My old system:
Asus P4T533-c
P4 2.4 Ghz 533 FSB
Samsung 512 mb RAMBUS 1020 @ 1200 Mhz
Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64 mb
WD 120 gb, 8mb cache
IBM 60 gb. 2mb cache
Nec ND-1300A
Luna card + 8 channel I/O-box running SFP 3.1c in Windows Xp
On the new computer I will keep:
Luna card + 8 channel I/O-box running SFP 3.1c in Windows Xp
WD 120 gb, 8mb cache
Nec ND-1300A
As my computer is not meant as a pure DAW I want better perfomance in both games and audio programs. People have told me that it is a bad time for upgrading right now, is this true? I am not sure about the perfomance of ram nowadays but I assume that there is affordable dual DDR memory that can at least match the perfomance of my rambus memory. I also assume that I dont need to pay much for a cpu that will outperform my old one. Are my assumptions correct?
Should I buy a AMD or a P4? To be honest; I will probably play more games than music on my computer. What mobos and chipsets do u recommend? My Luna Card is very sensitive and need as much PCI bandwidth as possible. IRQ conflicts are common on some mobos. (Maybe it is the same with all professional soundcards.) Are there mobos available that can be upgraded to support dual core processors? What processors should I buy? What ram? I would prefer having support for PCI-express but maybe that is out of the question as I want a high-end graphics card? Finally, most important is the value for money!
Comments
Welcome to RO. I agree with Opus, you should upgrade your RAM to
Welcome to RO. I agree with Opus, you should upgrade your RAM to 1GB and your HDD to an 8MB cache. But I would suggest you keep your current PC for audio and build a the new PC for gaming. The specs on your current PC are not bad and if you feel your sound card may not work well in another system then I would stick with what works. Remember stability is key in a DAW. Your new PC could utilize PCI-E and be a screamer for games and your old PC could be the stable base needed for a DAW. The best of both worlds.
good questions indeed... PCI Express is a wonderful thing....fo
good questions indeed...
PCI Express is a wonderful thing....for some aspects. Right now, doesn't seem to be the winner for audio as there's nothing out there as far as hardware that truly takes advantage of it(Please post if I'm wrong here anyone...)
PCI Express is nice because it's driving some really good mobo's and processor prices downward! We like that very much! Technology today is amazing in that you could buy technology that was out last year and still have a slammin' system!
If you're going to get anything, it would be more memory than 512...boost that up to 1GB minimum and replace your main OS
drive with one that has an 8MB cache on it. When all your drives are 8MB cached, your whole system gets a good sized performance increase.
DDR is very comprable to RDRAM these days, and cheaper as well!
AMD or P4...just avoid Sis, Via. Nforce, AMD and Intel are considered the safe bets for audio
For game performance between AMD and P4, you should check out some of the gaming sites(do a googe search)
Audio wise, either processor will do fine.
Just some thoughts on my end.
Opus