PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I've read "suggested hardware for creamware" and "chip tests" and all the rest but am no closer to a definitive answer. I suppose there are no absolutes, but as a general guide:
<UL>
<li> Is a very fast PIII (say 1.1 / 1.2) better than a medium-fast P4 (say 1.6 to 1.8 ) ? Probably, according to this review:
http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/CCA ... tin(3).htm

<LI> Is Win 98SE better than XP Home ? Better than XP Pro ? This site says Win98 gives better performance:
http://www.ocaddiction.com/articles/os/98vsXP/

<LI> Is it more important to have a bigger L2 cache or is a faster CPU or is more RAM more significant ? Most people seem to go for all three, but which is the most important ?

<LI> Is a P4 L2 cache of even 256K really TWICE as good as a P3 L2 cache of 512K ? This site thinks so:
http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q1/pentium4/
<i>A really killer L2 cache — The P4's L2 cache is 256K, just like the Athlon and PIII, but it's much, much cooler. The P4's L2 cache interface is 256 bits wide, and it sends data on every clock cycle. On a 1.4GHz Pentium 4, that works out to 44.8GB/sec of bandwidth. That's almost four times the bandwidth of the L2 cache on a 1GHz PIII. As for the Athlon, its L2 cache is even slower still, but then I've seen AMD engineers claim the Athlon's L2 cache isn't really bandwidth limited. Whatever the case, the P4's L2 cache is scary fast.</i>

<LI> Is one big partitioned drive just as good as two separate drives ? Why not just use one big drive and put the swap file on its own partition ?

<LI> Do the answers to any of the above change if you intend to run a lot of native synths and effects ?

<LI> By 2020 will humans walk on Mars ?
</UL>



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-03-12 04:51 ]</font>

fast P3 vs. 'slow' P4: which one gets warmer, and needs better (noisy) cooling? Something to take into account as well.
And at last: which config will enhance my creativity the most...

Rob

I also need the answers to all of the above questions, but can only answer the last one: humans will NOT walk on Mars before 2020.

Harddisc answer:

A HD can only read/write with one head at a time.
Since creating extra partitions does not give the HD extra heads, swapfile usage will take HD horsepower from you multitrackrecording, giving you less possible tracks. However, you might have other botlenecks in your system.

An IDE chanel (you can put 2 drives on each such chanel) runs in half duplex, meaning, it can only send/recieve at a given time. Therefor, the best possible setup will have your audio drive on its own IDE-chanel. Leaving the other chanel for you OS drive and CD-RW drive. This is for most of us overkill though.

Immanuel

Unless something in the IDE spec has drastically changed and I've missed it, spreading you HD's across IDE channels does not give you any real benefit either. Originally you could only have 2 devices connected on one IDE controller. A second IDE controller was provided to allow connection of more IDE devices. That's all. You still won't see simultaneous read/write's across the 2 ide controllers.

IMO it is best to keep your fast devices on IDE1 and any slower devices (cdrom etc) on IDE2.

Well that's what I reckon anyway.

- PIII/P4 : like the first PIII (Katmai) the first P4 as well are not designed perfectly. Wait for the actual generation to arrive at good prices.
- XP Pro. After tweaking with Powertoys. More stable, that's the point.
- RAM, CPU, L2. L2 is only important for many applications running. CPU for fast arithmetics and RAM for overall performance.
- True. New P4 has a wider bus. Look at the bus as a highway. More cars pass through 8 track then 4 track. So 256 bit is really not bad compared to 64.
- Own partition for the swapfile is a good idea.
- Native synths use CPU. So CPU becomes more important.
- 2020? If we didn't decide to destroy our planet, yes.
Cheers,
Micha

2020? my, what short memories humans have.

I'd go: P4, XP, 2xHD, no socks at all.

I went for: P4,i850,2xHD, Win98lite, and I'd go for venus instead of mars

Rob

If you can, go for a P4 Northwood 1.6A and clock it to 2133mhz. Best bang for buck, and I'd suggest ASUS P4B266-C for this.

I also have a brand new never used Gigabyte i815EP Tualatin board with a 1.0A Tualeron that runs 1,333mhz on the board rock solid and without a fan! Anyone want the combo cheap?

I would just like to know, what heatsink, you use for that 1GHz Celatin?
I tried unplucking the fan on the boxed heatsink. After a 3DMark2000 test, my CPU was at 78C (and the last part of the test was slow too).

Immanuel

A huge old GlobalWin heatsync (I mean HUGE), and my power supply has 2 fans on them so there is still airflow across it... haven't checked the temps, but the heatsync is only slightly warm to the touch, and stable still. Let me run SETI and RC5 on it for a week and we'll see how stable it is like this. It's definitely QUIET!

Some techs discuss some relevant mobos in detail

http://radified.com/CPU/intel_northwood.htm

It's also an interesting story about DDR SDRAM vs RDRAM