Heartland

In general which processor performs best? Intel or AMD?

Our new PC will mainly be used for music and videos.

Which processors will handle this best?

Not looked into this for a while, but I'm not aware of any huge differences these days.
The main thing is to get the overall balance of the thing right between chip speed, enough RAM (1GB or more), and decent video and soundcards - not the built in on board ones which are cack if you want to use sequencer packages or such like.

Much of a muchness I reckon. CPU speeds are quite silly these days anyway. Even my ageing 2-year old Athlon 64 can crunch through heavy FFT work in stupidly fast times. Fur intensive audio or video editing, disk speed is probably more likely to be your bottleneck.

If you can have a DualCore processor, do it. It performs great with audio.
And invest in a good audio card for the audio. A mean PC machine with a s**t audio card still gets you nowhere

IZ.

We need a tech board for Robert.

We're looking at this one:

Matrix² 4200+
Key Features:

Amazing Value Home/Office Multi Media PC
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center
Free Upgrade to Genuine Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlonâ„¢ 64 4200+ AM2 Processor
with HyperTransportâ„¢ Technology
ASUS PCIe Mainboard - nForce 430Chipset
1024MB DDR2 Memory
Now with 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
512MB nVIDIA Geforce 7300GS Graphics
19" Widescreen TFT LCD Display
Sony 18x Super Format DVD Writer
5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio
8 USB, 2x Firewire, GB LAN
Logitech Cordless KB & Optical Mouse
Classic Warranty-3 Years parts & lab.

Clicky

Dark wrote:We need a tech board for Robert.

here! here!

Looks good

I guess this is a DualCore processor, with all the '2's flying around and stuff...

Also, SATA HDs are a must, don't settle for anything lower than 10,000RPM in any case. It will feck up your audio when you are going for the serious business (hence probs with pro audio on laptops sometimes; the HD is too low in RPM, resulting in clicks and pops).

For the rest, here my PC savvy ends.

The REALLY technical details are for Scottie

IZ.

Oh, and DON'T do the upgrade to Vista! (yet!)

It is too instable (read: secure) to handle (semi)pro audio and video handling...

Do it next year or so, when there are only 25 percent of the bugs left

IZ.

Izzy HaveMercy wrote:Oh, and DON'T do the upgrade to Vista! (yet!)

It is too instable (read: secure) to handle (semi)pro audio and video handling...

Do it next year or so, when there are only 25 percent of the bugs left

IZ.

Totally agree with Izzy on the Vista front, also, the audio on the spec listed does look like an on board (chipset) job which as mentioned will never do the job if you want to do your own recording.
Best looking at an upgrade to a decent one,
Nice little tool here - http://www.recordingreview.com/soundcard/

Thirded on Vista. It's not worth it at all, XP is more than capable of handling anything you want to do for the foreseeable, and there's no reason to upgrade until you absolutely have to.

Does look nice though...

Anyhoo...

I think that graphics card shares with your main memory, so it might not be be the best option. Likewise, XP MCE is only of use if you actually want a Media Center in the first place. If you've no intention of watching or recording off telly on it, XP Pro is probably a better bet.

For some reason Mesh only seem to be selling these Media Center things... Mum wants Mesh, if I was paying, I'd have a say

I'd suggest going with Intel Processors, as most DAW softs are engineered to work with them. AMD processors heat up like you wouldn't believe, although it seems to have gotten better recently. But still, I've had so many problems with my former AMD's that I wouldn't ever recommend them again to anyone. Intel costs a bit more but it's worth the extra expense. Third, if you go with an AMD right now, chances are you'll have to wait a while to get your computer, as the company is behind in its stocks ever since they landed a contract with Dell. I'm not saying that will be the case, but it might. Last piece of advice : get more RAM. You can never have enough RAM. Think of your processor as a sports car (well, the fast ones) and the RAM as the racing track they're on. The question is : how is your sports car going to peform to the height of its abilities when it runs out of track before leaving the garage? The inevitable result will be a blown engine (read : an overheated processor with all the nasty consequences).
Concerning OS, I agree with everyone here to NOT use Vista (yet). XP will do fine and if possible, cancel every process that is unnecessary. The PC should be entirely dedicated to the audio stuff. Of course, we can't all do that, so you'll just have to make choices here, but uninstall and disable as much as you can get away with. There are a lot of sites dedicated to optimizing XP's performance; so Google around (I would have linked some, but my Favorites page was recently erased and the backup wasn't up to date, which I didn't expect to happen).
Rules of thumb for audio : first thing you should do is to shut down the on board sound chip in BIOS, to avoid conflicts with your other audio. Second : kill all the really cool graphic stuff, like transparency, dropped shadows on icons and the mouse pointer, desktop background etc. Kill them, kill them all, for they eat up valuable processor power. Third : make sure in your processor scheduling that the priority goes to the background processes. If you've got this, you're halfway to a decent audio recording PC. The other half, IZ already covered. The things I'm talking of I learned the hard way, and I don't wish it on anyone else, because theses things caused me A LOT of frustration and sleepless nights when I started doing this.
By the way, IZ : my songs were recorded on 7,200 RPM SATA disks. Does that devalue them for you now?

I've been a long time AMD user, but hey, Intels Core 2 Duo CPUs look very interesting.

Keep in mind that this year might be the breakthrough for 64 bit processors, application-wise.

Jan

Ahráyeph wrote: Concerning OS, I agree with everyone here to NOT use Vista (yet). XP will do fine and if possible, cancel every process that is unnecessary. The PC should be entirely dedicated to the audio stuff. Of course, we can't all do that, so you'll just have to make choices here, but uninstall and disable as much as you can get away with. There are a lot of sites dedicated to optimizing XP's performance; so Google around (I would have linked some, but my Favorites page was recently erased and the backup wasn't up to date, which I didn't expect to happen).

http://www.musicxp.net/

By the way, IZ : my songs were recorded on 7,200 RPM SATA disks. Does that devalue them for you now?

Of course not. But it explains why they sound only 3/4th of the speed I would like to hear , no, as long as the SATA is there, it is not really a problem. SCSI is also a beaut, but not always within reach of everyones budget.
But I know from that same s**t OWN experience that a slower HD tends to cause clicks, due to the slower startup whe searching 'somewhere on the HD'.
Ah, another tip. Make a special partition on your HD for your audio only. But it will be somewhere on that site I gave you

IZ.

You got to admire Ahráyeph, if anyone is going to take a subject and then write and entire thesis on it, it's gonna be him/ her. Cracking stuff, after all the self importance and waffle he does finally get to the point, sometimes

Anyway, in a straight up fight between Intel/ Amd ? I'd go for AMD, purely on a personal level. Used them since I first ever got a P.C ( By eck lad thats going back through time, I tell thee - ten years and counting, me thinks) Never had a problem. Fast, sexy and gets the job done - the same way I like my women ..hi oooooh

Well that's my two cents worth.. AMD my boy AMD

Ramone wrote:You got to admire Ahráyeph, if anyone is going to take a subject and then write and entire thesis on it, it's gonna be him/ her. Cracking stuff, after all the self importance and waffle he does finally get to the point, sometimes

Yeah, well I DO look quite girlie and self important in that avatar, don't I? Well, as we know from another thread, hardly anyone can live up to your standards of excellence, and possibly eloquence, can't we. At least my eyes don't fail me yet.

And here I thought I was just trying to help out...

Ahráyeph wrote:

Ramone wrote:You got to admire Ahráyeph, if anyone is going to take a subject and then write and entire thesis on it, it's gonna be him/ her. Cracking stuff, after all the self importance and waffle he does finally get to the point, sometimes

Yeah, well I DO look quite girlie and self important in that avatar, don't I? Well, as we know from another thread, hardly anyone can live up to your standards of excellence, and possibly eloquence, can't we. At least my eyes don't fail me yet.

And here I thought I was just trying to help out...

As opposed to some HL members in the past and present, Ramone is not really a troll, he's more of an Angry Leprechaun. It is his way of being sarcastic.

Concerning audio, the only thing he knows about are the ROGIs of Ramones singles

Someone asked for advice on computers MAINLY used for audio and video ends. ARF gave it to the best of his knowledge. Something else than witty one-liners and off-topic drivel for a change.

I'd sooner take ARFs word on audio stuff than someone elses, heck, I would rather believe HIM than myself on the matter

IZ.

I've been using AMD for about a year now - runs perfectly.

As has been mentioned, AMD and Intel are pretty much identical in terms of speed/performance these days.

And I'd back up what people are saying about not "upgrading" to Vista - do you really want to do Microsoft's beta testing for them? Chances are that your machine will be very buggy for at least a year until Vista is patched properly.

And after that it'll just be buggy because it's Microsoft.

Oh, and I'd second that request for a "Technical Boys" section on MyHeartland!

[quote="Izzy HaveMercy"][quote]

As opposed to some HL members in the past and present, Ramone is not really a troll, he's more of an Angry Leprechaun. It is his way of being sarcastic.


LMAO..Couldn't of put it any better myself, nice one Izzy

My AMD chips seems to run excessively hot, and with the daytime temps sitting above 30 degrees C at the moment that means the fans are running very fast and very loud which is no good for audio.

hallucienate wrote:the fans are running very fast and very loud which is no good for audio.

I had concerts like that once!

Sorry. Too good to let it pass by...

IZ.