Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4 HT?

[CaptainAdultDiapers]

The Athlon 64's also have a unified memory controller on the processor giving them superior memory performance. The 64 bit thing is important but P4's and Athlon's already have a 64 bit fsb so the performance change might not be as siginificant as everyone thinks.

I however will always use Intel architecture's because they tend to be more stable then AMD's.

I think eventually every processor will support a HT like technology too so buying a P4 HT 800 fsb isn't a bad idea because you would be on the leading edge of a sustaining technology.

You might go to the Steinberg website forums. I am sure they talk about this a lot.

[drliebs]

The whole AMD stability issue is a thing of the past IMHO. There haven't been any major issues since the release of the K6-2. There IS however the issue of the different chipsets and incompatibility with some audio hardware. This can be experienced with Intel too if you get the wrong chipset as my friend who bought a Lexicon Core found out with his PIII VIA combo. I am running a PIV but I would not be afraid to go with an AMD again ( I had a K6-2 500MHz and an Echo Audio GINA and it ran great).

If you really want to get down and dirty look up Tom's Hardware Guide http://www.tomshardware.com/

Here is an article reviewing the two camps
http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040106/index.html[/i]

[CaptainAdultDiapers]

Yeah, just a disclaimer....

I say Intel is more stable because they are used exclusively by most OEM's and because of reviews and comparisions that I have read in the past (all from non-audio websites like www.anandtech.com and www.tomshardware.com).

I also work at intel in the chipset validation department and deal with this on a daily level but I could give a shit if you by intel or not.

[dynomike]

Wow, have you guys seen the AMD Opteron multiprocessor systems that someone mentioned earlier?

You can get 2- 1.4 ghz opteron processors for around $250/ea and that tyan k8w motherboard for also $250 and that would be a KICK ASS system.

Those chips are 64 bit and run at 1.4ghz FSB. ... kicks the shit out of any other PC cpu I've seen.. all the opteron cpus run at their fsb speed (up to 2.2 ghz)

I needn't really have asked the "dual or 64 bit" question, this is obviously an affordable way to have both. The faster opteron cpus are still ridiculously priced, up to $1000 for the 2.2 ghz.

Has anyone actually tried one of these workstations? The AMD site claims they are actually designed with media production in mind.

[CaptainAdultDiapers]

Here is a link to benchmark comparisons of several modern CPU's using Nuendo. Although mixdown's aren't exactly what we are looking for it is an example of the type of operations we do with audio engineering.

http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040 ... 00-26.html

[melloman]

I use a P4C 3.0 gig on a Q10, and I have an Intel D865PERLK board (firewire, USB2, SATA RAID, Gigabit LAN, Dual DDR) and this board is a favorite on the Cakewalk Sonar forum. Hardware and software compatibility is not an issue, and the machine is rock solid.