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AMD or Intel
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 11, 2005 20:28
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Well i came to point when i need to buy need box, there are couple of thoughts of mine and maybe someone will find better solution.
As far as i know new dual core AMD and Intel CPU's won't reflect full potential with audio editing since Dual Core are multi-tasking CPU's while Cubase and all inside of it would be counted as one task.(Let's hope i'm wrong).
So Dual Core would be waste of money
Now for CPU choise, Intel could be less effective than AMD when we compare two 64bit 3200+ and 3.2ghz, although new Intel 2mb cache working well with ddr2 up too 667 speeds and more while AMD stuck in ddr1 400 only.
My questions are.
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If someone have an idea whether dual core divide tasks, so Cubase can be dual task?
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If ddr2 667 much more efficient than ddr1 400?
3.
2mb cache versus AMD's 1mb or even less (depends on model), how does it affect me!
It would be easier for me to buy AMD since i have 1gb of DDR1 400 but i can sell it and get Intel with new ddr2 667 if it's way better.
Please answer only if you know the products i'm talking about, thanks and cheeers
  "there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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orange
Fat Data
Started Topics :
154
Posts :
3918
Posted : Nov 11, 2005 22:29
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hello wonka! you remember me!
i say 1 thing only!
fl project in previus cpu intel northwood 2.8 p4 with 2g 400mhz ram (single channel)had when playing the track had 80-99% performance!
same project with dualcore p4 3.0 and 2g ram 533mhz (single channel)has 60% performance on 1 cpu 2nd cpu is idle (overall performance is 35% in task manager both procesors in mind)
on amd 3800+ performance was 70-75% on 1 processor 35% on both
and on 4200+ was 50-55-60% on 1 processor
and 25-30% overall!! both with 2g ram 400mhz
what i witness was more crashes with amd processors but was faster for sure and some times alot faster!
pentim dualcore on the other hand was rock solid and i think more depantable i dint have so much my mind on the save and more on working !
to be honnest both have enougph horse power for music and im one of a cpu eater (i almost never export to audio  ) anybody that will by any of them will be happy i prefer pentium for the stability but amd is fine and realy faaast!
in price now pentium is a winner its cheap!!
orange
http://www.landmark-recordings.com/
http://soundcloud.com/kymamusic |
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orange
Fat Data
Started Topics :
154
Posts :
3918
Posted : Nov 11, 2005 22:30
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 11, 2005 22:49
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AMD 4200 costs twise as P4 3.2 2mb cache.
Anyway tell me why you use 2GB of ddr? I have 1GB ddr (dual it becomes 2GB) and i use at the end of project day around 50% free, there are also applications that free RAM. Anyway 1GB ddr is fine with me.
Thanks for the test, i will think about it. Basically i miss 15-25% CPU on AMD 3000xp with 1GB ddr 400. AND i'm person who bounce to audio alot, i work with audio mainly except of leads and basslines all comes to audio.
"there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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orange
Fat Data
Started Topics :
154
Posts :
3918
Posted : Nov 11, 2005 23:03
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Quote:
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On 2005-11-11 22:49, Willy Wonka wrote:
AMD 4200 costs twise as P4 3.2 2mb cache.
Anyway tell me why you use 2GB of ddr?
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cos i pay 1 and take 2 im lucky!
and single channel 2g runs more stable than 1g on dual channel in my eyes!! at least in music and particulary working with lots of vsti! but ofcourse i might be just mistaken!!
orange
http://www.landmark-recordings.com/
http://soundcloud.com/kymamusic |
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vajrasana
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
10
Posts :
95
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 12:32
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power mac g5 quad (dual-core),8G-ram.... and no problem! |
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 12:47
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Yay, and 90% of my applications won't work on MAC, i won't be able to play games or use cracked software. Moreover it's price will be 5 times as much as AMD or Intel when it's power not much better, THE only good thing about Mac is it's stability but as power computer it doesn't what it advertised. AMD and Intel processors totaly beat it.
8GB of RAM? I'm not sure but Cubase never require more than one 1GB so it will be total waste of money.
"there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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YANTRA
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
66
Posts :
166
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 22:04
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Quote:
"8GB of RAM? I'm not sure but Cubase never require more than one 1GB so it will be total waste of money"
In cubase manual it says that if you use too many vstis you should even consider 1,5gbs or 2gbs of RAM.
Flstudio works fine to me using 1gb RAM, not cubase. It crashes if you don't work exporting audio files!
LOL 8gbs RAM... indeed too much, not even free hehe
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orange
Fat Data
Started Topics :
154
Posts :
3918
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 22:40
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 22:47
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YANTRA, we deal with DDR, Double Data Rate, it means 1GB is actually 2GB. In my projects RAM never cross 800MB since i use offline processed audio files. So why do i need 2GB of DDR when i use 45% of 1GB? anyway it is matter of lazyness whether to export to audio and offline process or keep it as it is.
Orange, it is simple. Play your full project and press CTRL+ALT+DEL, view process named FL or whatever it called, see it's RAM usage and CPU overload. THEN decide whether you need it or not. It depends on your system and way you work, since FL Producer isn't flexible for CPU and RAM usage decreasing as Cubase i don't know what resources required for your tracks.
Anyway check it out, RAM shouldn' be a problem as far as i concern. Just learn FX and VSTi's you work with and know whether they needed as VST or audio.
Cheers
"there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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mlazar
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
54
Posted : Nov 12, 2005 23:48
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NO IT IS NOT!!!!!!
Look. You get a pitcher and a tub when you buy a box. The pitcher is easy to fill and is easy to get to, but the tub can hold a LOT more water, but you have to go all the way to the bathroom to trade the elements in the water for ones you need in the pitcher.
Your computer has three main places where memory lives. The first is the disk drive, where the swap file lives. don't think for a second you can get away with not having a swap; I can show you how to run windows with only taskman, explorer, and logic (NO OTHER PROCESSES) but you'll still have swap usage even if you TURN IT OFF! (rar!)
that being said, the next place for memory is on the sticks you buy (1G, 2G, 4G, 64G!) XP I believe you can address 4G with 32bit version and a boatload with the 64 bit; make sure your old LAP was built for 64 bit, it wasn't.
Finally, the cache memory on the chip is the last place where memory lives. This memory is MUCH MUCH faster (to an order of magnitude) than the memory on the stick and it is HERE where ANY and ALL mathematical computations take place.
so really you have a tub, a pitcher, and a two little tiny glasses where you actually drink and wiggle your finger in. This is called Cache memory, and it is broken down into Level 1 and Level 2 cache (little cup and a little bigger cup). The work is always done in the smallest cup.
So check it.. your little synthie is running math all day long. and the way the computer is laid out, all the stuff the chip needs will be stored in the L1 and L2 cache sections. What it can't store there for whatever reason, it will wait until the next motherboard cycle (the peak in your 400Mhz or whatever FSB) and move that piece of data to memory via the northbridge chip (I believe, Southbridge does things like USB and network)
After the memory gets full, or even once the operating system decides this data is too old to keep 'here', it will send it on down with each trip and exchange it for data the system needs right now.
so you are constantly taking trips back and forth from little cup to bigger little cup, to the pitcher, then the tub and back again.
The DDR2 stands for Double Data Rate. This means that when it is time in the motherboard cycle for the memory exchange, the cpu can do two things at that cycle, like a read and a write. or a write and a write, or a read and a read. so you don't get 2x the space, you just get two trips for the price of one. if one of those trips is a write and memory is full, you will still have to wait for data to be made available. This is really high-level. there are all sorts of tricks done to try and make it smooter from need-to-need but that's the jist.
So your biggest bottleneck in this whole deal regardless of how much memory you put in is still the hard disk and the data transfer rate that will provide for the system to keep up with demands. Think about starting here, then add the memory to alleviate the amount of trips all the way over to the disk.
But with what we do, memory is not the ceiling we all hit. it is straight arithmetic processing. Different synths have different needs, but most of them are optimized for either intel or amd. But if you do your homework and read some white papers, you will come to realize that the way AMD decided to take the Athlon compaed to Intel is way more radical. Instead of throwing new instructions to an already complex enough set of routines, AMD chose to further speed up the ones that already exist and make some new ones of their own to 'compete' with intel. But the key is in the old instructions, since there aren't too many shortcuts when asking for the square root of a seriously long polynomial. Google for yourself and you will understand.
However AMD seems to be lacking on the FSB (Front Side Bus) game, and this is where you will get the most help overall. since you will inevitably write to disk. Put your swap on a separate IDE channel. it helps a lot. So you have sys C on Primary master and another hard drive in secondary master. put the swap not on C, but D or E, whatever you address the other volume.
But Orange is right, 2 CPUs helps. Helps me, I use Nuendo and can see all sorts of activity. The games just use one.
oh and don't buy VIA. bad bad bad. stick with SIS or AMD for chipsets, nVidia is heard to be pretty solid but I wait a little with them also when they release something new. Tomshardware.com is an excellent resource.
I run a 2xAthlon MP 2600+ on a tyan thunder AMD 760MPX chipset. There are better chipsets out now, by AMD and nVidia.
Cheers to you and the hard work and time you put into your talent. All of you.  Hope this isn't too over the top.
-mky
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 13, 2005 00:02
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Well some of it make sense, really waited for person who knows all this shite to come over here.
Basically you say that Intel and AMD the same shite but again my question is, more cache, more FSB, newer memory, better memory speed are useless because AMD have better routes/shortcuts for processing than Intel ?
Do you mean dual core helps or dual CPU ?
Definitely i would buy NF4 chipset for AMD and surely not SIS.
"there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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mlazar
Started Topics :
4
Posts :
54
Posted : Nov 13, 2005 22:39
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Well it all helps. Memory is the fabric with which all computation is done--just matters how many times the cpu can run instructions until it has to go outside of itself for any information.
you work with sound so this will make sense to you. picture a sine wave, with the peaks hitting every 2 ghz (not 20khz which we can hear, much much faster.)
now picture another one, running at 266Mhz, or 200Mhz. When the peaks of these two sine waves intersect (when they peak at the same time) there is the opportunity for data transfer off the chip. Between the peaks, the cpu handles instructions at its rate of speed, until the time comes to do another transfer, or until the CPU is done calculating everything it can and HAS to wait for the FSB cycle for more data.
(this could be dated clock speeds since I only catch up with the speeds that everything is running when I'm in the market myself but the concept here is what's important--tomshardware has all the benchmarks you'll need)
Intel started quad-pumping the motherboard some time ago. This means that every 200Mhz, the CPU can send 4 bursts out to the system bus instead of just one or two like the 266 Mhz FSB (which is really a dual pumped 133). That's why they title it 800Mhz FSB. You only get this advantage when you fill up your box. All the slots for mem need 2 be full.
So if you have money to burn, an 800Mhz Dual Intel Xeon system may perform faster than a side-compared AMD system but you are going to pay for it.
One thing that caught my attention when specing out my dual proc was Cache Coherence.
definition: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/cache_coherence.html
When I was doing my research I found that when it came to coherency between the two chips, AMD's chipset architecture allowed for data in the L1 and L2 cache of the chips to be shared without going to the system bus for an exchange. Intel's board design required the use of the northbridge to do a memory exchange from chip-to-chip, this meant that if data has to get from one chip to the other, it had to wait for the next 200Mhz cycle to occur for the other chip to do its work. I found that a little disheartening, to say the least.
But it is up to you. One recommendation, keep it cool. cut holes in your chassis if you have to keep the air moving. dremels are your friend. And get a GOOD power supply. I recommend Zippy/Emacs, if you call their office they can find you a vendor close to you for you to crash-test the PSU. I went through 5 PSUs until the Emacs 600W made it through the entire windows boot process. the 650 was $20 more, so I use that.
Happy to answer any more questions.
-m
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Willy Wonka
Inactive User
Started Topics :
13
Posts :
574
Posted : Nov 13, 2005 23:02
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Thanks, now it makes sense bit more. I think i can't afford to get Xeon or to get Xeon model which will be faster than AMD/Intel non workstation CPU.
Thanks again, at least now i know what Cache stands for and a bit of differences in AMD versus Intel processing and routing.
"there once was a lesbian from Cancun
who took a young man up to her room
where there argued all night as to who had the right
to do what, how much and to whom" |
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Fu Hsi
Perfect Stranger
Started Topics :
5
Posts :
235
Posted : Nov 14, 2005 03:57
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Quote:
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On 2005-11-13 00:02, Willy Wonka wrote:
Do you mean dual core helps or dual CPU ?
Definitely i would buy NF4 chipset for AMD and surely not SIS.
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Researches I red state that Dual Core and Dual CPU have almost no differences in their abilities.
Be very careful when u buy NF4 tho. I dont remember the link, but on the RME-Audio site there is a serious warning about those boards since they started using the PCI-E format for the Display Adapter instead of the AGP. This slows down the chipset because of certain IRQ sharing with firewire ( has something to do with extended bandwidth for graphics function, that hurts the audio - especially I believe those that use firewire based audio cards )
I, without making 2 much research bought NF4 mobo and I have to say that there are some problems with the audio especially when i get really loaded with VSTi's ( I didnt pass the 70% yet tho heheh ) there are clicks on the low latency buffers. I have to go down to 23ms which is okay, there fore its bearable.
I would wait and see that there is some driver solution for that problem or buy the NF3 mobo with AGP slot for the Display Adapter
Generally about the Dual Core processors - it is amazing the stability, and in my opinion both of the cores are working simultaneously, or so at least it shows when I alt+cntrl+del
Do solve the bottle neck problem I would advise the somehow risky but effective way: Separate SATA C drive with the windows and all the program files and all your projects, wavs, etc on two SATA drives connected in Raid 1 ( which basically makes the two one drive that reads from both ends - i.e almost twice as fast ). The nasty shit about it is that u have to backup your projects from time to time, since if one drive out of two is gone all the raid is gone and all your stuff will be lost.
http://perfectlystrange.com |
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