Buying a new pc for recording: Quad Core or Dual Core?

[Unavailable]

If you can get your hands on an E8400... do it. There's a reason they are in such high demand right now.

 

[JBroll]

Don't go out and buy the latest and greatest because all the software apps will have to upgrade to 64 bit operating systems as 32 bit support has finished.

If you really want to spend your money on a new PC buy a dual core as they are less expensive and most Applications are not multi core aware yet.

First part: fail. There is TONS of work to do to upgrade to 64-bit because EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE IN EXISTENCE has to be redone to take advantage of 64-bit processing.

I'll say that again, slowly.

PPSHHHHHT gnissecorp tib-46 fo egatnavda ekat ot enoder eb ot sah ECNETSIXE NI ERAWTFOS FO ECEIP YREVE esuaceb tib-46 ot edargpu ot od ot krow fo SNOT si erehT CLICK

There is TONS of work to do to upgrade to 64-bit because EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE IN EXISTENCE has to be redone to take advantage of 64-bit processing.

With that, even if we do expect the entire known universe to switch to 64-bit - and I most certainly don't, being one of very few people who actually has an excuse for using 64-bit processing - it won't be for a very, very long time.

Second part.... partial fail. Most software doesn't use multi-core...

But we're not using most software, are we? If the DAW(s) he will be using is going to run better under multi-core, then going multi-core may be a very good move. Further, unlike rewriting EVERYTHING for 64-bit - which makes the Office Space job of looking for problems with two-digit years look about as hard as lighting haystacks on fire with lit napalm - multi-core is rapidly growing, and it is much easier to 'dumb down' multi-core software to single-core than it is to make 64-bit software to run on 32-bit architectures.

And throw in at least 4GB of DDR2 800Mhz memory, 2x2GB would be the best choice IMO... Memory has never been cheaper, so I'd recommend getting some quality brands like OCZ, Geil, Corsair or Kingston instead of some cheap crap.

Also, make sure the motherboard is compatible with it. But THIS is very important. Finally, some useful advice that isn't just jacking off to how smart big words can sound...

Although I will say Intel has gotten some nice CPU's out there now with there core 2 duo's - less power consumption, less heat and I think they will even be using 45 nanometers which also means less heat.

Putting more transistors in a smaller area will typically yield more heat. Care to elaborate? Nanometers are a unit of distance, not magical fairy dust that cools CPUs...

I don't see this multi-core thing as nothing more than a trend, if the software doesn't use them, then the only thing they are good for is multi-tasking, and the only real need for that are in server situations. Most people don't run 3 applications at a time, so therefore the other 2 cores will just be sitting there collecting dust.

For serious computing it is far from a trend. Multi-core and even multi-processor units have been behind tons of things that you don't even think about on a daily basis, and now that they're commercially available more systems and programs are taking full advantage of that. A while back, people thought that, and then just to piss people off someone put out a comparison of the performance of either Quake 4 or Doom 3 (can't recall which, same engine though) and showed that dual-core had about 80% greater performance.

Eighty. Fucking. Percent.

And that's just a video game. 'If the software doesn't use them' is what separates the argument today, which is just silly, from the same argument made years ago, which might have been plausible as a /. comment but not really anywhere near that for anyone interested in *serious* computing.

Further, what about system processes? Maybe Grandma isn't going to be writing her pen pals about how cool it is that she can run Powerpoint, Outlook, AND Word at the same time, but unless you're using a bloody punch-card box there is a LOT of operating system work to do... ESPECIALLY with bloated fucking cows like Windows. On top of that, audio in/out is going to be very important and it's nice to have it separated from disk writing and effect processing.

Jeff

 

[Glenn Fricker]

somebody recently posted an article on here about quad cores not outperforming duo-cores in audio apps. I think it was Oz

Not me. I said drummers are meatheads.

 

[SickBoy]

Also, make sure the motherboard is compatible with it.

Well I don't expect that someone buying a PC for recording would go for the cheapshit mobo...
But just to make sure, recommendation goes for P35 chipset mobos, any reliable brand will do in the 150-200$ region (at least judging by the prices here in Croatia). Brands to look for - Asus, Gigabyte, DFI...
Intel's mobos are very good themselves, but their design is somewhat conservative IMO, and for the same price others offer more very oftenly...

And the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN YOUR COMPUTER - PSU!!!
I cannot stress this enough!
If you're not gonna be playing games, then you'll be putting in the simplest VGA card, right? Then a 400W PSU will do... For any gamer VGA card you should check its power demands first. The bottom line is, DON'T SPARE ON PSU! It's the most common mistake I see over and over again...
Get something worthwhile, here's some recommendable PSU brands:
Tagan, Chieftec, Fortron, Seasonic, Sharkoon, OCZ...

For serious computing it is far from a trend. Multi-core and even multi-processor units have been behind tons of things that you don't even think about on a daily basis, and now that they're commercially available more systems and programs are taking full advantage of that. A while back, people thought that, and then just to piss people off someone put out a comparison of the performance of either Quake 4 or Doom 3 (can't recall which, same engine though) and showed that dual-core had about 80% greater performance.

I agree.
I'd point out another perspective... You don't go and buy a computer, and then sell the thing and buy something completely new after a few months. And if the quad-cores ain't that much supported right now (which I seriously doubt, at least when serious pro apps are concerned) then in the time to come THEY WILL BE! A bit of lookahead is always welcome when PCs are concerned...

And my HDD recommendation goes to 500GB models by Seagate or WD.
For the price you get the most GBs and they're not pricey at all!
With other brands my experiences are not that shiny, especially Maxtor - avoid that crap at all costs!

 

[JBroll]

I don't know if I'd get two 500GBs, but make sure to get a separate system drive and session drive. You want the 'system' drive to also hold anything not essential to recording - like your porn, games, plans to bomb large buildings in New York, et cetera - so if you can't swing for a 500GB there I wouldn't go anywhere less than 100.

Jeff

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

32 bit support finished? If that were true, there wouldn't be a 32 bit version of vista, but there is. And I'm not planning on buying the latest or greatest... I just want something good. My current computer is extremely old and couldn't handle recording, and I'm ready to start with everything, so I need a new computer.... I'm buying the parts from newegg and putting one together myself. I've decided on pretty much everything already except for the motherboard and the processor...

For the processor, I'm mainly looking at the E8400 dual core vs. the Q6600 quad core...

Microloft are not going to be producing any more Vista 32 because software and hardware comapnies dont want to be writing 2 sets of drivers anymore because Vista 32 is really a bloated version of XP 32.

Microloft stated this fact themselves.

I would suggest you purchase Sata hardrives and caddies.

I would suggest a Gigabyte motherboard from my own experience as I have not had any installation problems and the chipsets work great.

Will the PC be in your recording / monitoring room??

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

First part: fail. There is TONS of work to do to upgrade to 64-bit because EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE IN EXISTENCE has to be redone to take advantage of 64-bit processing.

I'll say that again, slowly.

PPSHHHHHT gnissecorp tib-46 fo egatnavda ekat ot enoder eb ot sah ECNETSIXE NI ERAWTFOS FO ECEIP YREVE esuaceb tib-46 ot edargpu ot od ot krow fo SNOT si erehT CLICK

Software companies have had 64 bit XP for years and alot of companies have been producing 64 bit apps for years and its only the audio software houses which have not moved with the times.

Audio software Apps have no choice if Microloft remove support from Vista 32 do they as Vista 32 was only meant as a stop gap product for users with 32 bit CPUs and how many 32 bit CPUs are produced now??

 

[ElektricEyez]

[/SIZE]There is TONS of work to do to upgrade to 64-bit because EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE IN EXISTENCE has to be redone to take advantage of 64-bit processing.

With that, even if we do expect the entire known universe to switch to 64-bit - and I most certainly don't, being one of very few people who actually has an excuse for using 64-bit processing - it won't be for a very, very long time.

Second part.... partial fail. Most software doesn't use multi-core...

But we're not using most software, are we? If the DAW(s) he will be using is going to run better under multi-core, then going multi-core may be a very good move. Further, unlike rewriting EVERYTHING for 64-bit - which makes the Office Space job of looking for problems with two-digit years look about as hard as lighting haystacks on fire with lit napalm - multi-core is rapidly growing, and it is much easier to 'dumb down' multi-core software to single-core than it is to make 64-bit software to run on 32-bit architectures.




Putting more transistors in a smaller area will typically yield more heat. Care to elaborate? Nanometers are a unit of distance, not magical fairy dust that cools CPUs...



For serious computing it is far from a trend. Multi-core and even multi-processor units have been behind tons of things that you don't even think about on a daily basis, and now that they're commercially available more systems and programs are taking full advantage of that. A while back, people thought that, and then just to piss people off someone put out a comparison of the performance of either Quake 4 or Doom 3 (can't recall which, same engine though) and showed that dual-core had about 80% greater performance.

Eighty. Fucking. Percent.

And that's just a video game. 'If the software doesn't use them' is what separates the argument today, which is just silly, from the same argument made years ago, which might have been plausible as a /. comment but not really anywhere near that for anyone interested in *serious* computing.

Further, what about system processes? Maybe Grandma isn't going to be writing her pen pals about how cool it is that she can run Powerpoint, Outlook, AND Word at the same time, but unless you're using a bloody punch-card box there is a LOT of operating system work to do... ESPECIALLY with bloated fucking cows like Windows. On top of that, audio in/out is going to be very important and it's nice to have it separated from disk writing and effect processing.

Jeff

As far as the 45 nm chip goes, it does consume less power and less heat. I know that nanometers are a form of measurement - but that isn't the only factor. The way Intel was used to improve their advancement towards the 45 nm realm is new material they are using for their transistors. It's something called hafnium based High-K metal gate silicon (don't ask me how they achieve that), but I do know that the material helps reduce leakage and improve power management which leads to less power consumption and which equates to less heat. Part of that has to do with the ability to have more cache, Intel is boasting 50% more on die cache which is REALLY nice! I believe they also changed their architecture of the chip in the way it handles floating point integer processing something that is good for digital summing. The chip also manages single threaded applications to basically utilize one core for less power consumption- something they call DAT, or Dynamic Acceleration Technology. Like us DAW users and Gamers give a crap about that. Basically its a bad freaking processor, and this is coming from someone who has favored AMD for quite a long time. So there you go, smaller nanometers less heat, and less power consumption and faster chip, enjoy if you can empty your pockets for one.

64 Bit processing is the better way to go, if you are going to use a DAW that can handle it. I read an article somewhere awhile back where Sonar and Intel were providing numbers about how not only does it handle multiple plugins better, but the engineer who was using it also claimed that the music sounded better. So I say if your going to have a PC do just one thing, which is strictly studio work, go 64 bit all the way, its faster and better all around. But your right, the amount of applications you run will be limited. I think that Sonar was boasting a 30% increase in performance when run on Windows 64 Bit.

You bring up some good arguments about multi-core processing. I guess my point was that right now, with any powerful and well respected dual core chip on the market, your DAW should be able to handle anything you throw at it. I currently use Sonar Prod 6, and I can throw as many tracks with as many VST plugs that I want, and not bog it down. I'm using an older dual core AMD Opteron over clocked by 600 Mhz, running at 2.6 Ghz. I have no problems at all with that thing, in the Daw. Yes, I can play Quake 4 running at max settings, no problem and just about any other game I want (except Crisis, but that's only due to lack of Video card(s) power). But back to multi-cores becoming a trend, in the server world, multi-core processing is nothing new - I've seen quite a few servers running NT4 with 4 cores in them. But again, today they would be sitting there doing nothing - background processes and all (well unless your running hog-load Vista) But maybe in the future DAW's make the change to utilize more than just 2 cores, but as far as today's DAW's go, they only use maximum 2 cores when processing - that's all they are designed for. If you got the cash, blow it on a quad core, you won't be disappointed, and in terms of gaming and DAW's you will be ahead of the game. I am certain that games will eventually utilize all 4 cores simultaneously - DAW's using them on the other hand, may take a few years to catch on to the trend.

As far as HD goes, solid state is the next gen of mass storage devices, and I think Intel will be releasing it later this year, should be killer stuff. Imagine that; I suspect 0 latency live monitoring becoming the next big thing the digital realm. As for now, I recommend putting your money towards a faster HD like a 10k RPM or faster and when your done with a project, burn the AIFF files to a DVD and put it away in storage somewhere as opposed to putting it towards a larger storage or even get an external hard drive to back up your audio files. I always considered getting a cache controller as well to speed up your Hard drives, but I've never tried it. Honestly, Mass storage is your biggest bottleneck at the moment. But either way, back up your files! There are only 2 types of hard drives out there, ones that have failed and ones that are going to fail!!!

I also agree that putting all your audio files on a different HD is the way to go, and games and other apps on the main drive. The reason being is that when the dreaded day comes that you have to re-format your disks, you only format the OS and all of your audio files are untouched. But none-the-less back up your data as well on to some other media!

 

[JBroll]

Software companies have had 64 bit XP for years and alot of companies have been producing 64 bit apps for years and its only the audio software houses which have not moved with the times.

Audio software Apps have no choice if Microloft remove support from Vista 32 do they as Vista 32 was only meant as a stop gap product for users with 32 bit CPUs and how many 32 bit CPUs are produced now??

(1) Not even three years yet... not that drastic.

(2) Many hardware providers have yet to release a single 64-bit driver, and many software companies are relying on 32-bit emulation to run their programs. It is far from true that only audio software has not moved to 64-bit... if anything, they're the least fucked-up because they don't hack-and-patch gazillions of lines of code and hope that they work in 32-bit emulation mode... and before you say 'good enough, works for me' that's one of many fuckups that has kept Windows a bloody mess since 32-bit became popular. Remember that there's a gigantic difference between 64-bit software and 32-bit software that can run on a 64-bit, and if we fuck up the transition to 64-bit by having more of the latter... let's just say people who rushed it will be getting their balls crushed by large blocks of iron.

Microloft are not going to be producing any more Vista 32 because software and hardware comapnies dont want to be writing 2 sets of drivers anymore because Vista 32 is really a bloated version of XP 32.

Microloft stated this fact themselves.

Please source this. Don't let this forum be another Slashdot... and did you seriously misspell Microsoft twice in the exact same way?

64 Bit processing is the better way to go, if you are going to use a DAW that can handle it. I read an article somewhere awhile back where Sonar and Intel were providing numbers about how not only does it handle multiple plugins better, but the engineer who was using it also claimed that the music sounded better. So I say if your going to have a PC do just one thing, which is strictly studio work, go 64 bit all the way, its faster and better all around. But your right, the amount of applications you run will be limited. I think that Sonar was boasting a 30% increase in performance when run on Windows 64 Bit.

Moving to 64-bit is going to be inevitable, but it will take longer than taking advantage of multi-core. You do seem to know your stuff better than BoN, but I had to throw my two cents in on the multi-core and the fact that you didn't really explain the correlation between a smaller chip and better temperatures - something that really helps people who don't actually know computers to really screw things up.

Honestly, if the money was there I'd just recommend getting a 64-bit processor and running it in 32-bit mode until 64-bit supported everything that would be used.

You bring up some good arguments about multi-core processing. I guess my point was that right now, with any powerful and well respected dual core chip on the market, your DAW should be able to handle anything you throw at it. I currently use Sonar Prod 6, and I can throw as many tracks with as many VST plugs that I want, and not bog it down. I'm using an older dual core AMD Opteron over clocked by 600 Mhz, running at 2.6 Ghz. I have no problems at all with that thing, in the Daw. Yes, I can play Quake 4 running at max settings, no problem and just about any other game I want (except Crisis, but that's only due to lack of Video card(s) power). But back to multi-cores becoming a trend, in the server world, multi-core processing is nothing new - I've seen quite a few servers running NT4 with 4 cores in them. But again, today they would be sitting there doing nothing - background processes and all (well unless your running hog-load Vista) But maybe in the future DAW's make the change to utilize more than just 2 cores, but as far as today's DAW's go, they only use maximum 2 cores when processing - that's all they are designed for. If you got the cash, blow it on a quad core, you won't be disappointed, and in terms of gaming and DAW's you will be ahead of the game. I am certain that games will eventually utilize all 4 cores simultaneously - DAW's using them on the other hand, may take a few years to catch on to the trend.

I doubt it'll take that long... just look how long dual-core took, and most people still don't even know two cores from their balls when you get right down to it. Plus, the potential benefits far outweigh the relative penalties that will pop up when only $40 more could have bought more cores but a whole new processor needs to be bought to get better performance.

As far as HD goes, solid state is the next gen of mass storage devices, and I think Intel will be releasing it later this year, should be killer stuff. Imagine that; I suspect 0 latency live monitoring becoming the next big thing the digital realm. As for now, I recommend putting your money towards a faster HD like a 10k RPM or faster and when your done with a project, burn the AIFF files to a DVD and put it away in storage somewhere as opposed to putting it towards a larger storage or even get an external hard drive to back up your audio files. I always considered getting a cache controller as well to speed up your Hard drives, but I've never tried it. Honestly, Mass storage is your biggest bottleneck at the moment. But either way, back up your files! There are only 2 types of hard drives out there, ones that have failed and ones that are going to fail!!!

Good point, but I wouldn't put too many mission-critical things on solid-state drives as they're still less tested as massive storage devices like we plan to have. Operating system I'd put on one of those, but DAW, plugins, audio files... probably not. That said, I'd love to have a laptop with that kind of thing, because I can run an operating system under half a gig and would love the speed and portability...

Jeff

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

(1) Not even three years yet... not that drastic.

(2) Many hardware providers have yet to release a single 64-bit driver, and many software companies are relying on 32-bit emulation to run their programs. It is far from true that only audio software has not moved to 64-bit... if anything, they're the least fucked-up because they don't hack-and-patch gazillions of lines of code and hope that they work in 32-bit emulation mode... and before you say 'good enough, works for me' that's one of many fuckups that has kept Windows a bloody mess since 32-bit became popular. Remember that there's a gigantic difference between 64-bit software and 32-bit software that can run on a 64-bit, and if we fuck up the transition to 64-bit by having more of the latter... let's just say people who rushed it will be getting their balls crushed by large blocks of iron.



Please source this. Don't let this forum be another Slashdot... and did you seriously misspell Microsoft twice in the exact same way?

I always call Microsoft something else sarcastic.

As the for sourcing my statement about Vista I thought this was general knowlege as it was reported by the BBC on TV a few weeks ago, I was surprised myself when it was reported.

I thought you guys in the US would have known about this before us here in the UK.

 

[JBroll]

I know XP support is getting phased out and Google didn't turn anything up. That's why sources are important...

And, on a side note, calling the company Micro$oft/Microloft/Microslobs is just annoying, Barn of Notworthy.

Jeff