processor, what should buy?

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Sangram - yeah, that seems clear enough. And like bass says, you're a mine of information. So let's open it up.

What's FPU performance and what does it depend on? I've got a newbie question here, too: what's AMD? :D
 
dobro.

FPU is a Floating Point Unit. It's the part of the chip. It's relatively old in terms of concept, and is also known as a coprocessor or math coprocessor.

The earliest 486 and later systems had this chip separately on motherboards. The Original Pentium chip incorporated the FPU onto the die itself. Since the evolution of computers from mere math number-crunchers to complex multimedia machines, the FPUs role is critical in processor performance.

The better the FPU performance, the better it handles complex math and multimedia. This is one specification chip manufacturers will not give you because it's a default part of every chip. Published benchmarks and 'net queries are the only way you can get an idea of performance.

AMD is Advanced Micron Devices, a rival chipmaker to Intel. Their architecture is different from the legacy Intel Pentium architecture, and therefore requires a different motherboard. That aprt, systems running AMD and Intel are compatible with each other.

Bass: is it a Celeron 478 by any chance? There may be an alternative explanation.
 
Well, I couldn't get through to my computer man, but I went to the Intel site and found out that all their 1.7 GHz P4s (that's what I've got) claim 256KB of cache. Over at the AMD site, their most recent processor boasts 384 KB of cache. Okay. So, the newest AMD chip smokes my P4.

I've got a lot to learn. If you get tired of answering my questions, feel free to say so. :D Anyway, you said:

"Published benchmarks and 'net queries are the only way you can get an idea of performance. "

Do you know of any good sites for this kind of information? Or am I already on one? :D
 
ok Sangram, the computer is up and running now
here are the specs on it
processor intel celeron 433
motherboard pc chips m756lmrt+
40 gb hard drive
256 mb memory

according to the manual for the motherboard the other processors that it will run with that are upgrades would be

pentium lll 450-866 mhz fsb 100mhz/133mhz

ppga/fcpga celeron 300-76 mhz fsb 66 mhz

fcpga pentium lll 500m-1.13ghz
fsb 100mhz/133mhz


so I guess my next question would be is my processor too slow which I believe from what I read here the answer is yes also being a celeron not the best option.
so question 2 would be which one to buy- I would assume the pentium 3 with the 500m-1.13 ghz
what does the fcpga in front of it mean?

and once again thanks for the info
 
the speed on the celeron upgrade was suppose to say 300-766 not 76. typo sorry about that
 
dobro: Cool

bass: Best choice for you is 933 FCPGA Pentium III. More details to follow. Sorry for my stacatto reply, I need to sleep I'll talk later.

Sang
 
Sorry guys,

I just wrapped up a major presentation for a prospective client, and this was after two days of dull conferences where nothing is ever achieved. 72 hours of work with six hours of sleep in between.

Anyway.

bass: all processors have a single speed specification, not a range. example: A 'Pentium III 500-1.13 GHz' actually means a lot of processors. A PIII can be 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 733, and so on. the older ones upto 700 or so MHz run on 100 FSB, the newer ones upto 1.13 GHz are on 133 FSB.

FSB is the rated Front Side Bus speed, the higher the better. Most modern processors run on 133 FSB. Don't believe AMD's 266 or P4's 533. That's all shite. All of 'em are 133.

Your motherboard is a terrible one. It is upgradeable in a sense but it's really bargain-basement, all PCChips motherboards are the stuff you find in Wal-Mart stores. NOT recommended for DAW applications.

If you're stuck with it, though, there's really no way out. Just stick in the fastest PIII you can afford (933 is a good balance between price and performance) and run with it till you can afford to upgrade and throw out the system.

A Celeron 466 was cutting edge technology when I moved to this city, about two years ago. It's good for nothing except scrap heap now. You could probably use a machine like that for typing Word documents or surfing the 'net but as a DAW it would be absolutely crappy.

I think you're being taken for a ride. How much are you paying for the system? What is the soundcard you're going to be using? that's a very critical part of a DAW.

OK sorry I read you were given some stuff. Think about wheteher you need to go in for a DAW now. If you're not going to be doing any audio work on this computer you should actually be fine but you will feel the need to change over to a proper computer later. This would be a stopgap solution.
 
-It will work, lots of digital music casual users have computers running 500Mhz or less. You just need to keep in mind that you'll run into problems with running lots of stuff earlier than others might. The big thing to avoid that will slow you down the most, is the exact same thing that slows every other computer down: running software synths or real-time effects.
~
-I wouldn't bother upgrading the CPU of such an old PC....a new mobo, 1gig CPU and 256 megs of memory would cost ~$300 or less. If you end up needing a new case or power supply, there's generic cases+power supplies for $40. -You can buy generic PC's now for $400, but they use generic motherboards that you would do better to avoid.
 
Thanks Sangram I appreciate the time your taking giving me this education.
Yes this stuff has all been for free so far, the only thing I bought was the hard drive in fact my girlfriends son has been putting it together for me up until yesterday he had done all the work.
Yesterday our schedules connected so I helped him put in the hard drive and load windows. (windows 98 by the way and yes for free also hope that platform is ok to run)
I understood that was a range for processor speed basically I just typed what was wrote in the manual, but thanks for the explanation anyway.

I figured the motherboard must be junk but like I said it was free as far as the computer goes I was going to use it for recording music only I have a HP for other things which is a couple of years old now and just upgrading the memory requires going into the bios and changing something (according to tech support) so I didn't want to try and use that I did download ntrack share ware and played around with it just to check it out.

Right now I do all my recording analog on a tascam 488mkII 8 track I want to go digital I've spent some time listening and reading here on this site so when the free stuff was offered I thought it would be worth a shot.

As far as soundcard and software goes that is the next step and of course my next question, I 've spent some time on the sites reading and there are so many options any decision I made now would be guess work do you have any suggestions? I would like to keep it around 300$ at the most although I could go a little over.
I figure eventually I will get a new case and motherboard/processor and just pull out of this cpu want I can still use, so I don't want to be too cheap on the soundcard.
Oh yeah I plan on using my Tascam as the mixer instead of buying something since it has a mixing board built right into it.

DougC newbie question for you what exactly is real time effects?
I would assume they would be effects on a software program but then I'm new in the digital world and maybe assuming something totally wrong. I could use my analog effects as I layed down tracks but would probably want to add effects after the tracks were down.
I don't plan on doing any snyth type work on it.
 
Coming back onto this after a two-day gap.

Bass for software and soundcard a new thread would be the best way to go but IMO n-Track is a really great starting point, specially on old hardware. Take care that the latest version requires a little faster computer, so download one of the older versions and you should be fine. The price is dirt cheap so you should be fine to upgrade later on with hardware.I don't have any toher recommendations but I guess others could contribute.

At your kind of budget you could probably get something nice, an Audiophile 24/96 is a pretty good soundcard with excellent sound quality. I believe Lynx Two is also available near that price, and has some great converters too, better than the Audiophile as far as I've been led to believe. I use an SB Live! myself, due to the lack of quality hardware at a decent price in my country, the Audiophile sells for nearly 350 USD equivalent in my country as opposed to 160-180 street price in the US.

Real-time effects (since Doug hasn't responded) are effects that are applied in real-time, simultaneous to the sound input. Much like an effects unit, which is (more or less) real time. This in n-Track are the 'Live' playing that you find under the 'Live' Button. They are CPU hogs and require a combination of a very low latency soundcard and a fast CPU and mobo. Very taxing.
 
Thanks Sangram I will look into the sound cards you mentioned and go with ntrack as a starting point
Thanks for taking the time to educate me I'll let ya know how I make out.
 
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