P5P & AGP or something newer ?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 5:36 am

I'm in the market for a new DAW for my Pulsar-II and VSTis.

I'm a P4 sort of person, so am thinking of this:

Asus P5P800 i865PE
P4 3GHz '630' LGA775 800MHz FSB
2GB Corsair Twinx CAS2 3200 2-3-3-6
AGP Matrox 550 (from my old machine)
PATA drives

By not getting the absolute top of the line CPU I save a little and get good RAM instead.

But now I'm wondering whether I'm buying into old technology. Should I really look at dual-CPUs, the new video card formats, SATA drives, BTX board etc ?

I want something that'll keep my Pulsar-II happy, and also some hefty sample-based instruments in Sonar. But I don't want to stuff about forever getting it operational. With the above setup I know exactly what I'm getting...

Is there any advantage in researching the newer equipment ?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:20 am

Another system I'm thinking about... something like this:

Gigabyte K8NS AMD Socket939
2Gb PC-3200 CAS2 Corsair TwinX
AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ 64-Bit CPU, Dual-Core 2x 512K Socket939

The 512K cache on each core is not so great, but I read that the X2 AMDs are far better than P4s. Also this setup will let me use Sonar 5 in 64 bit mode (which I suppose is good

)

Will my Pulsar still be happy in this box though ? (I'm currently reading epic AMD thread on X2 here: http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... orum=19&19 )

EDIT: After reading that thread about Shayne's horror ride I think the P4 setup will do me nicely !

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2006-01-14 10:36 ]</font>

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 6:59 pm

Well, I also thought about the 64-bit dual Opteron 2x 1Mb cache. Blazing performance in Sonar. Ttrouble is I'll be wanting run some macromedia apps as well, and that doesn't seem so good.

So, for anyone reading my "dear diary" entries here, I'm ordering the P4 system and will think about a dual 64-bit system in a year or so (to replace my second system) when things settled down.

Post by **hubird** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 7:14 pm

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:24 pm

Well, that smiley just about wraps things up here then... Move on folks, no more to see.

DaveH · Post by **DaveH** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:07 am

This is just my experience. I have been building
my own systems for use in both an electronics lab
and recording studio use. (For quite a few years now).

I don’t get the top of the line CPU either because
you pay too much for that extra 5% speed.
=================================
This is me:

I prefer ASUS motherboards.

I prefer Intel over AMD, I have tried both.
One is better for awhile, then the other.
But I have had fewer problems with Intel over
the long term.

The SATA drives will make a difference.
If you need to push it, I have been very happy
with Raptor drives both used in singles as well
as raid mode.

I prefer corsair twinx match ddr ram.

Dual-CPUs working great for my Gigastudio 3 system.
Have had compatibility issues with certain programs in
the electronics lab. (I have a mix of both hyper-threading, and
dual cpu systems here). Proceed with caution if moving to dual core.

New PCI-express? I could be wrong but I don’t have anything
that is so “graphics” intensive that I need that. (I am not running
any intense video games on these systems. I am running
ATI radion 9800 cards with either 128k or 256k. I am also
a big fan of N-Vida cards. All of these cards are using an AGP slot.
128k in studio, 256k in electronics lab for circuit simulation package.
==================================================

Hope this is of some help. Again this is my experience.

Post by **garyb** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:02 am

i would use an intel d865perl and a 3.2 or 3.4ghz northwood. corsair twinx memory for sure....it's older but has all the features you could need and it's STABLE
if you prefer the newer stuff, the asus ASUS P5 WD2 Premium would be my first choice.

save $200-400 with the older setup and do about the same amount of work....

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:24 am

if you need high native performance @ low latency without dropouts, go for asus p5 wd2 premium (pci-express) and Intel D830...

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:02 am

...But I think you need a low-performing PCI-Express card for it to work until they fix the chipsets.

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:04 am

strange, I´m doing a whole native mix @ 4ms lantecy, mainboard and ati grafic out of the box

(nuendo3, asio2fltsource64/asio2dest)
this mix would´nt run on a 478/agp socket, even @ 25ms...

jonboyblue · Post by **jonboyblue** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:08 am

I've had a bit of a disaster in that my asus motherboard am7266 has died.

I was just looking at a replacement.

you suggest the asus p5p800 using pata drives but it only seems to have sata connections on the board. Is it possible to somehow plug pata's drives into sata connectors.

cheers

jonboy

Post by **garyb** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:18 pm

there ARE adaptors. i'm not sure what kind of perfoirmance hit there may be, if any.

at worst, you could use the adaptor to transfer data to new drives if nessessary.