Please, advice me on a new upgrade - AMD or INTEL?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:53 pm

Hello people!

It seems that it is time for me to upgrade as I am entering the video editing zone, and this requires much more power that what I have now.

I would like for the experienced and experts ones around here to tell me, please, if my choices are correct to be used with a Pulsar I Plus card or not. My main concern is “perfect compatibility with Pulsar”, and then the “extra power” I need. I have built two upgrade choices, one based in AMD, and the second in Intel.

FIRST CHOICE (cheaper):

Motherboard: ASUS M2A-MVP

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3800+
Memory: Markvision Memory RAM DDR 1024Mb 400Mhz PC3200 or Kingston Memory RAM DDR2 1024Mb 667Mhz PC2-5300 box. (X 2)

Video: Asus EN7300GT/HTD/256M

SECOND CHOICE (more expensive not necessarily much powerful, I think):

Motherboard: Asus P5B-E

CPU: Dual Core 2.13GHz 4Mb 1066Hz LGA775

Memory: Markvision Memoria RAM DDR 1024Mb 400Mhz PC3200 or Kingston Memoria RAM DDR2 1024Mb 667Mhz PC2-5300 box. (X 2)

Video: Asus EN7300GT/HTD/256M

The second choice is $250 more…

If you think there is some sort of incompatibility, please let me know.
Thank you very much for your help

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:13 am

Hmm, that's interesting, the mobo for the AMD chip has an AMD chipset. I wonder if anyone knows if that performs better than nForce4.

Generally, Intel is more Scope compatible. There was a while when AMD's stuff worked great -- the Athlon 64 SingleCore with nForce3 days -- but some of us have had issues with Athlon x2 and nForce4. Don't know how a SC chip with an AMD chipset will work.

The Core2Duo chip you selected is faster than the AMD one, anyway -- you probably should go with that.

And I use AMD!!

Shayne

Post by **garyb** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 11:14 am

intel.

Post by **garyb** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 1:59 pm

intel isn't more expensive. the intel dp965lt is only about $125.

Post by **garyb** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 2:15 pm

yes, of course.
the difference is not that great when compared to the cost of the system itself is my main point.

still, a 3800+ running a clock speed of 2.0ghz is $189
a core2 duo E6420 running a 4mb cache at 2.13ghz is $185

my prices are from zipzoomfly.com

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:21 pm

Thanks for your answer guys…

Yea, I have not been in touch with the current technology for quite a loooong time. I am reading again so to understand the trends of the market, and it seems that changes have been really important since the so famous Pentium 4 I have and currently use.

Ok, based in your advices and all my readings, I understand that the choice is Intel, for sure.

Now, I plan to reuse my Pentium 4 2.4GH 533 with the new motherboard, until the quad comes down the price, because it is too much money for me right now.

Any problem if I use my old Pentium 4 with such a motherboard?

Cheers

Post by **garyb** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:44 pm

yep, not compatible.

kylie · Post by **kylie** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:35 pm

Nestor wrote: Any problem if I use my old Pentium 4 with such a motherboard?

since your old cpu is supposed to have 478 pins only (or were there really some 2.4GHz with 533 FSB with LGA775? gary?), you would have to take care that all signals that are expected from the 775 bga socket reach it. ah yep, and you have to cut every single pin, since it's no zif but bga socket now...

-greetings, markus-

ps. if you really want to wait for a quad solution for a reasonable price, keep your old system some months. I don't expect it to perform sooo poor...

arela · Post by **arela** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:13 am

hi Nestor
As I recall, I think we buildt our P4 2,4 at the same time, some years ago. (2002 i think

)
Later i built a amd X2 pc - witch i use together with the old one.
I do video editing on the X2, but the sound is mostly done on the P4.
(also use the X2 FXteleported for vsti)

So - my adwise is to keep the P4 running scope, and a new one for other things - networked together with a router or just a twisted pair connection.

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:35 am

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... Code=80743
this one is nice and cheap too,

but I agree that Intel is the performance leader ATM.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 7:11 am

Thank you guys, for your kind replays!

Yes Arela, I remember that we build a very similar setup at the same time, and you’re right, it was 2002.

Fortunately, we can always download the manual of any given board, in the handy PDF format BEFORE buying it!

I did it for the P5B-E, and unfortunately, despite that it is a very good board, it only manages up to 3GB of DDR2 RAM, and it is not recommended that you install more than that, because there is a compatibility problem with 32bit OS. Quite bizarre to me, to say the least… You can clearly read the ASUS forums, many people complaining about it, because they, as I, expected for the P5B-E to support 8GB of DDR2.

That said, I have changed my mind, and turned to an Intel board, that Gary constantly mention, love, adore, go to cinema with, etc., … he…

This is the DP965L T from Intel.

My only concern about the DP965L T is how flexible the board can be. Yea, I know, I’ve got vicious about “tweaking” my machine, because of the ASUS boards I have had, it is addictive to get into the BIOS and start messing about, then see that your system can do some more…

That is really support the 8GB or DDR2 800 MHz Ram?

Cheers

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:37 pm

I forgot to ask for an important and complex question:

I understand that getting 2GB of DDR2 800 MHZ memory would be faster than getting 2GB of DDR2 667 MHZ… But the price for the 800 is almost twice as much, so I could perhaps spend this money in getting 4GB of 667… ¿Am I getting crazy or it does make sense? I mean, if the speed difference is not really important between the two rams, well, it could be a cheaper and more powerful election by the end. Of course, I want a fast system, but “capability” is also important. I guess that these kind of modern memories anyway, can handle very well everything audio-related, so it is perhaps better more “capacity” than “speed”. What do you think?

I can see that the DP965LT, works only with 1.8v, so anyway, and I understand that good quality ram at 800 MHZ need about 2.1… so how can this board handle 800 MHZ ram, if it only does 1.8 v? I don’t get it.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:00 pm

Ups... It seems I'm asking something too difficult perhaps...

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:22 pm

use the 667, it'd still be a major upgrade.

FrancisHarmany · Post by **FrancisHarmany** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:56 pm

Well, recently I have been hearing about nasty bug lists from the dual core's of intel. I dont know the internals, but I know I will stay with solid single CPU systems for the time being.

kylie · Post by **kylie** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:03 pm

Harmany wrote:Well, recently I have been hearing about nasty bug lists from the dual core's of intel. I dont know the internals, but I know I will stay with solid single CPU systems for the time being.

that's probably the reason for intel releasing microcode updates hidden in a windows update package (something I read recently...

)

http://www.intel.com/design/processor/s ... 313279.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936357/en-us

-greetings, markus-

Post by **garyb** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:03 pm

core2 duos seem to work very well.

still, a 3+ghz p4 is plenty for most audio needs and is all i'm using, personally.

FrancisHarmany · Post by **FrancisHarmany** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:04 pm

Yeah they are patching it of course!
I think the best way to gain CPU is to use an extra machine

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:23 pm

Thank you guys, for your answers.

Ok Gary, 667 so, that’s cool, cheers!

I know that with a good P4 you can still have a good PC for audio, but I am entering the video-editing zone and you can bet I need more power, because the renderings are sometimes extremely time consuming then you get videos of an hour or more to render with plug-ins and many special transitions. I’m talking about waiting several hours for a rendering to finish. That would be ok if you could use your PC meanwhile, but you can’t do anything else because the system as a whole becomes very sluggish and if you ever do a click, you may finish with errors when the rendering is finished.

Multitasking should be great for what I need.

I don’t know about dual core problems, I have heard many good results about it. Perhaps the problems are for the quad core CPUs, because of its complexity. Most people have reported extremely good results with Intel-Asus boards with an Intel chipset, and a dual core.

Thank you all for your answers!

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:34 pm

even with a 100% faster machine, you still shouldn't be doing other things while rendering. you need another computer for internet, typing, invoicing etc.