CPU for audio work - AMD or Intel?

CPU for audio work - AMD or Intel?

Yeah yeah.. I know its not really a Hi-Fi question but if I go to the computer forums all I see is people saying what they have is better.. I trust you guys more

So, I have about £150 to spend on a CPU. My only concern is really audio work as what I have now does everything else just fine! (P4 Celeron clocked to 2gig)

Anyone who has actually used both?

What is best for audio work? Cubase SX VST plug-ins are the main thing that sucks the power

I know Intel are more reliable and run cooler but I have not been keeping an eye on computer stuff much so where is it at now? The reliability of AMD seems to be getting better I guess from the amount of people getting me to fix their computers!


Cheers,

 

With regard to the actual CPUs themselves there is no difference between Intel and AMD these days. AMD have always suffered from poor supporting chipsets giving the CPU a bad name which it never deserved. How many PCs have you ever seen where the CPU itself gave up the ghost? none I'm willing to bet. At least not in any systems that haven't been tampered with in some way.

In practice, I still think they are just as reliable as each other and on performance terms they seem to have slightly different strengths due to the different memory addressing architecture. Have you considered a MAC? Talking of which, given that none of the MACs have the same performance of a cheaper PC, (despite what all the blurb would like you to believe, independent tests have always shown MACs to be slower), but still manage to deal with audio applications perfectly well I'd say even a base level PC would be more than capable of handling your requirements.

GTM

GTM

 

Are you intending to plug the new processor in the existing PC?

Have you checked compatability? You might not be able to put anything different in at all.
I would check your manual for the motherboard specs first

 

Nah new MB as well! But they seem very cheep now about £60! The one I have now cost about £160!

I am begining to think the P4 Prescott looks good with its 1mb cash.

But then again you can egt a Xeon for about the same... no idea how much the mobo's cost though.

Hmmm...

Then again the AMD XP3000 is a lot cheeper!

 

Xeon boards cost loads

 

oopse, I meant the AMD 64bit Athlon!

 

Go for a CPU and motherboard that will accept fastest RAM.
Apart from that AMD or Intel doesn't come into it.

 

IIRC the Prescott version of the Pentium 4 cpu actually runs slower at the same speed as the older Northwood core (i.e. a 3Ghz Northwood is faster than a 3Ghz Prescott) despite the extra cache it has! In addition the Prescott core runs very very hot, far warmer than previous Pentium 4 cpus and warmer than pretty much every AthlonXP there ever has been as well. I'd get a Northwood rather than a Prescott myself given the choice

I recall Intel being the platform of choice for audio work, as as long as you stick to an Intel chipset (rather than SiS/VIAs offerings for the P4) they are still generally more reliable than the chipsets available for the AthlonXP. AMD have got more reliable though in recent times, but still lag behind in some areas - IDE (hard drive) performance for one, where the IDE drivers for the fastest and most popular AthlonXP chipset, the Nforce2, are generally pretty poor and have caused problems with slow hard drive performance and also with some cd writing applications.

Athlon64 is a relatively immature platform still, but offers good performance even in 32bit applications, and when 64bit software and a 62bit version of WindowsXP marrives it should be better still.

But I would be cautious, as there is about to be a socket change for this cpu which will limit any upgradability in future, and as an immature platform how good it will be for audio work/recording which can be pretty demanding remains to be seen. Try and ask around some of the more popular audio forums and see what users have found...

My 2p

 

Re: Re: CPU for audio work - AMD or Intel?

Seen corrections on this many times over the years, so thought I may as well do it here!! Mac owners get very picky about terminology, the reason they always state is as follows:

MAC = Media Access Control
Mac = Short for Macintosh

Sad but true As a side note I agree that Mac's are well worth a look these days with more people "switching" by the day.

 

tenson, can you wait ? pci express is just around the corner ...

personally i wouldn't consider building a new pc right now.

see here for example

 

WARNING , Geek & chips twice please

 

Tenson

Firstly almost all pro-audio work is done on a Mac although many project studios use PCs. Macs do work faster than most PCs but the real reason why designers and music artists use Macs is because they spend less time working out why things do not work properly; every PC is different and all Macs are the same.

If you want some advice from many Cubase and Logic users then go to www.soundonsound.com the best place to go for recording advice - and the magazine's technical editor and also the computer specialist also answer many of the questions posted.

The other thing that you can do is to find out about the PCs that SoundonSound rate and see what they use. They rate Carillon, Millenium, Red Submarine and Digital Village.

In my studios I have used Carillons for two years (running Cubase SX/Soundscape and various plugins) but am changing to Macs, especially now that Apple have bought Logic.

Dominic

 

yep tenson I'm waiting to should not notice ant difference in playback from the proc you are currently using, the newer procs seem to be able to convert files faster, but unless you are doing this all day everyday the time savings are negligible, I'm waiting for this 64 bit stuff to settle down and then I'm gonna decide.

P

 

You will get far more bang for your buck from AMD.

Get a reasonable speed XP (around 2500+) an nForce2 motherboard (AMD platforms are pretty solid these days especially the nForce) and most important of all around 1Gb of good solid ram. Now some may recommend ultra fast expensive Cosair ram but the differences are minimal especially if you are not into overclocking. Get yourself some good solid dependable Crucial ram direct from the Crucial Website -

http://www.crucial.com/uk/index.asp

Then get a nice fast hard drive at least a 7200rpm 8Mb cache job.

Dont worry about the future, this gear is so cheap in 18 months time you can junk the lot for something else.

 

No I can't wait

Besides I don't see how a faster PCI bus will speed up processing.

Okay, so to run a P4 with 800mhz FSB do you HAVE to run 400DDR? Or can I still run at 800mhz FSB with my current 333DDR?

I think I will go for a P4 not too sure to go for the Prescott or the nortwood though, I expect the double size cash will improve audio possessing performance more than the northwoods slightly faster benchmark performance.

I would go for a nice G5 Mac but I don't have the cash! Besides, its only the OS that makes them better now they run a Unix based system.

 

Well if you are going for Intel and want stability then maybe get an actual Intel motherboard to go with it. Will be as boring as hell to the techeads but there is nothing more boring than a pc that doesnt work properly. The Intel boards will be reference spec to the letter.

www.overclockers.co.uk stock Intel made boards.

 

Thanks for the help guys!

I have ordered...

2X - 512 DDR400

Asus P4P800S Motherboard

Intel Pentium 4 2.8 800fsb Prescott 1mg Cache

I hope it will cope with the audio processing.. If it doesn't then I guess I'll just have to get a G5 and a full pro-tools rig with control 24 and.. *stops to wipe drool away*

I wish I had a rich uncle or something!

It's amazing how much power audio work takes up when you start adding all the VST plug-ins with guitar distortion effects, reverbs, multi-band compressors, EQ, *Auto-Tune etc…

The reason I went for the Intel is because it seems they do better on the encoding side of things so I hope they will also be better at the algorithms for the audio processing. Plus the 1mb cash will always be good.

 

Just out of interest, in contradition to previous comments, I have read the Prescott P4 is substantially faster than the equivalent Northwood P4. I ended up settling for a 3.2 Ghz Northwood as the Prescott was in short supply when I ordered my Inspiron 9100. Yes the Northwood is fast, but the Prescott appears to be genuinely zippy.

 

i've got an athlon 900 based system, at work, that does just fine... that's for straight audio though

i tend to favour intel, beacause the chipsets are more solid. Athlon64 is a bit of a non-starter right now, until the socket 939 is out it's not worth investing in.

that said, i've moved from a P4 3GHz to a G5 1.6, (yeah it's got an extra gig of ram, but ) and haven't looked back.

 

Depends what for....the Prescott is faster at media encoding at the same clockspeed (thanks to the extra cache over the Northwood), but a Northwood is faster for most other things