the P4 or AMD 64 decision is killing me! help!

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RyantFromHC

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Alright i record music, mainly audio, not really synths except for a metronome and an ocasional drum synth track to help me get an idea out.

I use 2 Delta sound cards (a 66 and a 44, and use all 10 ins)
i use Sonar 3 Producers edition (which has that hyperthreading support)

I was looking at the P4 extreme edition or AMD Athlon64+ 3500+ socket939

Which way should i go? M-audio has the 64 bit drivers, sonar has the hyperthreading support. AMD is faster.

Would the p4 hyperthreading support in sonar be faster then the athlon64?

SOmeone told me that going p4 would be better because its more reliable and when companies test their products (this was a guy at a music store so im assuming audio prodcuts) they usually test on intel the most and do much less testing if any on amds. Is this true or a real issue?

HELp this decision is killing me and i really need to upgrade as soon as possible.

thanks

edit:
alright i think ive made a decision as for what to get for my computer upgrades. Heres the list, tell me what you guys think, and if i may run into any problems or anything

MSI K8T Neo2-FIR
AMD Athlon64+ 3500+ socket939
Kingston 512MB(PC3200) DDRAM x 4
 
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The Extreme Edition is a shit load of money.

I haven't used one, but I would assume that that extra cash could better be spent somewhere else in a recording setup.

Just a normal hyperthreading P4 should be fine.

I don't use AMD so I don't know much about them.

As for the RAM...Kingston? Do youself a favor and get some quality stuff. If you are going top of the line, then shell out for a couple quality sticks.

Even lower to mid level Corsair will toast Kingston in the stability realm.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-505&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-480&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-474&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-436&depa=1
(just a couple examples, you will have to check if they fit the motherboard voltage wise)
 
RyantFromHC said:
I use 2 Delta sound cards (a 66 and a 44, and use all 10 ins)
i use Sonar 3 Producers edition (which has that hyperthreading support)

I was looking at the P4 extreme edition or AMD Athlon64+ 3500+ socket939
Click to expand...

If it was me I'd got for a regular HT P4 on a nice overclockable Asus P4x800 mobo with i865 or i875 chipset.
You really pay top dollar for that extreme edition. I have no experience with amd, Intel has worked well for me.

Just out of interest, how do you sync the 44 & 66 cards? I have the 44 and it's got no s/pdif
 
AMD, no contest.


AMD 64s do just about the same thing the P4s can for less.

Hyper threading might be great, but thats only if the software supports it, which at the moment not many do.
 
LRosario said:
AMD, no contest.


AMD 64s do just about the same thing the P4s can for less.

Hyper threading might be great, but thats only if the software supports it, which at the moment not many do.
Click to expand...

the AMD 64 is even faster then the P4 extreme HT check benchmarks on the net....so the AMD is a no brainer, the superior Floating Processing makes it much more ideal for audio then the P4 too
 
one thing i would at least check if i were you is to make sure that the MSI board you chose can hold 4 stick of 512 RAM at the clcokspeed you want. When i was ordering my computer, a tech told me to go with the ASUS board because even though MSI's could hold 4 slots, they fail to tell you that the 4th slot has to be smaller if you wan tthe same clockspeed like 128 MB. I have no idea if there is any truth to this at all but just something to take note of.

Also since you are spending all of this cheese on a new computer, what graphics card do you have? drawing all of those waveforms in real time can be surprisingly taxing on an old graphics card. If you have integrated graphics or something, it may be wise to get someting like a Radeon 8600 or something to improve performance.
 
minofifa said:
one thing i would at least check if i were you is to make sure that the MSI board you chose can hold 4 stick of 512 RAM at the clcokspeed you want. When i was ordering my computer, a tech told me to go with the ASUS board because even though MSI's could hold 4 slots, they fail to tell you that the 4th slot has to be smaller if you wan tthe same clockspeed like 128 MB. I have no idea if there is any truth to this at all but just something to take note of.

Also since you are spending all of this cheese on a new computer, what graphics card do you have? drawing all of those waveforms in real time can be surprisingly taxing on an old graphics card. If you have integrated graphics or something, it may be wise to get someting like a Radeon 8600 or something to improve performance.
Click to expand...

this is the board i would be getting
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8T_Neo2-FIR&class=mb

it seems to me that it does support 4 chips of 512, but can someone check for me?

thanks

edit: i have a ati rage pro or somthing, somthing cheap but it doesnt seem to have problems,,, i dont think, sometimes its choppy when recording a lot of tracks but its not too bad, it will soon be getting the ati radon 7400 from another computer in my house though so i can have multipul monitor support
 
Granted that MSI is the only motherboard company I have used, I like them.

One small little thing that I like...(my friends are too lazy to check if their brand of board have this)...is that in my BIOS I can set a mouse click as my power on button. Just small thing that makes it cool to me. MSI has my vote.

As for Ram?

Mine has to have the same size sticks in slots 1 & 3 and the same size in 2 & 4.

Can't see why it would have to be smaller in just 4.
 
Outlaws said:
One small little thing that I like...(my friends are too lazy to check if their brand of board have this)...is that in my BIOS I can set a mouse click as my power on button. Just small thing that makes it cool to me. MSI has my vote.

.
Click to expand...
Where in the BIOS can you select that feature?
 
Teacher said:
Where in the BIOS can you select that feature?
Click to expand...


->Power Management

->Set Wake-up Events

->Mouse Power On


You can also set it for a keyboard key.


I think the function is slightly mis-placed, as its not as much a wake up, but anyhow...technicallities...
 
If it was me..i would go with.................................

AMD


It will save you some bucks for other important items like...power supply...hard drives...you know...other less important stuff ;)

But..honestly...it wont matter unless you are a human calculator and clock and can tell if the computer calculated something in .1850978304957073456ns or in .1850978304957073457ns !


don't skimp on ram or hard drive speed (7200rpm at least....I hear 10k rpm SATA RAID 0 in my head)

Get a faster graphics card....it will help knowing that your cpu is working rather then your video card being crappy and taking forever to draw wavforms.
 
biggest tip i can give anyone building a daw rig is to overspec the power supply. otherwise often what happens is folks add more and more peripherals
thus putting more and more strain on a cheapo power supply , and thus if the processor doesnt get proper power.....well you get the idea....
hic hic hiccup........
 
manning1 said:
biggest tip i can give anyone building a daw rig is to overspec the power supply. otherwise often what happens is folks add more and more peripherals
thus putting more and more strain on a cheapo power supply , and thus if the processor doesnt get proper power.....well you get the idea....
hic hic hiccup........
Click to expand...

would this be a good choice for the power supply? http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=3&pr_name=ZM400A it would work with the amd64s right?

edit: also, am i likely to run into a problem if the ram i plan on using isnt on the qualified ram list of the msi motherboard? The list for this board doesnt have any brands i can get my hands on ...http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms/k8tneo_ddr400_recommended.asp
 
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can someone tell me if this motherboard supports dual channel ddr?

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8T_Neo2-FIR&class=mb

they have the multi coloured ram slots which i thought meant dual channel or somthin, but then i looked at the specs of a nvidia chipset board they have and they say dual channel ram in the memory specs while this one doesnt say it.

THanks, also if anyone can read my post above from last night
 
Hi RyantFromHC, and all.

I too am having the same dillema trying to choose between:

Athlon64 3200+
Pentium4 3.2Ghz (Northwood)

Both these CPU's are the same price here in Oz, so the decision has become harder.

Benchmarks tell me AMD64 is better for games and some content creation apps, but P4's are better for audio/video work.

Mind you, on this forum and a couple of other audio-related forum's I've read, people are saying the Athlon64 for audio workstations (which is what mine will primarily be) are fantastic, and much better than the P4.

Can anyone tell me WHY the Athlon64 is better than the P4 for DAW?

I use Sonar, Reason and your standard audio apps... and I use quite a few plugins and a lot of audio files as well.

Thanks!!!

(And good luck with your decision RyantFromHC!)
 
ryant. things change sooo rapidly in the computer biz that a recommendation i might one week might be wrong the next. on the power supply. best just to email the power supply manufacturer and tell them what you plan NOW and to ADD IN THE FUTURE on a system and ask if the power suply is up to the task.
same with motherboard COMMUNICATE with the motherboard manufacturer and outline your plans. ive found manufacturers most helpfull in the past.
its also a good way to test tech support response times before you buy.
i used to do this all the time when making big computer purchases for large companies. ie: testing tech support. you want to know if you do get a prob in the future that you get quick customer service.
if were me i would keep it simple. amd or intel system with a couple of
fast hard drives. nothing in the pci slots except the sound card and grow from there.
 
imperia - i'm admittedly biased to amd. but both intel and amd will do lots of tracks with modern processors. a good no bs test - JUST DO THE BENCHMARK YOURSELF is to run an editor with a noise redn feature in like the old cool edit 96 or sound forge or even audacity on both amd and intel.
record 3 minutes of junk audio then sample a piece as a noise print and apply to the whole track ie noise reducing the whole track.
then TIME ON A WATCH how long it takes. its not a perfect test BUT it makes the processor work through every single 2 byte sample of the audio file. so imho its a pretty good test of a processor.
best time i heard was from someone in the states who tells me an amd 64
took 1.75 secs using sound forge editor which is superb. most processors ive tried take at least 15 secs.
but if you feel more comfort going intel you will still do tons of tracks.
 
Yeah I'm leaning toward AMD64! :) My current rig is an AthlonXP 1700+ with MSI motherboard (which has served me very very well), and that's done me well... was just wondering if a P4 would in fact be better. Seems though that alot of people are very happy with their AMD64 DAW's. :)

Although this benchmark (as one example) http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/prescott-16.html, http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/prescott-17.html shows that the P4 clearly outdoes the AMD64 in audio processing tasks.. I wonder if that would translate to tracking work too... hmm.

Ah decisions...

I guess one extra benefit of the AMD64 is that when 64-bit apps come out, I'll be ready for them... although maybe by that time it will be time to upgrade again anyway... ahh love technology!!
 
imperia if you go to the cakewalk site apparently lots of interesting
amd benchmarks - also at the nuendo site if i remember.
but from everything i read and hear right now about daw users.
dual amd opteron is king (one report said 200 tracks ! yikes !!),
followed by amd 64.

if were me i might hold fast and wait till amd 64 pricing comes down a bit.
another option is to look at the specs of your amd motherboard and see if you could put in it a more powerfull athlon without going the 64 route.
run a test at a dealers as it were. and see if there is any real benefit to do a simple upgrade with bit more powerfull athlon/barton.
yikes - things change soo fast even i cant keep up !!
 
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