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Hi

My old P4 is struggling with some projects now so after some reading on this forum I've found myself a nice secondhand Intel DP35DP for my three Luna Cards.

Any recommendations for which processor I should go for? I'm assuming it will be a Core 2 Duo of some flavour.

Thanks

Jonathan

Dude, you definately go for the E8600 C0 stepping Wolfdale.
It's the fastest Dual Core CPU and the last one Intel will ever make.
Even with regular DDR2-800 Samsung RAM the E86 just screams.
It's almost as powerful as the i7 920 in many apps.
Everyone says the E8500 is just as fast but the 86 or any other E series hits the 3.2GHz mark it takes off like a bat out of Hell.

Thanks Jimmy

I was originally thinking of the E6850 but it sounds like it's worth paying the extra.

Jonathan

Thanks for the replies, I have gone with the E8600.

One quick question before I do the build - on my current system I have the C drive on IDE and the data & sample drives on SATA. I was going to do the same again - but is there any speed advantage to having the C drive on SATA as well?

Thanks

Jonathan

yes, i'd make the C drive a sata drive.

The advantage of the E8600 is streaming and a better cache design resulting in low buffer usage.
Live/realtime isn't that much of a biggie if your just sequencing and using VST's. The Quads would be a more suitable choice, depending on how many VST FX and VSTi's you use.
I noticed too many pops and crackles from the quad's cache design using Kontakt 3 at the lowest buffers.
The new Quad i7's have no problem doing any audio chores though. And I look forward to a new build when the H57 chips mature. Until then XP32bit SP2 and the PAE Switch loads 4 x K3's under Bidule at 128. I only use 12 instruments purged and 8 MIDI channels.
Lot's of Mac/Logic guys go from 128 tracking to 256 for mixing using the new i7's and seem to be very happy. And lots of Core2Duo Quad guys seem happy as long as they aren't using Kontakt/Bidule.
I am happy your DP35 works as well as mine. No frills equals no spills.....

SATA throughout it is then.

The resource hogs which tax my old P4 system are things like BFD2 Drums - VSTi with lots of small realtime playback samples.

Thanks