System Upgrade Or Wait For New System?

[Calvin]

Ok guys, I have a Asus A7v600 board running a barton 2500+ at 333 FSB and 1 gig of DDR 333 ram. The question is, is it worth it right now to update my ram and processor to 400 FSB to run optimally with my Motherboard, or should I wait a few months for PCI express and SATA to develop nativly on motherboards and jump up to a Athlon 64 3200+ system for just a little bit more?

I am just getting fed up with my system not working correctly. I am still having the same problem that I was having a couple months ago that I can't record anything below a latency of 256. This is driving me nuts. I just can't record anything right now because the latency just sucks. Low Latency monitoring dosen't even work, I get errors as soon as I turn it on. But if I do a DaveC test on 1024 I get up to 32 + 6 aux.

After doing as many tests as I or anybody on this board could think of and still not being able to record at 128, I have decided that I either need to get all of my hardware up to the higher buss speed to match my motherboard or go all out and just get a new system in a few months.

Should I upgrade my current computer with:
AMD Athlon 3200+ Barton Core w/ 400mhz FSB: $200
512 MB DDR 400 Ram: $100
------------------------------------------------
Total: $300

Or go all out and get:
Asus K8V Deluxe Via K8T800: $155
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor: $260
512 MB DDR 400 Ram: $100
------------------------------------------------
Total: $515

of course most of the all out system would change in a few months with new motherboards that support SATA and PCI express natively but the cost shouldn't be that much different. I'm pretty much thinking I'm going to wait for the next generation of motherboards since it seems the Athlon XP has reached the top of its range and everybody is going to be switching over to Athlon 64 here soon. I just wanted to know your thoughts. Thanks.

[JMS40]

Probably not what you want to hear, but you've got plenty of power, both CPU and Ram.
What version of PT are you running?

I have a less powerful system and my setup stays at 128 samples all the time.

Seems to me you have some sort of configuration problem or software/hardware conflict.

[Calvin]

Yah I agree with you, but I have done so many tests and I just can't figure this one out. I have reloaded PT several times (6.1.1), I have got the latest drivers on everything, the latest bios, all my drives are up to speed, I even tried both XP home and pro and it dosen't change a thing(although Pro does seem to get a little power boost).

It's so weird because I can be doing a huge session at a latency of 1024, but I can't even listen to a single stereo track at 128 and low latency won't work either. I just don't get it. I have tried so many different things the only thing I can think of now is that the processor and the ram are operating at 333Mhz FSB instead of 400Mhz like the motherboard would like it to. And thats a 300 dollar upgrade which seems a little dumb to me because If I am thinking toward the future at all I should move up to an Athlon 64 system because the Athlon xp is pretty much maxed out now. I don't like the idea of spending money on a system that is that close to the end of it's upgradability.

[da BaSsTaRd!]

if you really wanted to go "all out", you might buy a nice mixing board and a couple of patchbays and forget completely about your latency problems...

[pellefri]

Hi,
I builded a system with the same specs (MB/cpu). Davec 32+20 at buffer 128 (works best at 128...)

Look elsewhere... at your video/power/FW?/ram...

Pelle

Trying to remember my setup...
Asus (the one from Allen's thread, but -X)
AMD 2500+ Barton
Radeon 9200 Antlantis (hmm.. something like that)
Samsung 512*2
Adaptec 4300 fw
UAD-1
maxtor discs
Yamaha burner
DIGI002R
etc..

[pellefri]

Blackout...

A7V600-X

Pelle