motherboard/cpu combo for sound
I'm going to be upgrading my machine soon. I wondered if there's anyone here who follows the hardware market better than I do, and has an opinion about what's a good buy at the moment.
I'd also be interested in what people would get if price were no object, although that isn't exactly the case with me. And in predictions about how much better a machine I can get for less in 6 months.
One of the applications that seems to want more horsepower than I currently have is hard disk recording. Timidity (which I use frequently) also seems to sometimes want more than it can get from my current machine.
I've heard people say (not in the context of sound applications) that the Celeron processors are pretty cost-effective these days.
Signature · 3 lines
Laura (mailto:[email protected] , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
Quoted 9 lines · Laura Conrad
I'm going to be upgrading my machine soon. I wondered if there's anyone here who follows the hardware market better than I do, and has an opinion about what's a good buy at the moment.
I'd also be interested in what people would get if price were no object, although that isn't exactly the case with me. And in predictions about how much better a machine I can get for less in 6 months.
Well... if price is not an object then I'd load up with a nice fat 1GHz Athlon. (You'll need to wait about a month or so to get one.) As far as waiting goes, you'll be able to pick up a 800MHz Athlon in about a month for less than I paid for my 550MHz one month ago.
But... if price *is* an object, and you're looking for bang-for-the-buck, I'd suggest a celeron (although I despise Intel) or an AMD K6-II or K6-III. I previously used a K6-II-350 and it worked GREAT for hard disk recording. Midi? I don;t know anything about that. I never use it.
regards,
-Paco
If price wasn't a problem for sure I would go with an SMP system, and with the AbitBP6(?) motherboard you can even get an economic dual Celeron system. Linux 2.4 will have a vastly improved SMP functionality and stability and without knowing particular details I would expect multiple CPUs to handle time critical pieces better than one CPU that must deal with everything, eg. sound recording.
Otherwise I agree that an Athlon system now is the way to go, and I would rather go with that than a single CPU Celeron. In any case, when you have set your budget and found out how much you want to spend on the mobo+CPU subsystem, if comparing Celeron and Athlon, the Athlon is faster for the same CPU-speed and I don't know of any issues with regard to sound (the Athlon has/had some issues with some video-cards as far as I remember).
In any case, anything but Celeron and Athlon should be avoided due to both pure performance and price/performance issues.
Peter
Quoted 25 lines · Paco
Quoted 9 lines · Laura Conrad
I'm going to be upgrading my machine soon. I wondered if there's anyone here who follows the hardware market better than I do, and has an opinion about what's a good buy at the moment.
I'd also be interested in what people would get if price were no object, although that isn't exactly the case with me. And in predictions about how much better a machine I can get for less in 6 months.
Well... if price is not an object then I'd load up with a nice fat 1GHz Athlon. (You'll need to wait about a month or so to get one.) As far as waiting goes, you'll be able to pick up a 800MHz Athlon in about a month for less than I paid for my 550MHz one month ago.
But... if price *is* an object, and you're looking for bang-for-the-buck, I'd suggest a celeron (although I despise Intel) or an AMD K6-II or K6-III. I previously used a K6-II-350 and it worked GREAT for hard disk recording. Midi? I don;t know anything about that. I never use it.
regards,
-Paco
I should note that I have a BP6 and while it is great while its working (for days on end) its bios is known to be flakey and can cause problems for some people (who feel that stability is on the month time scale). I don't want to go on and on since this is a sound mailer but check www.bp6.com before you buy a bp6. There's a mailing list too.
Quoted 14 lines · Peter Leif Rasmussen
If price wasn't a problem for sure I would go with an SMP system, and with the AbitBP6(?) motherboard you can even get an economic dual Celeron system. Linux 2.4 will have a vastly improved SMP functionality and stability and without knowing particular details I would expect multiple CPUs to handle time critical pieces better than one CPU that must deal with everything, eg. sound recording.
Otherwise I agree that an Athlon system now is the way to go, and I would rather go with that than a single CPU Celeron. In any case, when you have set your budget and found out how much you want to spend on the mobo+CPU subsystem, if comparing Celeron and Athlon, the Athlon is faster for the same CPU-speed and I don't know of any issues with regard to sound (the Athlon has/had some issues with some video-cards as far as I remember).
Quoted 34 lines
In any case, anything but Celeron and Athlon should be avoided due to both pure performance and price/performance issues.
Peter
Quoted 25 lines · Paco
Quoted 9 lines · Laura Conrad
I'm going to be upgrading my machine soon. I wondered if there's anyone here who follows the hardware market better than I do, and has an opinion about what's a good buy at the moment.
I'd also be interested in what people would get if price were no object, although that isn't exactly the case with me. And in predictions about how much better a machine I can get for less in 6 months.
Well... if price is not an object then I'd load up with a nice fat 1GHz Athlon. (You'll need to wait about a month or so to get one.) As far as waiting goes, you'll be able to pick up a 800MHz Athlon in about a month for less than I paid for my 550MHz one month ago.
But... if price *is* an object, and you're looking for bang-for-the-buck, I'd suggest a celeron (although I despise Intel) or an AMD K6-II or K6-III. I previously used a K6-II-350 and it worked GREAT for hard disk recording. Midi? I don;t know anything about that. I never use it.
regards,
-Paco
Brian Todd
email: [email protected] home: (216) 791-2407 office: (216) 368-4209 fax: (216) 368-4969
Paco> On 23 Feb 2000, Laura Conrad wrote:
>>
>> I'm going to be upgrading my machine soon. I wondered if there's >> anyone here who follows the hardware market better than I do, and has >> an opinion about what's a good buy at the moment.
Many thanks to everyone who responded to this. The new machine is up and running (mostly). I got an Athlon 750 with 128M of memory, and an SBLive soundcard.
I haven't yet tried to make it do anything that the old soundcard couldn't, but the Mandrake 7.0 install worked fine for everything the old soundcard does. (I've given up on configuring MIDI, and just use Timidity instead.)
Signature · 3 lines
Laura (mailto:[email protected] , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ ) (617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139