Best Motherboard/CPU combonation?

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:02 am

well it seems that my ABIT NF7 finialy bit the big one. It boots up and mostly works but it is not seeing the network card or my soundcard anymore. I even tried reformating and it is a no go.

Sooooo this brings me to needing a new motherboard somewhat out of the blue. I was planning on waiting till the fall to check out the new Intel offering but now is the time. I was looking at the AMD 64X2 2200 and the AMD 64 bitX2 2400. The 2400 is much more expencive but it's cache is twice the size than on the 2200. But I dont know how much impact that will have on audio work. Anyone know about this?

As for motherboards and Intell I know very little and open to sujestions. I have to do this quicker than I would like so some advice would be great. I need three PCI slots to stick my UAD/Powercore/multiface cards in. And i own a AGP video card so if the motherboad has AGP that would be handy but not that big of a deal.

Thanks for your time.

detroitechno · Post by **detroitechno** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:46 am

Asus A8N SLi Premium with a 'toledo' athlon 64 X2 (4400+ or 4800+ models). It has proved to be an incredible combo. Slightly expensive, but amd's X2 chips are definitely beating the competition out in about 90% of all tests.

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:03 am

After rebuilding my broken computer from the ground up it seems to be working again. But why in hell would it just suddenly stop working? No virus, no spam. I dont get it at all. I don't trust this thing much but it is working. It is messing me up because if it where totaly dead I would feel fine buying new stuff. But as it is I dont know if it is the right thing to do.

*blech*

stinky · Post by **stinky** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:10 am

this may be a shot in the dark...

try resetting the bios.. either through the bios, or by removing the bios battery, and reattaching it (obviously when the computer's off)

you could also try updating the bios...

i'm also assuming that your network adaptor and soundcard are built it... otherwise, try switching pci ports..

if you installed a new card, you may have an IRQ conflict, which is rarer nowadays than "back in the day", but those are my first thoughts..

also, go to pricewatch.com to look for mobo combos with your required specs..

Louis · Post by **Louis** » Fri May 05, 2006 7:50 am

Mike Goodwin wrote: The 2400 is much more expencive but it's cache is twice the size than on the 2200. But I dont know how much impact that will have on audio work. Anyone know about this?

Thanks for your time.

I'd go with an AMD opteron dual core- it's only $30-40 more than it's respective X2 counterpart, and you get twice the cache and better silicon (better clockers too). I went with an opty 170 and asus a8n-e, so far it's a sick rig.

CWoodOne · Post by **CWoodOne** » Fri May 05, 2006 11:07 am

detroitechno wrote:Asus A8N SLi Premium with a 'toledo' athlon 64 X2 (4400+ or 4800+ models). It has proved to be an incredible combo. Slightly expensive, but amd's X2 chips are definitely beating the competition out in about 90% of all tests.

I'll second that! I have that setup with a 4800+ -- great performer!

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Fri May 05, 2006 4:54 pm

stinky wrote:this may be a shot in the dark...

try resetting the bios.. either through the bios, or by removing the bios battery, and reattaching it (obviously when the computer's off)

you could also try updating the bios...

also, go to pricewatch.com to look for mobo combos with your required specs..

Thanks for the tips they are good ones. But I did reset the bios. It did nothing. I got the computer working again by pulling out all the cards and putting them back in again one at a time. The messed up thing is that the only change I had made to the computer was changing the CPU fan. Nothing elts. Then it started acting up. Makes no sence to me.

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:12 pm

I'd go with an AMD opteron dual core- it's only $30-40 more than it's respective X2 counterpart, and you get twice the cache and better silicon (better clockers too). I went with an opty 170 and asus a8n-e, so far it's a sick rig.[/quote]

Interesting. I can get that optron chip for less cash than the athlon 64x2 4400. It seems that it has a much larger L2cache but has slower memory timing. It seems to me that memory timing is not that important with audio production unless your doing a ton of sampling with massive amounts of ram in play. I dont do allot of sampling so this is a non issue for me. The question then is.... Optron Dual core or the Athlon 64x2 4400. Anyone have any knowlage on this? I cant find any side by side benchmarks on this.

glu · Post by **glu** » Fri May 05, 2006 6:24 pm

Sorry I don't have any answers for you, but I am excited to see this run against an intel duocore on XP and OSX once live 6 comes out. I am super curious to see if there will be much difference. Sounds like it will be a smoking machine.

Have you been to the DUC (pro tools forum) ? The best desktop thread is basically a kit list for a super pro tools computer. Once LIVE 6 comes out, it would be cool if Ableton had a sticky for best PC configurations and results. The performance test thread is similar, but if you have seen the best PC thread on the DUC you know what I am talking about. This would be an easy way for someone to get a system perfect for Live.

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php? ... t=1#360675

meatfestival · Post by **meatfestival** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:18 pm

Apparently Intel's Conroe chips will work in many existing LGA 775 motherboards, so it might be worthwhile to get an Intel board and then upgrade to a Conroe chip later.

Actually, here's something that may be of interest to you:
http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/news.php?tid=593760

It's in chinese, but the board they are testing actually has an AGP slot, believe it or not.

Mike Goodwin · Post by **Mike Goodwin** » Sun May 07, 2006 10:01 am

well I built my new computer. I went with the AMD X2 4400. I have just started checking out how much faster than my old system it is. It looks to be ALLOT faster than my XP3200. I went with the 4400 because I could not find any solid info reguarding cache and audio processing but on a guess I felt that I would help with real time processing. I went with a ASUS A8V motherboard because I had to go with a non Nforce board to work with my UAD card. I decided to forget about the PCIe thing for now as I dont know if I will care that much over the next couple of years. For me a Powercore and 2-3 UAD cards is enough. I bought a rather sick case to put it all in

I also bought a very quite power supply with another blue 120mm fan that spins very slow. The cpu fan runns at about 1700-2700rpm and the two 120mm case fans run at 1300rpm and the one on the power supply is about 1300rpm as well. It is not silent but it is not loud by any means. I would recomend the case highly it is totaly sick. I wish in fact that my dual G5 had the dust filters that this case had!
As for performance I get 27% on the live performance test. But one has to remember is that this is using 27% of one CPU. I expect this number to drop almost in half when Live6 comes out. Well thats how it turned out Ill keep ya posted if there is anything exciting.

Louis · Post by **Louis** » Sun May 07, 2006 11:07 am

edit: never mind- you got your comp. Awesome rig! By the way, your sig is priceless!!!

Oh and by the way, go get the power now patch for your new dual core from amd's update site. Most of the stuff up there is gimmick useless drivers, but this one put a stop to some major cpu spikes and got things nice and stable for me in cubase and renoise.

Best Motherboard/CPU combonation?

Best Motherboard/CPU combonation?

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