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anonymous 26 July 2005

hello,
just want an opinion on an upgrade option for my pc.
i currently run an amd xp3200+ with 1GB of pc2100 Ram.

it has actually treated me quite fairly, but i have the opotion to upgrade and have been looking at getting an

- AMD Athlon 64 3500+
- ASUS A8V DELUXE
- Kingston Dual Channel Kit 1GB(2x512MB) PC3200 DDR RAM

would this be a wise upgrade for someone who wants a stable daw running Ableton Live 5, all native instruments and audio (vocals Guitars etc)

right now my pc takes a dump at around 30 or so tracks, which limits me

any other suggestions are welcomed

thanks in advance

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Comments

Opus2000 Tue, 07/26/2005 - 17:29

olidenson wrote:

right now my pc takes a dump at around 30 or so tracks, which limits me

:shock: Hope it's not too smelly! :lol:

Upgrading to a faster processor is always the way to go to get more tracks/performance. What also helps is using all hard drives that have 8MB caches on them as well. This helps boost performance since the buffering is larger.

8-)

Opus

anonymous Tue, 07/26/2005 - 17:45

thanks,

im pretty set on the processor..im more concerned about getting the right motherboard and choosing the right memory ( 2 sticks of 512 or 1 stick of 1 gb ???!!).. can you shed any light on how to go about getting a the right board...the one i suggested seems to be a popular one in the daw world....
thanks... :D

Randyman... Tue, 07/26/2005 - 18:48

Dual Channel is exactly that. 2 Seperate "Pipelines" to each channel of RAM, therefore DOUBLING te RAM's avalible bandwidth. A big benefit IMO.

You can't use DC with one stick of RAM. Also, 512MB sticks DO usually have better specs as far as CAS timings go, and lower timings = higher bandwidth (and they are cheaper too). As long as you have 4 RAM slots, you can still do 2 Gigs with 4x 512MB sticks...

:cool:

Randyman... Tue, 07/26/2005 - 20:29

If you want 2 Gigs of total RAM, then I'd go with 4x 512 sticks.

You can start off with 2x 512 sticks for 1Gig total RAM, and that should get you going pretty good. Just make sure that when adding more RAM, you get the same type of RAM (I'd try to get the EXACT SAME RAM for best results in Dual Channel mode).

You could certainly go with a single 1Gig stick, or two 1 Gig Sticks, but it seems that practically ALL of the 512 sticks out-perform the denser 1Gig sticks. If your PC only has 2 RAM slots, and you really need 2 Gigs of RAM, then the 1 Gig sticks might be worth investigating.

For standard DAW use, 1 Gig of total RAM is fine in most cases. If you use lots of samples, then 2 gigs of total RAM would likely show an improvement. My Shuttle XPC only has 2 DDR RAM slots, and I am running smoothly with two 512 sticks (1Gig total). I have no aspiration to add more RAM at this point, but I don't use samples.

:cool:

Big_D Wed, 07/27/2005 - 19:59

olidenson wrote: the board i am getting has 4 memory slots...

would four (exactly the same) 512's out-perform four 1 gb sticks

Asked and answered several times in this thread,

You could certainly go with a single 1Gig stick, or two 1 Gig Sticks, but it seems that practically ALL of the 512 sticks out-perform the denser 1Gig sticks.

Also, 512MB sticks DO usually have better specs as far as CAS timings go, and lower timings = higher bandwidth (and they are cheaper too).

I'll also add that 2 GBs of RAM is about the practical limit of XP. You won't really see any performance gains with 4 GBs so stick with 4 x 512 MB sticks.

The Asus board is will be fine.

anonymous Wed, 07/27/2005 - 20:12

finally, the answer i was looking for... i must say big d.. you seem quite irrate... if you look again it was in your 'addition' to the last post which held the REAL answer to my question..so lets get on and help each other instead of trying to prove who has the BIGGEST D, hey.
thanks to everyone who helped by the way

Big_D Thu, 07/28/2005 - 04:14

I'm not irate, I think Randy answered your question quite well. Where's the confusion?

As for the second part (Asus) Opus covered it. Was he not clear?

When questions are asked and answered over and over again in the same thread it could be viewed as trolling. RO doesn't tolerate trolls.

so lets get on and help each other instead of trying to prove who has the BIGGEST D, hey.

Now that pisses me off. You get answers from 2 of the best we have on this forum, claim you can't understand them, repost the same question, I clarify the opinions and you shoot back with that crap. Perhaps you should be looking at yourself to figure out why you couldn't understand the very clear answers you were given instead of throwing out an insults.

anonymous Thu, 07/28/2005 - 08:08

an apology

i apologise....i am a novice when it comes to these kind of things and it gets quite frustrating when you want to know something and you arnt qualified to understand the answers.. i thank everyone who has helped and hope we can forget our little spat...i shall now go and read the rules so i dont make any more (innocent) mistakes, regarding the correct forum eticate...

btw when regarding the last part of your post big d.. i was referring to the statement that 4 gigs is overkill for any xp pc, not the asus board.. this has helped me tremendously in making my desicion..for which i thank you..please forget (if you can) my stupid insulting post from before..it was sheer childishness on my part.

anonymous Thu, 07/28/2005 - 09:18

olidenson wrote: the board i am getting has 4 memory slots...

If you are still planning on the ASUS K8V SE, it DOES NOT have 4 memory slots. I have seen reference to it having 4, maybe some version of it does, but I don't think so. I jsut bought one, and it has three slots. Not an issue for me though.

Big_D Thu, 07/28/2005 - 19:09

please forget (if you can) my stupid insulting post from before..it was sheer childishness on my part.

All's forgotten. If you need help understanding any of this just ask. There's alot of very intelligent and helpful people on this forum ie. Opus, Randy, Scott aka ADK, Guy aka Sonica, Blade, David and others who are always willing to help. I would also suggest using the search function as there is plenty that has already been discussed that may apply.

Good Luck.

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