2800+ (2.25ghz) in a re-sampling test in Soundforge 6. The Athlon took a sample from 48khz to 44.1khz 23 percent faster than the P4, so that says somthing. Still, I'm curious in anybody knows if this translates across the board to other audio apps or not (Cubase, Wavelab, etc). Thanks for lookin'.

--->Race

 

[badassmak]

I will say AMD

strictly because of the cost. I think you will find many comparisons, but the one that sticks out in my head, was the 'floating point performance' one. Although from what I see now the newer Athlon aren't a helluva big step up, but the price is (Barton). But for something not exactly brand new, the athlon's slaughter the P4's in the price department.

 

[christiaan]

Which do people like better for audio recording and rendering?

There have been numerous threads about this P4 vs. Athlon thing (do a search) and there are several points on which you can decide for any of them.
To summaries it: It doesn't really matter what platform you choose. Both camps have happy and unhappy users.

 

[christiaan]

Re: I will say AMD

strictly because of the cost. I think you will find many comparisons, but the one that sticks out in my head, was the 'floating point performance' one. Although from what I see now the newer Athlon aren't a helluva big step up, but the price is (Barton). But for something not exactly brand new, the athlon's slaughter the P4's in the price department.

And to add a personal note: I agree. Just purchased an upgrade for my ancient Celeron 466 and I went for AMD.
The Duron 1200 cpu was only €37,- (new) which will be enough for my needs for now.

 

[whattaguy]

The price difference in minimal. In fact, the Athlon 3000XP is more expensive than the P4 3.0ghz the last time I checked.

 

[christiaan]

Yet I still have to see a sub €/$60,- (or anything close to that) motherboard for the P4.
For the Athlon there is the ECS K7S5A that is rediculously cheap with excellent performance.

 

[Bannon]

Re: I will say AMD

the one that sticks out in my head, was the 'floating point performance' one.

I had heard the same thingabout the fpu of the Athlon, but was unsure how it translated into audio performance. I can surely agree with those of you that believe Athlons will give you the most bang for your buck. I'll do a search at Christiaan's advice and see what else can be dug up regarding AMD vs. Intel. Thanks all.

---->Race

 

[badassmak]

The price difference in minimal. In fact, the Athlon 3000XP is more expensive than the P4 3.0ghz the last time I checked.

Yes, I did say that there was minimal price difference inbetween the newer Barton athlon and P4's. But for most anything under that range of performance, the athlons beat out pentium considerably.

I really hope that athlon doesnt decide to up their stuff based soley on the fact that pentium gets away with it, but it would appear that things are headed that way. Obviously they can make money where its at, a big price jump would be purely superficial in my mind.

 

[whattaguy]

"Yet I still have to see a sub €/$60,- (or anything close to that) motherboard for the P4.
For the Athlon there is the ECS K7S5A that is rediculously cheap with excellent performance."

True. Sorry, maybe I should have specified that I was comparing the newer XP2200 - XP 3000 and the P4 2.2ghz - P4 3.0ghz.

 

[christiaan]

"Yet I still have to see a sub €/$60,- (or anything close to that) motherboard for the P4.
For the Athlon there is the ECS K7S5A that is rediculously cheap with excellent performance."

True. Sorry, maybe I should have specified that I was comparing the newer XP2200 - XP 3000 and the P4 2.2ghz - P4 3.0ghz.

Okay, got that now (The K7S5A does accept up to 2600+ though).
But at this point only a few homereccers will actually need that much horsepower under the hood.

 

[brzilian]

I really hope that athlon doesnt decide to up their stuff based soley on the fact that pentium gets away with it, but it would appear that things are headed that way. Obviously they can make money where its at, a big price jump would be purely superficial in my mind.

You should read up on AMD's financials then. They're killing themselves as it stands with their prices. I don't see them going on like this if they plan to be a viable company with a long term future...

 

[mgraffeo]

Look, bottom line is that if you're looking at 2Ghz and up machines, they're all going to kick ass. Read the threads, figure out why everybody likes one or the other, and then just buy one. Don't lose too much sleep over it.

-mg