hi,
i am about to build a machine for the sole purpose of running pd/gem/pidip on a planetCCRMA system for starters and am unsure which components to get. I would appreciate any advice regarding things like:
processors: intel or amd - pentuim or athlon, celron etc.?
is the difference between a 2.6mhz and 3mhz worth the extra 100 euros ?
which motherboard brand: gigabyte?
graphics card - i'm thinking about an ati 9800 all in wonder pro? - is this overkill? maybe a 9700 or 9600 would be just as good?
what type of harddrive - Seagate Baracuda look good?
noise reduction systems / watercooled processors - good idea / bad idea?
prebuilt systems? bad idea? any exceptions?
thanks,
rob canning www.robcanning.utvinternet.com
"i am about to build a machine for the sole purpose of running pd/gem/pidip on a planetCCRMA system for starters and am unsure which components to get. I would appreciate any advice regarding things like:
processors: intel or amd - pentuim or athlon, celron etc.?"
Doesn't make a great deal of difference, avoid Celeron though because of the reduced floating point performance.
"is the difference between a 2.6mhz and 3mhz worth the extra 100 euros ?"
If you really don't need 100 euros for something else then go for it but on a dedicated system 2.6 should be enough.
"which motherboard brand: gigabyte?"
Anything well known, I've had no trouble with 2 gigabyte boards, but I'd go for Asus if it was me.
"graphics card - i'm thinking about an ati 9800 all in wonder pro? - is this overkill? maybe a 9700 or 9600 would be just as good?"
The 9800's probably overkill, I'd stick with a 9700/9600 because the price drops off significantly when you get away from bleeding edge.
"what type of harddrive - Seagate Baracuda look good?"
Seagate Barracuda is my drive of choice, quiet and decent performance.
"noise reduction systems / watercooled processors - good idea / bad idea?"
Getting a low noise power supply is probably a good idea, also plan the internal layout of the case so you get decent airflow with minimal extra fans. If you can afford watercooling then it will let you cool a very high performance system with sensible levels of noise but installation could be tricky (bear in mind that you'll probably want to cool the graphics card as well to benefit from low noise.
"prebuilt systems? bad idea? any exceptions?"
I build my own these days, the cost isn't much different to pre-built but you get exactly what you want. Pre-built systems for music are probably a waste of money 'cause they'll be Windows based.
Hope that helps a bit, Jonny www.jeremah.co.uk
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processors: intel or amd - pentuim or athlon, celron etc.?"
Doesn't make a great deal of difference, avoid Celeron though because of the reduced floating point performance.
What about AMD Duron processors? does PD perform ok on them? I had a computer with a Duron 600mhz and i was pretty happy with it considering the price i paid. They are really cheap. I didnt use PD on that computer so i am not sure how it would behave.
Hi Rob,
rscanning@eircom.net wrote:
processors: intel or amd - pentuim or athlon, celron etc.?
Be aware that PD has some unresolved issues with the P4 "denormal bug", which causes massive CPU usage when floating point numbers get closer and closer to infinitely small [i.e. during reverb or delay tails, etc].
Miller claims that the problem has been fixed in PD 0.37, but I find that certain objects retain this behavior. Try running a decaying feedback loop through a [hip~ 5], for example, to see it in action.
If I were to buy another computer, I would avoid a P4 for that reason.
best, Derek
On Jan 13, 2004, at 8:14 AM, rscanning@eircom.net wrote:
processors: intel or amd - pentuim or athlon, celron etc.?
Athlons seem to be quite good at single precision floating point which is was Pd audio uses, but I've found them less effective for video processing. I would go for a CPU over 2 Ghz with at least 512K L2 cache, SSE support and the fastest FSB available - like 800Mhz vs 533 Mhz for the P4.
You don't need anything 64 bit for audio or video at this point, plus most of those chips are very pricey and untested. You could hold out for the PPC 970 based systems later this year. 3rd party chipset makers already offer eval boards.
is the difference between a 2.6mhz and 3mhz worth the extra 100 euros ?
Maybe if the 3 ghz has an 800 mhz bus and the 2.6 had a 533 mhz FSB, but both being the same wouldn't make a whole heck of a lot of difference.
which motherboard brand: gigabyte?
Find one with dual channel DDR support. This will feed the higher clocked P4 busses much better than a single channel one. And try and get as many features like ethernet and firewire/usb 2 built in.
If you were in the states, then I would recommend Tyan as their tech support is based here and very good.
graphics card - i'm thinking about an ati 9800 all in wonder pro? - is this overkill? maybe a 9700 or 9600 would be just as good?
The 9800 is total overkill for GEM, and so is the 9600 since we haven't added support for most of the advanced features you pay for in those GPUs. That's pretty much the case for all software outside of high end apps like Maya at the moment, so you can either save money now or spend more as an 'investment' for future possibilities.
I would avoid the GeForce FX 5200 and 5600 as they have really poor performance compared to other current cards. You might find a deal on the 5700 or 5900 as Nvidia are trying to move those by cutting prices.
what type of harddrive - Seagate Baracuda look good?
I like them quite a bit. Extremely quiet, pretty good performance, and no issues so far (knock on wood).
cgc
noise reduction systems / watercooled processors - good idea / bad idea?
prebuilt systems? bad idea? any exceptions?
thanks,
rob canning www.robcanning.utvinternet.com
PD-list mailing list PD-list@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
Hallo, cgc hat gesagt: // cgc wrote:
You don't need anything 64 bit for audio or video at this point, plus most of those chips are very pricey and untested. You could hold out for the PPC 970 based systems later this year. 3rd party chipset makers already offer eval boards.
But Athlon64 aren't *that* pricy, and the built-in power saving is a nice feature. And they are very fast even with 32-bit code. If I were shopping now, I guess I would bite.
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
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