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AMD or P4 for producing... (pg. 4)
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| Corteoz |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
God, I'm getting a friggin' headache from all the nonsensical rambling in this thread. I'm going to spell it out for everyone, plain and simple:
64-bit CPUs require a 64-bit Operating System in order to see *ANY* performance improvement.
That means you need to install Windows XP 64-bit edition. That may be no simple task - in order to do any production on it, you'll also need to find 64-bit drivers.
You do not need 64-bit compiled applications to see the performance improvement. The 32-bit applications are still making tons of OS API and driver calls which will be dramatically sped up by the 64-bit OS and drivers. However, you won't see AS MUCH of an improvement as you would with x64 apps.
Finally, not all 32-bit applications will work correctly on Windows XP 64-bit! Microsoft did a bang-up job on backwards compatibility but it is not perfect, and some apps don't work properly or don't work at all! The real issue here is not performance - with a 64-bit OS and drivers you'll see *at least* a 20-30% boost - the issue is compatibility!
Clear? |
Sir, yes sir!
That post wraps up the 32-bit vs. 64-bit.
My personal experience with Win 64-bit is that VERY few consumer products have proper drivers. Everything is in beta.
I wonder what music software will be the first with 64-bit support. Abelton or Cubase are good candidates since they're always packed with the latest technology. FL will surely get a 64-bit update sooner or later, but Reason will probably be the slowest of them all. I think they use way to much time on small updates. 2.5 to 3.0 was not a major update, and IMHO they could've named it 2.8 or something, but that wouldn't be a good marketing move. ;)
Wops, forgive me for going a bit off-topic. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Corteoz
My personal experience with Win 64-bit is that VERY few consumer products have proper drivers. Everything is in beta. |
Exactly. It's getting better though - ATI has 64-bit drivers, and just today I looked at Emu's website and they have drivers for the 1010/Emulator X, so I might be able to switch to 64-bit Windows for production soon.
The drivers are where 64-bit is still hurting. In general it's actually fairly simple to convert a 32-bit app to 64-bit - it just needs to be recompiled with different options. It's only when the code author has done really screwy byte or word manipulation routines that the source code would even need to be changed, and that's not common - I don't think *any* of the code I've written to date does that.
64-bit technology is kind of a fad now, but it will take over soon. It's a question of when, not if. |
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| WhiteBlade |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
God, I'm getting a friggin' headache from all the nonsensical rambling in this thread. I'm going to spell it out for everyone, plain and simple:
64-bit CPUs require a 64-bit Operating System in order to see *ANY* performance improvement.
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I'm sorry but you're only concidering the 64 bits facts
The thing is that new 64 bits processor even if they were 32 bits they would be faster that the 32 bits because they are a continuation of the speed processor.
The last 32 bits AMD made was running at 2.2ghz ( Athlon XP 3200+ )
The first 64 bits AMD made was the Athlon 64 3000+ starting at 2.0ghz and so on until you reach Athlon 64 4000+ that's running at about 2.6Ghz now.
Of couse that's whitout considering dual core and so on.
So even if you have a 32 bits OS with the brand new 64 bits AMD proessor you will se a difference in speed, not because of the 64 bits but because of the cpu speed itself.
Another thing. AMD dual core cpu are 64 bits. COrrecte me if I'm wrong but Intel dual core are not 64 bits, I'm not sure about that one though.
So even if you have a 64 bits or 32 bits and you are running 32 bits OS ( windows Xp ) you will see a difference with the new 64 bits processor cause they have a faster cpu clock anyway !
Clear ? |
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| jupiterone |
| intel dual core are 32 bit...i owned one aswell and i traded it in for a dual core amd 4200 |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by WhiteBlade
I'm sorry but you're only concidering the 64 bits facts
The thing is that new 64 bits processor even if they were 32 bits they would be faster that the 32 bits because they are a continuation of the speed processor.
The last 32 bits AMD made was running at 2.2ghz ( Athlon XP 3200+ )
The first 64 bits AMD made was the Athlon 64 3000+ starting at 2.0ghz and so on until you reach Athlon 64 4000+ that's running at about 2.6Ghz now.
Of couse that's whitout considering dual core and so on.
So even if you have a 32 bits OS with the brand new 64 bits AMD proessor you will se a difference in speed, not because of the 64 bits but because of the cpu speed itself.
Another thing. AMD dual core cpu are 64 bits. COrrecte me if I'm wrong but Intel dual core are not 64 bits, I'm not sure about that one though.
So even if you have a 64 bits or 32 bits and you are running 32 bits OS ( windows Xp ) you will see a difference with the new 64 bits processor cause they have a faster cpu clock anyway !
Clear ? |
Perfectly clear. Except, if you're going purely by clock speed then Intel wins hands-down since their processors are all 3 GHz and above. I'm with you on the fact that AMD makes better processors and that 64-bit architecture is going to take over, but the argument you've presented is really a point for the other team.
I think everybody here is capable of reading the numeric value on a processor package and figuring out what the clock speed is. The issue in question was whether or not a 64-bit chip would have any advantage over an equivalently-clocked 32-bit chip, and I explained that yes, it does, but only with a 64-bit OS.
As for the dual-core stuff, it looks very nice but I'm still waiting for some real-world figures. The best place for load balancing and thread management is at the OS level, where the "goal" of a program is clearly understood. Doing it at the hardware level may be faster in theory, but thread synchronization and safety issues may marginalize any real performance benefit. |
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| WhiteBlade |
Clock speed is not everything.
Cache memory, bus speed, cache speed too.
There's tones of facts to consider.
Why does an Athlon 3000+ (32bits) is almost as fast as an P4 3.0 when the Athlon is in fact running at 1.8 or 2.0 ??? And this is a 100% true I tested myself I have a 3.0 from intel and a 3000+ from AMD did the benchmark and everything, depending what you were doign the processor were pretty much even. AMD was winning in some test, Intel was winning in other test bot in general it was pretty equal. The difference is that AMD is less expensive and is running more slowly wich solve the heat problem !
Say what you want man but intel right now with there pentium 4 are really not the best to go. If you want to compare pentium 3 with the AMD equivalent to P3, Intel wins hands down there. But right now, AMD is faster at lower clock speed because it not only the clock speed that count.
Thats why I said that 64bits wasn't a matter it just faster and a continuation of the 32 bits.
Not like Intel that had to slow down there processor from 3.8 for a single core to 3.2 maximum for the dual core. Why do you think they did that ? The processor was goign to melt down if they would have put 2 3.8 togheter becuase Intel has Heat problem.
AMD dual core has the same clock speed that there single core and the temperature is a little bit more high on the dual core.
What Intel is doign right now is catch up work. They are behind AMD trying to do like them as fast as they can, doign the work half and cutting the corner just to release something that's a bit like AMD. THe best exemple I have are the dual core. Intel's dual core use the bus on the motherboard to make the 2 cores "talk" togheter. AMD does it all in the CPU wich leave the bus wide open. If I would have been Intel I wouldn't have release something like that, it slower that single core right now ! |
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| Rob |
| quote: | Originally posted by WhiteBlade
Why does an Athlon 3000+ (32bits) is almost as fast as an P4 3.0 when the Athlon is in fact running at 1.8 or 2.0 ??? |
Because AMD's execute more instructions per clock cycle then Pentiums. That's why an AMD 64 3000+(1.8ghz) is equivalent to a P4 3.0Ghz. In gameing the AMD's win hands down. In encoding and decoding the P4's are better. If only there was a benchmark available to test production applications.
Btw, I voted AMD, because I have a s939 AMD 64 3000+:p |
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| John |
I'm not gonna vote because I don't own a AMD and I've never had one before. But my p4 3.0 does the job well (music production, but also cad & graphic stuff..autocad, maya, photoshop, things like that), and i have never burnt my hands on my computer eventhough the processor is said to get hot. :)
But is there a really BAD buy anyway? |
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| Storyteller |
in terms of price/performance comparison yes absolutely.
otherwise no. as long as a p4 does't get too hot, what is the problem... take whichever one you prefer, allthough amd is doing a better job, this doesn't mean p4 is al that bad. |
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| WhiteBlade |
You got it Storyteller.
Price / performance is a big difference betwen Intel and AMD and if you consider motherboard you will see that an Intel system is a lot more expensive that an AMD system for the same performance.
Anyways I think that everything was said. For normal user Intel or AMD people won,t see the difference except for the money in there pocket. |
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| peejunk |
Despite what Intel PR tries tu stuff us with the talks about HyperThreading, AMDs run concurrent tasks much better. They also do floating point operations better on average (yes intel does sometimes win with offline 3D rendering and other single-running FP processes).
Music applications are concurrent, floating point intensive tasks. Your processor needs to context-switch often when trying to make it seem that all your synths and plugins are running at the same time. You go figure the rest.
As someone said, at the same price AMD based PC will give you more performance, not that much, 10-20% at max. Brand AMD motherboards (ASUS etc.) are every bit as stable and maintanable as brand Intel solutions.
Now to adress some FUD in this thread:
1) Pentiums are now much warmer, but it's not that alarming anyway. But, who ever said he had friendss that fried their AthlonXP-s is either lying, or his friends did some very careless overclocking, or were ed over by whoever sold them that crap. AthlonXPs never had temperature problems, it was the early Athlons prior to Thunderbird core.
2) You WILL NOT be able to run MacOS on run-of-the-mill Intel PCs. It's not even sure that processors will be the same for Intel-mac, chipsets as well. Anyway, if Apple does use stock Intel CPUs and only uses slightly modifiet chipsets (cheaper development so it makes sense), MacOS will be coded to check for some "dongle" type hardware on the Apple-made motherboard or something like that and won't install or run on non-Apple PCs. Apple simply doesen't want us peasants running their pretty OS on our ugly stock PCs. What justification will they have for their customers to sell them couple of months old technology at 30% bigger price. |
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