HI,

if you want the best VSTi abiliity then get an AMD 64 939 System.
far better memory performance vs P4.

and yes 1 Gig is minimum for VSTi.

Scott
ADK

I would have to agree with ADK on this. Athlon 64's would seem to fit your needs well. There's nothing wrong with P4's but if you want to save money and get great performance at the same time go with a 64.

Stay away from Celerons, they are not for DAW use and may perform only slightly better than your PIII.

As far as Mobo's stay away from VIA and SiS chipsets. If you go 64 the n'Vidia chipsets are best.

1GB of RAM or better would do you fine. Don't buy noname RAM, get branded RAM (I like Corsair) and since your not OC'ing standard is fine (try Corsair Value Select).

Don't get integrated video. To save money get a low end 3D card from ATI or n'Vidia.

Good Luck!

I got my Matrox G450 (16MB) for $29.

I got my Matrox G450 (16MB) for $29.

Now that's a steal, nice!

About the AMD 64

Big_D wrote: I would have to agree with ADK on this. Athlon 64's would seem to fit your needs well. There's nothing wrong with P4's but if you want to save money and get great performance at the same time go with a 64.

As far as Mobo's stay away from VIA and SiS chipsets. If you go 64 the n'Vidia chipsets are best.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've looked around, and although I can see how an Athlon 64 would give better performance, I'm not sure how it would save me money.

All prices Canadian dollars.

[list]P4 2.4 Ghz = $175
Asus p4p800 (intel chipset) = $110 [list]AMD 64 3000+ (2 Ghz; 754 socket) = $180
Asus K8N-E Deluxe (n'Vidia chipset) = $180
So the bottom of the line AMD 64 system costs me $80 more than a bottom of the line P4 ($285 vs. $360). I looked at the AMD 969 chips, and they were even more.

On top of that, AMD doesn't use AGP. Isn't that a bad thing when it comes to PCI/IRQ conflicts?

I've read some great reviews of AMD 64 performance and have heard 64 bit OS will be the future, so I like the idea of this suggestion. But I'm still new to this AMD stuff, so any clarification would be great.

Thanks,
Mike

HI,
let me help you put it into perpective

AMD AMD 3000 is equal to or better than a P4 3.0G 800 fsb.

these 2 processors should be equally priced.
as shown by you.
now to mobos

Asus P4p is ok (865 chipset) i recommend the Asus P4C 800E which is alot more, however the P4P will do fine just less fluff.

AMD 939 boards DO NOT BUY PCI-E they are terrible for audio.

get Gigabyte 8Kns Ultra 939 (AGP) should be around $130 or less.

so now your about the same price point for far better performance.
and if your adventerous the AMD should OC to much higher numbers, however i cant recommend you do that unless you are a good tweaker. a badly done OC will kill audio.

happy shopping

Scott

ADK audio wrote:
AMD 939 boards DO NOT BUY PCI-E they are terrible for audio.

get Gigabyte 8Kns Ultra 939 (AGP) should be around $130 or less.

$189 AMD 3000+ 939
$119 Gigabyte K8NS 939 (AGP)

~ Same price as the P4/Asus. ADK, you are my hero.

For video card, I understand Matrox and GeForce are good brands. Do you or anyone else have any specific suggestions for someone like me who's looking for essentially the cheapest that won't likely cause problems with the AMD/nForce3 250 Chipset/Delta 1010?

I'm really looking forward to getting this thing off the ground ...

Mike

MikeMohan wrote: [quote=ADK audio]
AMD 939 boards DO NOT BUY PCI-E they are terrible for audio.

get Gigabyte 8Kns Ultra 939 (AGP) should be around $130 or less.

$189 AMD 3000+ 939
$119 Gigabyte K8NS 939 (AGP)

~ Same price as the P4/Asus. ADK, you are my hero.

For video card, I understand Matrox and GeForce are good brands. Do you or anyone else have any specific suggestions for someone like me who's looking for essentially the cheapest that won't likely cause problems with the AMD/nForce3 250 Chipset/Delta 1010?

I'm really looking forward to getting this thing off the ground ...

Mike

Hey Mike,
glad to help. if your using Nuendo/Cuabse then the Matrox is my recomendation. it has less CPU spikes when zooming to track.
with everything else we favor the Nvidia due to less driver issues than ATI.
our default is the Nvidia FX 5200 good enough for 2d in any proggie.
if you also do video editing then an FX5700 or higher.
(or gaming which is a nono! but hey not all of can afford 2 computers)

lastly use the Nvidia Sata not the Silicon Image.
particularly with M-Audio Delta products, in fact you may want to skip Sata completely as too many people have had issues with it and Delta cards

Scott

If you do go with a 64 bit system, be sure to give Sonar64 a try and let us know how it goes.

lastly use the Nvidia Sata not the Silicon Image.
particularly with M-Audio Delta products, in fact you may want to skip Sata completely as too many people have had issues with it and Delta cards

I agree the n'Vidia SATA is a better choice. In fact rather than forgo SATA I would dump the Delta (if you have issues) and stick with SATA unless you have the coins for SCSI.

if you also do video editing then an FX5700 or higher.
(or gaming which is a nono! but hey not all of can afford 2 computers)

If you do intend to do any gaming (as Scott said it's best not to but they can peacefully coexist on the same machine) get the ATI unless your playing alot of Open GL games. The ATI's perform better on just about everything but Open GL. I have read about some of the issues mentioned about ATI drivers but have not had any problems with my ATI's. I agree though if it's strictly a DAW the Matrox or n'Vidia is the safer bet. Why take chances.

BTW, just one more thing to add since Scott brought this up. If you intend to use your machine for audio and video go with the P4 as it encodes video much faster than the Athlon's. This is one area where the 64's really fall short of the P4's. For any other uses the Athlon's will be just fine.

Hey Big D,
i would have agreed with you 100% about video until now.
the 939s are turning in numbers equal to P4 for video.
the dual opterons are killing the Xeons.
we have tested using Pinnacle Liquid 6 (background renders using both CPU and GPU very cool)
Avid, Adobe, Lightwave, toaster VT4.

i think the reason behind this is due to Mac adopting the AMD Hypertransport and therefore they all (software vendors) finally added optimisation past SSE.
that or the sheer CPU and memory power has just caught up!

Scott

Hey Scott, Thanks for the info, I haven't had a chance to benchmark the 939's yet so this is very good to know.

i think the reason behind this is due to Mac adopting the AMD Hypertransport and therefore they all (software vendors) finally added optimisation past SSE.
that or the sheer CPU and memory power has just caught up!

I would think all 3 reasons would come into play somewhat. Dual channel support and changes in the 939's architecture certainly help. While single chip Hypertransport is much faster and efficient than North/South Birdge arrangements. I kind of see the getting past SSE as just icing on the cake.

Good info, keep us updated.

For the record, everything worked great. I'm fully updated and installed and it's all operating quite smoothly. Compared to the last computer I had the Delta in, this one's been a breeze to get going.

Thanks everyone who helped.

AMD 3000+ 939
Gigabyte K8NS 939 (AGP)
1 gig RAM
New ATX tower
DVD-ROM
NVIDIA TNT2 video

Total cost of upgrade ~ $670 Canadian.

Although it's not disabled, I am not using the SATA and probably won't anytime soon - I don't really need it right now.

Mike

very Sweet! i love a success story.

and you used my fav board!

Scott