AMD vs Intel, does it matter?

[JoshuaD]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

The Intel build needs DDR2 not DDR3

Leaving room for expansion is good but you might want to go with 2 x 2GB sticks so you can expand to 8 down the road.

Newegg is listing some P45 boards as open box as low as 66.00. I've had pretty good luck with them.

Ah, good catch. Thanks.

Do you think I'll see better performance on the AMD or the Intel?

[Wavelabs]

Originally Posted by JoshuaD

So here's an AMD build and an Intel build, any opinions?

Intel ($403):
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

AMD ($419):
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-790XT-USB3
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

DO NOT buy Open Box Motherboards.
MOBO companies will not give support.
take it from me, its happend to me.

Also, ASUS has cheap chipsets on their Motherboards.
Gigabyte has higher quality chipsets on their boards then ASUS.
Also,
Always buy Retail when it comes to things like this.
also,

Go with Kingston DDR3 ram chips, they have a 12 gig pack for the same price.
and they have a life time garrantee on them.
anything happens, they change them for life.
also since the motherboard supports DDR3 anyways.

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by Wavelabs

DO NOT buy Open Box Motherboards.
MOBO companies will not give support.
take it from me, its happend to me.

Also, ASUS has cheap chipsets on their Motherboards.
Gigabyte has higher quality chipsets on their boards then ASUS.
Also,
Always buy Retail when it comes to things like this.
also,

Go with Kingston DDR3 ram chips, they have a 12 gig pack for the same price.
and they have a life time garrantee on them.
anything happens, they change them for life.
also since the motherboard supports DDR3 anyways.

Everyone buys the same quality chipsets whether they are from Intel, nVidia or AMD. If you think that Intel or AMD is selling different quality chipsets to MSI or Gigabyte or ASUS or Foxconn your nuts. Chipsets that don't meet spec are binned and relabeled as chipsets with lesser features. EG G45 becomes G41, No one is cherry picking out special P45 chipsets for Foxconn or Gigabyte and dumping lesser ones on MSI or ASUS. Intel, AMD, nVidia are making these chipsets a hundred thousand at a time and if it passes QC it's packaged and shipped. To whoever.

Is there a difference between quality between mother boards? You betcha but this revolves around the actual construction, layout, features and BIOS. Not the chipset-its the only common denominator. Generally in this area you get what you pay for. The cheapest boards have the least features and generally speaking have less overall build quality than their more expensive counterparts. But a P45, X58, 785, 790, 9400 chipset is a chipset and the quality is determined by the manufacturer not the board vendor.

Most RAM has a lifetime guarantee. Neweggs rating systems are a good indicator of what making people happy and whats failing. All manufacturers have RAM that fails. It's how they handle replacing it that makes the difference. I've had the best luck with Corsair, ADATA, OCZ and Kingston, For a change I thought I would try some G.Skill with my MA785GM-US2H and its throwing up memory errors. Back to Corsair and ADATA for me.

I've bought 3-4 white box Mobo's and all have been good. Theres a risk that reflected in the price. I've bought a lot of retail motherboards and a few have been bad. However out of all the ASUS boards I have bought (and its a lot) I have had to return exactly two. Last I knew all ASUS wants for a RMA is the serial number and the purchase date. Out of the two RMA's I have had one of the boards was my fault and ASUS still fixed it. I've had one bad MSI board and a DFI also. I've also bought 4-5 open box video cards and they have been great. Sorry your experience was not as good as mine. Its a good way to save money.

[JoshuaD]

Sunburst: Thanks again for the good information. Do you have any clue which processor will give me more power? I know it's hard since you haven't done any personal comparisons, but just in general, is the intel name worth 33% less processing power for protools?

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by JoshuaD

Sunburst: Thanks again for the good information. Do you have any clue which processor will give me more power? I know it's hard since you haven't done any personal comparisons, but just in general, is the intel name worth 33% less processing power for protools?

I dont know. A year ago the answer was pretty cut and dry. AMD has made some strides with the latest chips. As far as I know the Intel stuff is still running a bit better in the area of memory access and instructions per clock. I'm talking AMD vs Core 2 here. Theres no comparison between the much faster i5- i7 stuff. At one point a fast AMD 4 core was about the came as a Core 2 Duo but that was about a year ago.

I'm sitting on a Athlon 620 4 core and a Gigabyte AMD785 motherboard and a Intel E7400 Core 2 Duo with a Intel P45 board. The idea was to do a comparison of 99.00 processors as far as Pro Tools went. If you can wait about a week I can probably have some actual PT performance numbers. PT is heavily multi threaded so comparing a slower quad core to a faster dual core at the same price point makes some sense. Also moving from Core 2 Duo to the Core 2 Quads back in the day resulted in a near doubling of usable PT power so doubling the E7400's result should give a good indication of how a Core 2 Quad of equal clock speed would stack up compared to the dual core.

[MikeLip]

Correct me if I'm wrong (just trying to help).

I believe you should go with the 2x2Gb ram for now. (suggested above).

Until we get a 64 bit executable, 4Gb is the ram limit for Pro Tools native systems. No advantage on PC or Mac to go >4Gb presently even when running 64bit o/s. Its an Intel 32 bit limit for 32 bit apps. Right?
(edit: oh wait I'm wrong, I guess and extra 2Gb for o/s overhead on 64bit o/s would be nice eh to prevent disk paging?)

Oh and AMD vs Intel, not sure but I think they're coming to within parity of each other recently. I usually read up on pc review sites on the latest. I have both AMD and Intel rigs for Pro Tools; HTPC; Gaming; Server. All work great and were cost effective when I purchased them. And I run gigabyte and asus.

edit: Thanks Tom for those links! I'm reading furiously :)

Ta,
Mike.

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by JoshuaD

So here's an AMD build and an Intel build, any opinions?

Intel ($403):
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

AMD ($419):
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-790XT-USB3
Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

The link to the P5Q Pro is actually to a P5Q Deluxe, which is actually my favorite in this series.

Please keep in mind that DDR3 RAM will not work in these P5Q motherboards, you will need DDR2.

[JoshuaD]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

The link to the P5Q Pro is actually to a P5Q Deluxe, which is actually my favorite in this series.

I was wondering what the difference between the two was. Do you know?

[JoshuaD]

Based on what I'm reading here, I'm inclined to go with the Phenom build I put together. Can anyone confirm that the Mobo/Processor combo I picked out will be compatible with PT?

(I'm still not decided, but I'm getting closer)

[serio]

Sunburst, i'm very interested on hearing how things may be going for you with those two settups. I just put together an athlon II 630 x4 settup last weekend and i just started testing it. So far, I've done 1 dverb2.0 test wich I messed up by running at 44.1 instead of 48k. Anyway, I got 109 dverbs with my DAE buffer up at level 4. I get a DAE error at 110 deverbs. This is on 8.0.1 with the "new dverb".
Here is What I have so far:
AMD Athlon II 630 X4
C2 stepping I believe
Cool & Quiet disabled
stock heatsink

Gigabyte MA785G-UD3H
came with F4 Bios
has T.I. chip for firewire
installed only audio, nic, and south bridge chip drivers(from website downloads)
Disabled video from the get go
Im iffy about this board's performance.
read complaints about a bad nic and I think that I have that problem. Port is Green instead of Orange but it flashes orange every now and then. ???
Noticed when I downloaded the 801 update. (slowly)

Sapphire Radeon 4550 512DDR3
latest basic ATI drivers
wanted a 128 meg but oh well

2X 2G Ocz Reaper HPC CL4 DDR2
in the Bios:
I set them to "ganged"
set the timing to manual:
4-4-4-15 left the other numbers as they were because i don't know what they mean or what to set them at.
voltage at 2.1 (the sticks have 2.2 on the sticker but the website says they are 2.1v; opinions welcome)

2X WD Black 640gig SATA HDD, 32 cache
no raid or extra partitions
left these as native IDE in the bios

SIIG PCI Firewire card
003 rack on this fella. I haven't tested the onboard firewire port
for some reason I get an "!" under network adapters in the device manager with this card. I just uninstalled it under there and it seems to be working fine. ( left it installed under 1394 bus controlers)

Windows XP SP3 OEM
I found this at a local MICROCENTER
ran an update and left out IE8
I did the regular optimizations (set for best performance here, set to backround programs there, ect.) I have a list that I got from musicxp.net years ago. I usaully go through that list of settings but I have a couple left, like getting rid of the bubble hints and other little tidbits.

If you see any red flags, or if you have any tips, please post.

hope to get you a more acurate dverb test soon