PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

i'm reading a lot about hardware configs (in combination with scope cards).

but narrowing it down to cpu's, which would be the best choice , Intel or AMD, singlecore or X2/dualcore ? (reliability, temperature management etc.)

i know this question has (indirectly) already been asked, but maybe some more members have usefull opinions

cheers

evdb

Go for an Intel, the rest is only compatible.
That doesn´t mean that everything isn´t running on an AMD but with Intel you are on a safer side.

Personally I prefer AMD single core for speed and reliability (the 1MB cache chips especially are incredibly fast).

If you get a reliable chipset (Nforce3) there are no problems at all.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: darkrezin on 2006-05-15 06:42 ]</font>

I was for Intel a few jears ago, now I'm for AMD because price, less heat & less watt(more quiet), good Nvidia Chipset (I have Nforce4 and it works ok!).
A single core solution is more safe. (my: Athlon64 3.500)

I'm for intel (pentium-m that is) :

less watts
less heat
less noise
same speed
more stability
good chipset (centrino)

available for desktop PC AND laptop AND MAC



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: marcuspocus on 2006-05-16 11:40 ]</font>

3-2 for AMD so far, lets wait for 2. half

I bet on Intel, on a mac then

Been running an AMD 2200XP here for over 2 years & it's always been rock solid.

Then again, when I first got it I installed water cooling for fun & burnt in the chip (heavily) at 'actual' speeds over 3000 MHz instead of the stock 1800. I think such heavy burning in has given us a nice chip

Next chip will probably be another AMD.

I wouldn't trust apple's irratic business plans any furher than I could throw a 1200 euro G5 & copy of OSX from my window.

Don't believe the hype

I have a love/hate relationship with OSX... overall, it's ergonomically a very nice OS - options aren't spread in a bazillion places like Windows, and you don't really have to disable a ton of crap (although I hate it when I accidentally click the desktop the menu bar changes to Finder.. sigh).

However, they really have kept getting it wrong with stability - constantly fucking with the AU spec and CoreAudio, annoying problems with Energy Saver, permissions nightmares. To be honest, IMHO they have not got a single version of OSX right.. maybe some of the Panther (10.3) versions were okay, and Tiger is finally starting to not suck as bad as it once did., although it is far from perfect.

I also am very reluctant to buy into the Apple hype, although I don't have the instinctive hatred of them that most Windows users have (and bear in mind that I was, and still am, a fully paid-up Win/Logic 5.51 user).

More and more Apple's business practices point towards wanting to be the computing equivalent of a fucking Smeg fridge... the logical conclusion of vacuous 'digital lifestyle' marketing bullshit.

Hi,

Personnaly I have never been a friend for apple as I always hated their "elitist" behaviour, but with longhorn around the corner, apple might become musician's best friends. Microsoft never made a claim about being the platform of choice for musicians (and whoever say "microsoft s**cks" should rather say: steinberg or sonar or ... s*cks) as this market represent at most 1% of its market share. At least, apple will have to make Logic work on their systems to be consistent with their investments.

cheers

I agree with MarcusPocus,
This doesn't mean I am going to get one, but I witnessed first hand a Gigastudio 3 Orchestra / 3 x Scope 15 DSP box that was amazingly quiet, and ran several ( 9 !!! )instances of Gigapulse!! 3 more instances than my P4SCT+II w/ OC'd P4 3.4EE Ghz. The M 780 was OC'd to 2.7GHz and was cool and quiet. My Northwood was OC'd to 233MHz ( The most that Supermicro allowed on an engineering sample), but it ran great at 3.9GHz w/ custom cooling solution. It did piss me off slightly, but my box had never crashed once live, a feat on it's own.
This has made me watch for Yonah ( Core Duo ) for it was based on the M's architecture. I am a single threaded kind of guy though, just want Scope to grow into the next couple of years with the same stability. So my current P4 will continue to run 3 x Scope's w/o GS3, and I am definately going with the new Conroe w/ Nuendo, and Tascam GVI. My upgrade from GS3 is meagher, and I can let Scope have it's own box. It is important to me that Scope get's spoiled, for it has done me so well playing live. I can only imagine how happy it will be all by itself! This set up will enable me to use a VST host in the studio, as I finally realise that my Roland MC-500MkII/ Alesis HD24 set-up needs to be replaced. I fear change.
I have learned that the Conroe will have all of the M's best features, plus Yonah, plus 64 bit extensions, and a large L2 cache which seems to really help with FX counts. The problem is that the 975x chipset is compatible w/ Conroe, but it is the mainboards that I believe will not be compatable due to the VRM differences. Remember that little kick ass Tualitin 1.4GHz CPU w/ larger cache? It used the 815 chipset, but the mobo's had have the VRM's redone to be compatible with the new CPU. But I have learned from my mistakes. Intel CPU's w/ Intel chipsets. Asus looks great, but Intel mobos have persuaded me to thier camp, for I believe that they test their products more than their competitors, and as a live player I no longer wish to overclock, period. I was lucky then.
I think that 2007 will see major apps. going to 64 bit. GS3/GVI will be one, Nuendo should also be in there. If not 32 bit has served me well. But it seems that M$ is at the helm. So by the time the bugs are worked out I will be compatible w/ the Conroe set up if I need to go that way.
As for Scope, I don't care if I run the same set up for 5 years. Whatever I hear needs to be done to keep my beloved cards running, I will buy. For these fat little bastards have made me incredibly happy. No one can dissuade me from that.
Maybe it will be 128bit in 2010!


Your Friend And Mine,



_________________
Jimmy V.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: scope4live on 2006-05-16 20:42 ]</font>

Hi,

S4L, you are right about the VRM, but intel "badaxxe" mobo is compatible with conroe only recently (rev 304). which mean they just anticipated the move. I am quite sure ASUS will do the same, just a matter of time.

Now about Intel vs AMD, for me, remain a "dark" zone: is there a relatioship between CPU clock and lower latency capability.

Recently, on Nuendo forum there have been a lot of questionning about audio board low latency (about 64 samples) which exhibited some strange behaviour. I wonder if this is not related to CPU lower clock speed. Since window 2000 (if I am correct), a part of the interrupt processing is done asynchronously. If the interrupt rate increase and the time used by the ISR to save context and other sanity processing increase due to lower clock speed, this would bring a scenario where the CPU spend too much time processing interrupts and loose the synch with the asynchronous part of the interrupt processing. This would mean that we need a "minimum" CPU clock depending on the latency selected with our audio card which is higher than lets says 2,XXX Ghz.

All this is pure speculation from me and some more insight would be appreciated!

cheers

darkrezin:

More and more Apple's business practices point towards wanting to be the computing equivalent of a fucking Smeg fridge... the logical conclusion of vacuous 'digital lifestyle' marketing bullshit.

True! - I bought a ipod shuffle a year ago, so i receive their emails every now an then!
But then again, MS with Messenger and MediaPlayer - not far behind.

Back to CPU
I have used my Creamware card(s) with Intel P2 450 MHz - AMD Thunderbird 1200 MHz and Intel P4 2400 MHz and exept for some minor starting probs - all worked ok.
Even the AMD with the notoriouse VIA chipset!

When i buildt my last pc, a couple of months ago, i was aware, it was not the best choice for Creamware cards (AMD X2 4200 with ASUS nForce4 chip)
Now it seems that this nForce4 issue would not be fixed, so maybe this techno-race is going out of hand!

If I was going to build a Scope pc today, i would go Intel, tomorrow, ...who knows

best advice: "copy" a running system

hi arela,

i understand you've got AMD X2 4200+ with nForce4 chipset.

i'm very curious if "all goes well". is your scope card + software running OK ??

I'd like to know, because if so i'm thinking to buy a similar system.

cheers

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: evdb on 2006-05-17 02:25 ]</font>

hi
Sorry, the X2 4200 don't run my Scope system
They are in a P4 - and working so well, i don't want to move them.

I use my Creamware Noah as USB soundcard on this AMD X2.

This AMD CPU runs 34-36 and Motherboard 31-32 degree C - all day long.
With a propper MB, it would be superb.

hi arela,

is it so that your AMD X2 4200 can't run your scope card without problems, or that you just prefer not to because of other reasons.

cheers

Dear MD69,
The Intel Badaxe ( 975X Express ) is exactly what I want in a mobo. The only thing keeping me from buying that board is that they don't have 3 x PCI 32bit slots for my 3 x Scope boards. I'm hoping that Intel will make a workstation, or server version w/ 3 x PCI 32 bit, if not I will buy into the Asus board that has proven itself to Andre from CWA already. The Asus board has 3 x PCI, plus I do love to experiment w/ OC'ing and Asus always has a robust suite for that endeavor. I just hate buying mobo's w/ onboard sound and SLI, etc.,etc., something I will never use. I love Supermicro, and Intel. But whoever keeps my 3 x Scopes going wins the purchase.


Old Scope Cards Never Die, They Just Fade Away. Douglas MacArthur @ West Point 1952

On 2006-05-17 16:52, scope4live wrote:
..., plus I do love to experiment w/ OC'ing and Asus always has a robust suite for that endeavor. ...

overclocking is a waste of time imho

first of all the CPU will throttle itself down if the cooler can't dissipate enough heat, and the majority of devices makes exactly this impression.

it's working only for VSTi and native FX - and since not all are created equal it's more effective to pick one that's programmed 'better'.

it's not unusual to optmize a main processing routine by 400%(*), but you won't clock your CPU to 12GHZ - leaving the memory and IO interface as slow as it ever was anyway...

(*) applies to regular C/C++ coding, hand optimized assembler would be more in the 1600% and above range... and probably never be finished

but you're absolutely right - the feature itself is great - I use it to underclock to reduce fan speed (and noise)

I know that 30% of a (say) 3 hour DVD re-encoding is a significant amount of time, but for audio (realtime) processing it's almost neglectable, considering the potential increase of processing power that a change of the respective plugin might bring....

no dogma, tho - but worth considering

cheers, Tom


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2006-05-17 18:28 ]</font>

Astro,...Man Or Myth, That is exactly why my friend did it too. He dropped the multiplier while speeding up the memory bus. This made the CPU fan and PSU fan damn near non existant. Since his RAID tower is external you can see the advantages of this while recording. After all, Giga and Scope are perfect mates as they use everything but the CPU,i.e. HDD's,DSP's,etc. My 3.9GHz P4 never ran at that speed but was stable while testing the box. It makes me feel better to see my machine run hot w/o failure. That way I know that live it will be stable, for I know that Scope won't fail me.

Strength And Honor,

hi evdb
I built this x2 4200 as my new internett/office pc.
The old was getting tired, but is now going to be my linux teaching machine.

Like the wise men above, i would go for Intel if i was going to build a DAW.