CPU upgrade from 2.0ghz to 2.4ghz - Noticable difference?

Uladyne

Uladyne

Greg
Oct 20, 2006
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Oregon Coast
I won't have the money for a new system for the foreseeable future, but I noticed my 5 year old motherboard (socket 939) supports the AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ 2.4 GHZ processor, which I've seen online at prices in the $50 - $75 range. This could be within the realm of possibility in the near future, but I'm not sure if it would be significant enough of an upgrade from my current AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHZ processor. Would it help me drop my interface latency by any noticeable degree?

Is this upgrade a notion I should entertain or should I just forget about it and wait until I have money for a whole new system?

EDIT: I should mention that my current processor is a single core, the new one would be dual core. Not sure if that makes any difference.

Oh, and I have 2 gigs of ddr ram at 167 mhz.
 
Future Greg is broke too, though. A new system is at least a couple years away, but I have a pretty big mixing session coming up, and if I can makes things easier on myself for $75 or less, it might be worth it.

I'm mainly wondering if a jump from single core to dual core would help me out. I'm still new to the multi-core idea, but isn't a 2.4 ghz dual core cpu pretty much like having two 2.4 ghz single core CPUs? I know my processing speed wouldn't necessarily double with a dual core, but couldn't one core be handling all the OS and background bullshit while the other core is focused entirely on DAW tasks?
 
I think I'm already wanting to snag one of these dual cores, I think I'm just trying to make sure all this dual core stuff is going to have as dramatic of an effect as I'm hoping it is. My usual experience with stuff like this is that there always seems to be a catch. But if I can make the upgrade for ~ $50 though, the benefits may easily exceed the effort.
 
What!!! OMG, are you on a singel core computer??? I had trouble on my dual core when i started to get finished on mix project (cirka 30-40tracks). Quad or more is the way to go!!! Save some money and buy a used computer. I bought a quad core - 6gig ram for about 300€
 
I read that the same way - Single Core? Even Dual Core is now going the way of the dinosaur. I need to upgrade to meet the new requirements for Sonar X1 and my old Dual Core AMD will probably soon become an Intel i7.
 
Jind said:
I read that the same way - Single Core? Even Dual Core is now going the way of the dinosaur. I need to upgrade to meet the new requirements for Sonar X1 and my old Dual Core AMD will probably soon become an Intel i7.
Click to expand...

Just looked at the specs, are they for real?

This is recording audio not real time rendering photorealistic graphics. :yell:
 
X4 6400+. I can't imagine that they are any more expensive than the x2 series becuase the platform is outdated by this point. I snagged a 3.0Ghz dual core for $70 about two years ago, so previous gen quad cores should be around the same price if not cheaper, if you know where to look.

and get 800MHz RAM. That in itself should make worlds difference.
 
Yea, my computer is a dinosaur. My main stumbling block is that I'm barely working enough to pay bills (actually I'm falling a bit short in that area too, now that I think about it), so buying a new motherboard is out of the question for the foreseeable future. Popping a "new" processor in my existing mobo will even be a stretch, but I'm sure I can scrape up enough for that after I get a bit more work going on. The limiting factor is that the most powerful processor that will work with my motherboard is the Athlon 64 x2 4800, outdated as it is, so quad core is out of the question for now.

Part of the issue is that I only really record my own stuff, and pre-production for my band, so I can't really justify buying a whole new beefy (up-to-date) system for something that has essentially become a hobby. :(

When I do have enough extra money for a proper upgrade though, I plan on going full out and getting the best components available that particular week. :p
 
ah, 939 socket. Really nothing you would add to that setup would even give you a remotely usable upgrade for the money. You would just be wasting your money.
 
haha socket 939 is so old man! i remember when i had a 'rare' 754 (shit) hahaha.
i'm jammin a i5 750 quad, it is amazing when it comes to alot of tracks :), not to much CPU load aswell.
 
Good ole duel core computers do the job :D I recently upgraded from my old single core intel piece of shit to a duel core, and the improvement is huge, all of Onqels amp sims only hot %5 cpu now, on my old one they used to hit around 30-40% cpu haha
 
muckypup1 said:
Good ole duel core computers do the job :D I recently upgraded from my old single core intel piece of shit to a duel core, and the improvement is huge, all of Onqels amp sims only hot %5 cpu now, on my old one they used to hit around 30-40% cpu haha
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I'm looking for. Nothing huge, not trying to run S2.0 without every bouncing the tracks to audio or anything. I'm just looking for a bit more headroom and running an amp sim on an input would be a major bonus.
 
going from 2.0 to 2.4 won't do shit...but a move from a single to dual will make a noticeable difference

i'm still using a PC with a single core pentium 4 3ghz myself...shit totally sucks, and much like you i don't have the cashflow ATM for a new system, and thus have to do a looooooooooooooooooot of working around to do any serious mixing
 
New processor kicks ass! I'm still loads behind the times, but I did a quick test with Reaper with a part of a project that used to totally choke out and stop the entire program. Now the CPU meter doesn't even pass 50% during that same section! :kickass:
 
Uladyne said:
New processor kicks ass! I'm still loads behind the times, but I did a quick test with Reaper with a part of a project that used to totally choke out and stop the entire program. Now the CPU meter doesn't even pass 50% during that same section! :kickass:
Click to expand...

\m/ awesome man, I noticed a huge improvement as well when i moved to a good ole duel core, I used to use Onqels TSE X50 on a single core and it used around 35-40% of the power, now it only uses like 5-10% :D
 
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