Ableton Forum

sorry for my poor english ...

what do you think is the best choice for Live ?

i project to buy :

Athlon 64 3500 socket 939
Msi K8N Neo4 Platinum (NForce4)
2 x 512mo DDR 400 Kingston
HDD Western Digital Raptor (10000 t/m)

I also have a sound blaster audigy 2 platinium

I use VSTI like Battery 2 and Stylus RMX.

Do you think P4 is better for this ?

Thanks a lot

My AMD 64 works like a dream!! Go AMD you won't regret it

Definitely AMD64. It'll continue to run better as more applications are built for 64-bit support, whereas the Intel P4 will always be just another hot-clocking 32-bit intel chip.

where do you project buying your amd processor on the 939 chipset?
is there an online store where they sell them pre-fabricated? (built-systems)
I would love to get some recommendations on systems and resellers from you.
thanks!
tw

I've got an Athlon 64 3400+, not the best or the fastest, but clearly better and more stable than any Intel system I've ever used.

I'm planning on getting an Asus motherboard for 939 and an AMD 64 3000, I forget if I found cheaper prices at www.mwave.com or www.newegg.com

no need for preassembled, just make sure you get a processor for the right socket design!!

INMHO pretty much any processor these days will do the job. What I have noted for some time now is that folks who put together DAWs professionally tend to use the Intel 865Perl e motherboard and Intel P4 (whatever-ghz)e cpus. These are know for being rock solid. That is what I care about myself though I know there are faster configurations out there.

Hi, go AMD, no doubt about it, i have an AMD 64 3500+ 1GB RAM + 160 GB HD, and live 4, it works like a dream, AMD is by far better than any P4 setup i ever used, stable, smooth + fast.
im planning on buying a scope professional DSP soundcard, any suggestions??
cheers

www.beatslave.com

uh! forgot to tell you to check out www.cyberpowerpc.com thats where i bought my last 2 computers, they have a superb configurator to customize your PC and nice price tags! groovy!

Man... are there ANY dealers in the states with kickass prices like the Cyberpower site ... who actually ship outside the US???

UK prices are wank.

yea i've noticed that Cyberpower's machines are on average about $50-$100 more than i'd pay just for the same parts and build a given system myself. lowest markup i've found really.

with one exception,
their prices for the AMD 64 3700 are wack, the 3400 is the better buy with them.

kennerb wrote:INMHO pretty much any processor these days will do the job. What I have noted for some time now is that folks who put together DAWs professionally tend to use the Intel 865Perl motherboard and Intel P4 (whatever-ghz)e cpus. These are know for being rock solid. That is what I care about myself though I know there are faster configurations out there.

I've got Live 4 running on both an AMD 64/3200 (Asus mobo), as well as the above mentioned 865 PERL mobo with an Intel P4/3.4 (non-Prescott). The Intel arrangement is my main studio system, and it's absolutely ROCK SOLID. I run Sonar 3, Live 4, lots of plug-ins, and it all works great.

I have a Motu 2408 which is pretty picky about the chipset on the mobo; it doesn't like any sort of VIA chips. So, the Intel PERL has worked fine with it.

Beyond that, my main thought with AMD or Intel is that the Intel P4 (the Northwood, not Prescott...see this link: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13847) runs very cool. So, I can use a Zalman fan at the lowest setting, and the box is nearly silent. Intel doesn't use a fan on the PERL northbridge chip either, so the overall effect is low heat, quiet, yet a very powerful setup. My experience with the AMD is that it runs hotter, needs the fan cranked up, and most of the mobo's that host the AMD 64 use a fan on the northbridge/southbridge chips. Result is a noiser machine.

Performance-wise, I'm hard pressed to see much difference between the AMD and Intel. YMMV, but music apps in my experience are at least equally tied into RAM amount and disk throughput. So, my Intel PERL setup, with 1G of RAM and SATA drives, runs at least as fast as the comparable AMD 64 setup. Both are nice systems, and about $700 each through tigerdirect.com and/or newegg.com for parts. (actually, the Intel PERL is the better deal, the hype on 64 bit has driven the AMD 64 prices higher and the Intel P4 prices lower. I saved about $150 on the PERL system over the AMD)

Last comment: 64 bit is a ways out for us in the consumer marketplace. I use 64 bit OS's at work (IBM) quite a bit, and for the "typical" music app, it's not going to make much difference even if it's 64 bit app. At least, not until there is a solid base with the OS (for most of us, that's a year or two off with either Microsoft or Apple), tied in with a solid 64-bit app (almost all music vendor apps are 32 bit still)...both of these coupled with your willingness to upgrade RAM, CPU, and mobo (in other words, a new system). To really take advantage of the next leap in platform performance, you'll be looking at the PCI-X bus, and again, not many peripherals there.

There's certainly a sunny future ahead, but IHMO, buying an AMD 64 with the thought that you'll be supporting your new 64 bit OS on that same mobo might be a little optimistic. I believe the AMD 64 is a nice 32 bit chip, but unless you want to run a 64 bit Linux on your current system with the AMD 64 chip (and Live doesn't run on Linux...yet), I'd look seriously at the Intel PERL/P4 combination for rock solid performance and cost savings.

And this comes from a die-hard AMD enthusiast!

Tom

tom,
thank you for that excellent post.

you've helped me focus in on my next upgrade.

regards,
dp

something else to consider with AMD 64 vs. P4
if you are one of those people that either A) uses their computers ALOT, or B) leaves their computer on nearly all the time, at the end of the month, your electricity bill is gonna be more with a P4 system. They chew through power.
My old P4 system running all day (but off at night) cost me about $15 more a month in the power bill than my Athlon 64 does now.

Power Usage is certainly part of the bottom dollar and i save $180 a year with AMD. I reckon i'd save even more if i used the PowerNOW! speed stepping technology more often.

AdamJay wrote:something else to consider with AMD 64 vs. P4
if you are one of those people that either A) uses their computers ALOT, or B) leaves their computer on nearly all the time, at the end of the month, your electricity bill is gonna be more with a P4 system. They chew through power.
My old P4 system running all day (but off at night) cost me about $15 more a month in the power bill than my Athlon 64 does now.

Power Usage is certainly part of the bottom dollar and i save $180 a year with AMD. I reckon i'd save even more if i used the PowerNOW! speed stepping technology more often.

How do you measure this? And do you take total system power consumption into account? The idle power consumption between the 90nm AMD and P4 Northwood chip is about the same, and under load, while the power consumption for the AMD is a little lower, it runs a lot hotter. So, you may have a higher wattage cpu fan usage. I've got both CPU's, and this is the usual case.

AMD's Cool and Quiet is a nice technology though.

Tom