9 Jun
2003
9 Jun
'03
11:57 p.m.
I'm planning on building a new machine and would like some advice. Right
now I think the main application of it's "power" will be in
recording/mixing in linux. People have been saying that a dual processor
is something to consider, but there's currently a problem: the amd
athlon's that would be at my price point (the 2600 - 2800's) have no
dual processor motherboard support, and it looks like there won't be any
b/c companies are just going to go straight to supporting the
new 64-bit opterons (which aren't in my price range). So if anyone can
comment on any of the following things, it would really help me out.
Front Side Bus speed: how important is this for recording? i could just
get two bargain athlon's with a slower FSB, would that work?
Would any of the sound apps out there, or even linux in general, make
any use of a 64 bit opteron anytime soon? (no i won't have more than 4GB
of memory)
Hyperthreading - the new fancy P4's have it. Does it do anything on
linux? I saw some benchmarks where it really sped up video encoding (on
windows), how similar to sound processing is this?
In general, intel chips seem to do better in benchmarks on floating
point stuff (games and video) while amd's do better on integer heavy
apps (office software). I would think that sound stuff would therefore
run better on intel's but lots of sound people say they prefer amd's.
Any reason for this?
How fast does a system really need to be before it can handle recording
with practically no limits? (let's say fewer than 10 tracks at a time
such as with a delta1010)
thanks for any help, i'd be happy if i got responses to only a few of
these questions.
Peter
10 Jun
10 Jun
1:24 a.m.
Something to keep in mind: One 2Ghz processor is faster than a machine
with 2 1Ghz processors because of the overhead involved. I'd suggest
getting a faster single processor.
On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 20:45, Peter Groves wrote:
I'm planning on building a new machine and would
like some advice. Right
now I think the main application of it's "power" will be in
recording/mixing in linux. People have been saying that a dual processor
is something to consider, but there's currently a problem: the amd
athlon's that would be at my price point (the 2600 - 2800's) have no
dual processor motherboard support, and it looks like there won't be any
b/c companies are just going to go straight to supporting the
new 64-bit opterons (which aren't in my price range). So if anyone can
comment on any of the following things, it would really help me out.
Front Side Bus speed: how important is this for recording? i could just
get two bargain athlon's with a slower FSB, would that work?
Would any of the sound apps out there, or even linux in general, make
any use of a 64 bit opteron anytime soon? (no i won't have more than 4GB
of memory)
Hyperthreading - the new fancy P4's have it. Does it do anything on
linux? I saw some benchmarks where it really sped up video encoding (on
windows), how similar to sound processing is this?
In general, intel chips seem to do better in benchmarks on floating
point stuff (games and video) while amd's do better on integer heavy
apps (office software). I would think that sound stuff would therefore
run better on intel's but lots of sound people say they prefer amd's.
Any reason for this?
How fast does a system really need to be before it can handle recording
with practically no limits? (let's say fewer than 10 tracks at a time
such as with a delta1010)
thanks for any help, i'd be happy if i got responses to only a few of
these questions.
Peter
--
greg <gval(a)mts.net>
3:37 a.m.
On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 11:45, Peter Groves wrote:
I'm planning on building a new machine and would
like some advice. Right
now I think the main application of it's "power" will be in
recording/mixing in linux. People have been saying that a dual processor
is something to consider,
Worth it if you can afford the $$ it means that while doing heavy audio
processing your X windows will run cleaner and resources can be
designated across the processors.
but there's currently a problem: the amd
athlon's that would be at my price point (the 2600 - 2800's) have no
dual processor motherboard support, and it looks like there won't be any
b/c companies are just going to go straight to supporting the
new 64-bit opterons (which aren't in my price range). So if anyone can
comment on any of the following things, it would really help me out.
Front Side Bus speed: how important is this for recording? i could just
get two bargain athlon's with a slower FSB, would that work?
As audio is real-time a faster FSB is better, the reason being you want
to be able to push as much through the processor as you can in one go.
(i.e. more tracks or plugins)
Would any of the sound apps out there, or even linux in general, make
any use of a 64 bit opteron anytime soon? (no i won't have more than 4GB
of memory)
Can't answer that with expertise but as I understand if you compile
software from source as 64 bit then it will be 64 bit software (someone
with more knowledge please correct me if I am wrong). Hence you may
benefit if you are compiling your kernel and main software from source.
Hyperthreading - the new fancy P4's have it. Does
it do anything on
linux? I saw some benchmarks where it really sped up video encoding (on
windows), how similar to sound processing is this?
Linux is a highly threaded OS and so is most of the software, this
should in theory provide benefits.
In general, intel chips seem to do better in benchmarks on floating
point stuff (games and video) while amd's do better on integer heavy
apps (office software). I would think that sound stuff would therefore
run better on intel's but lots of sound people say they prefer amd's.
Any reason for this?
Audio is heavy on floating point calculation, yet I've also seen reports
that the newer AMD's may actually be better on the FPU stuff, of course
that is all hearsay.
How fast does a system really need to be before it can handle recording
with practically no limits? (let's say fewer than 10 tracks at a time
such as with a delta1010)
Basically any current processor on the market will handle this
requirement.. However the more powerful the processor the more you can
do, this may be playback and recording of more tracks, but really what
most people need extra power for is to run more plugins simultaneously.
The speed of your HD is also a critical factor but basically anything
from UDMA66 drive (now obsolete) and up will handle a sufficiently
large number of tracks. If you are building a system now then go with a
Serial ATA drive and you can't go wrong.
I personally prefer the current Intel chips because they run at a cooler
temperature so the fans required are less noisy... this was a big factor
in selecting my current PC The less background noise in an audio
environment the better, and even with a P4 I'm still looking at ways of
making a quieter case. . :))))
Remember though whatever you buy today will be obsolete tomorrow.
thanks for any help, i'd be happy if i got responses to only a few of
these questions.
I hope this has been of benefit and happy building.
Allan
Peter
4:44 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000, Allan Klinbail wrote:
On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 11:45, Peter Groves wrote:
Agreed, but making SMP machines quiet is a real challenge.
I'm planning on building a new machine and
would like some advice. Right
now I think the main application of it's "power" will be in
recording/mixing in linux. People have been saying that a dual processor
is something to consider,
Worth it if you can afford the $$ it means that while doing heavy audio
processing your X windows will run cleaner and resources can be
designated across the processors. Audio is heavy on floating point calculation, yet
I've also seen reports
that the newer AMD's may actually be better on the FPU stuff, of course
that is all hearsay.
Athlons (except the very high end ones which are overpriced) from XP
onwards have faster float mangling per $ than PIV's.
I personally prefer the current Intel chips because
they run at a cooler
temperature so the fans required are less noisy... this was a big factor
in selecting my current PC The less background noise in an audio
environment the better, and even with a P4 I'm still looking at ways of
making a quieter case. . :))))
Yes, I think if I was building a machine today, I'd go for PIV for this
reason, at the time I bought an Athlon XP cos I needed to get as much FPU
performace for my $ as I could. I think some of the slower PIVs can be
passively cooled, with extreme heatsinks.
- Steve
11 Jun
11 Jun
7:18 a.m.
Steve Harris wrote:
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000, Allan
Klinbail wrote:
I have a dual 2K Athlon and although it's a very quick machine,
I'm increasingly irritated by the noise (especially as the weather
gets hotter and cooling requirements increase). I've probably spent
as much money on various largely failed attempts at quietening it
through random bits of agricultural-looking technology as I did on
the processors.
So I (rather unwillingly) have to support the apparent consensus:
get a single fast Intel.
Chris
I personally prefer the current Intel chips
because they run at a cooler
temperature so the fans required are less noisy...
Yes, I think if I was building a machine today, I'd go for PIV for this
reason, at the time I bought an Athlon XP cos I needed to get as much FPU
performace for my $ as I could. 
7:43 a.m.
onsdagen den 11 juni 2003 11.05 skrev Chris Cannam:
Steve Harris wrote:
Hi,
Though I'm not on the cutting edge any more wrt to CPU speed, cooling noise
has always been one of the things I hate most about modern computers. (Oh,
what joy it once was, back in the Amiga days.)
I have long since given up trying silence the fans (I do it a little to keep
it bearable) and it is most oftenly counter productive to their purpose.
My solution for several years now has been to place the computer in an
adjacent room, in this case a storage room.
I just drilled a hole in the wall, just large enough so all the cables are
able to fit and then covered the hole as best I could to eliminate noise
through it.
For me this has been the ideal solution, noise is way down, close to non
audible proportions, and cooling for the computer is also good enough.
/Robert
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000, Allan
Klinbail wrote:
I have a dual 2K Athlon and although it's a very quick machine,
I'm increasingly irritated by the noise (especially as the weather
gets hotter and cooling requirements increase). I've probably spent
as much money on various largely failed attempts at quietening it
through random bits of agricultural-looking technology as I did on
the processors.
So I (rather unwillingly) have to support the apparent consensus:
get a single fast Intel. I personally prefer the current Intel chips
because they run at a cooler
temperature so the fans required are less noisy...
Yes, I think if I was building a machine today, I'd go for PIV for this
reason, at the time I bought an Athlon XP cos I needed to get as much FPU
performace for my $ as I could. 
9:06 a.m.
I have the ASUS A7M266-D with two AMD 1.0Ghz processors. I'm quite
happy with the performance. The chips certainly are not high end
anymore so you can get away with very very quiet CPU fans. The real
problem is the powersupply, advertised as quiet and at US$90. That
was a real dissapointment. Perhaps it actually is quiet for a 400W.
I paid under $300 for the Mobo, cpus, fans. The deal breaker was
the PS.
--ant
* Robert Jonsson <robert.jonsson(a)dataductus.se> [Jun 11 03 04:51]:
onsdagen den 11 juni 2003 11.05 skrev Chris Cannam:
Steve Harris wrote:
Hi,
Though I'm not on the cutting edge any more wrt to CPU speed, cooling noise
has always been one of the things I hate most about modern computers. (Oh,
what joy it once was, back in the Amiga days.)
I have long since given up trying silence the fans (I do it a little to keep
it bearable) and it is most oftenly counter productive to their purpose.
My solution for several years now has been to place the computer in an
adjacent room, in this case a storage room.
I just drilled a hole in the wall, just large enough so all the cables are
able to fit and then covered the hole as best I could to eliminate noise
through it.
For me this has been the ideal solution, noise is way down, close to non
audible proportions, and cooling for the computer is also good enough.
/Robert
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000, Allan
Klinbail wrote:
I have a dual 2K Athlon and although it's a very quick machine,
I'm increasingly irritated by the noise (especially as the weather
gets hotter and cooling requirements increase). I've probably spent
as much money on various largely failed attempts at quietening it
through random bits of agricultural-looking technology as I did on
the processors.
So I (rather unwillingly) have to support the apparent consensus:
get a single fast Intel. I personally prefer the current Intel chips
because they run at a cooler
temperature so the fans required are less noisy...
Yes, I think if I was building a machine today, I'd go for PIV for this
reason, at the time I bought an Athlon XP cos I needed to get as much FPU
performace for my $ as I could. 
9:20 a.m.
I've got dual mpx 2600+ on a 50ft chain so it can't
chew on my ears. The computer is in an old Digital
7000 case that's almost six feet tall, there's about
10 fans. I keep it in the bathroom. I'm not surprised
that people don't spend much time in that bathroom. I
think its size and noise almost give you the sense
that someone's watching. :)
ron
--- Anthony <avan(a)uwm.edu> wrote:
I have the ASUS A7M266-D with two AMD 1.0Ghz
processors. I'm quite
happy with the performance. The chips certainly are
not high end
anymore so you can get away with very very quiet CPU
fans. The real
problem is the powersupply, advertised as quiet and
at US$90. That
was a real dissapointment. Perhaps it actually is
quiet for a 400W.
I paid under $300 for the Mobo, cpus, fans. The deal
breaker was
the PS.
--ant
* Robert Jonsson <robert.jonsson(a)dataductus.se> [Jun
11 03 04:51]:
CPU speed, cooling noise
__________________________________
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onsdagen den 11 juni 2003 11.05 skrev Chris
Cannam:
> Steve Harris wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000,
Allan Klinbail wrote:
> >>I personally prefer the current
Intel chips
because they run at a cooler
> >>temperature so the fans required are
less
noisy...
> >
> > Yes, I think if I was building a machine
today, I'd go for PIV for
this
> > reason, at the time I bought an Athlon
XP cos
I needed to get as much FPU
> > performace for my $ as I could.
>
> I have a dual 2K Athlon and although it's a very
quick machine,
> I'm increasingly irritated by the noise
(especially as the weather
> gets hotter and cooling requirements
increase).
I've probably spent
> as much money on various largely failed
attempts
at quietening it
> through random bits of agricultural-looking
technology as I did on
> the processors.
>
> So I (rather unwillingly) have to support the
apparent consensus:
get a
single fast Intel.
Hi,
Though I'm not on the cutting edge any more wrt to has always been one of the things I hate most
about modern computers. (Oh,
what joy it once was, back in the Amiga days.)
I have long since given up trying silence the fans
(I do it a little to keep
it bearable) and it is most oftenly counter
productive to their purpose.
My solution for several years now has been to
place the computer in an
adjacent room, in this case a storage room.
I just drilled a hole in the wall, just large
enough so all the cables are
able to fit and then covered the hole as best I
could to eliminate noise
through it.
For me this has been the ideal solution, noise is
way down, close to non
audible proportions, and cooling for the computer
is also good enough.
>
> /Robert
>
> 
5:02 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, R Parker wrote:
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Processor
Recommendation
I've got dual mpx 2600+ on a 50ft chain so it can't
chew on my ears. The computer is in an old Digital
7000 case that's almost six feet tall, there's about
10 fans. I keep it in the bathroom. I'm not surprised
that people don't spend much time in that bathroom. I
think its size and noise almost give you the sense
that someone's watching. :)
ron
<snip>
Now *that* is an extreme solution.
It should be noted that the newer, consumer-friendly watercooling kits
(e.g. the Swiftech 8500) are really easy to setup and very, very quiet.
If/when I build a new AMD this summer, I'm going that route. We've set 2
up here at work, it's not very difficult at all. Luckily, my guitar amp is
so loud the 5 case fans don't bleed into the recording stream at the
moment ...
Also, those who suggested a P4, is a P4 any cooler?
If you really want quiet and cool, run ppc linux on an upcoming 970 Mac
;-)
JB
--- Anthony <avan(a)uwm.edu> wrote:
___________________________________
John Bleichert syborg(a)stny.rr.com
-- http://vonbek.dhs.org/latest.jpg
-----------------------------------
I have the ASUS A7M266-D with two AMD 1.0Ghz
processors. I'm quite
happy with the performance. The chips certainly are
not high end
anymore so you can get away with very very quiet CPU
fans. The real
problem is the powersupply, advertised as quiet and
at US$90. That
was a real dissapointment. Perhaps it actually is
quiet for a 400W.
I paid under $300 for the Mobo, cpus, fans. The deal
breaker was
the PS.
--ant
* Robert Jonsson <robert.jonsson(a)dataductus.se> [Jun
11 03 04:51]:
CPU speed, cooling noise
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com
onsdagen den 11 juni 2003 11.05 skrev Chris
Cannam:
> Steve Harris wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000,
Allan Klinbail wrote:
> >>I personally prefer the current
Intel chips
because they run at a cooler
> >>temperature so the fans required are
less
noisy...
> >
> > Yes, I think if I was building a machine
today, I'd go for PIV for
this
> > reason, at the time I bought an Athlon
XP cos
I needed to get as much FPU
> > performace for my $ as I could.
>
> I have a dual 2K Athlon and although it's a very
quick machine,
> I'm increasingly irritated by the noise
(especially as the weather
> gets hotter and cooling requirements
increase).
I've probably spent
> as much money on various largely failed
attempts
at quietening it
> through random bits of agricultural-looking
technology as I did on
> the processors.
>
> So I (rather unwillingly) have to support the
apparent consensus:
get a
single fast Intel.
Hi,
Though I'm not on the cutting edge any more wrt to has always been one of the things I hate most
about modern computers. (Oh,
what joy it once was, back in the Amiga days.)
I have long since given up trying silence the fans
(I do it a little to keep
it bearable) and it is most oftenly counter
productive to their purpose.
My solution for several years now has been to
place the computer in an
adjacent room, in this case a storage room.
I just drilled a hole in the wall, just large
enough so all the cables are
able to fit and then covered the hole as best I
could to eliminate noise
through it.
For me this has been the ideal solution, noise is
way down, close to non
audible proportions, and cooling for the computer
is also good enough.
>
> /Robert
>
> 
7:50 p.m.
On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 02:18:38PM -0400, John Bleichert wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, R Parker wrote:
I deleted Ron's meessage before I could suggest that the bathroom
might offer some interesting cooling opportunities of its own :-)
I keep it in the bathroom.
Now *that* is an extreme solution.
It should be noted that the newer, consumer-friendly watercooling kits Also, those who suggested a P4, is a P4 any cooler?
I think the conventional wisdom is that in many cases AMD's tend to run
hotter than Intel for comparable speed. (and cost less)
--
Anahata
anahata(a)treewind.co.uk -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827
10 Jun
10 Jun
1:13 p.m.
On 2003.06.09 21:45, Peter Groves wrote:
How fast does a system really need to be before it can
handle recording
with practically no limits? (let's say fewer than 10 tracks at a time
such as with a delta1010)
I'm no expert, but here's my experience.
I built a new machine about a year ago. Asus A7M266-D motherboard (with CMI
sound), dual Athlon XP 1900, and 512 MB DDR ram. I also added a 60MB 7200 RPM
HD, and an NVidia GForce2. The results are mixed...
For day-to-day operations it AMAZING. Blistering fast. I bought it for
scientific calculations... both proc's running 100% for hours. In that regard
everything worked as expected, and FAST. Running many apps at a time is
flawless, and most proc-heavy apps seem to be threaded in Linux.
The bad newes are: cooling, and multimedia.
The cooling requirements are INSANE. I had a big heatsinc and AMD fan on each
proc. It overheated (I call that over 60oC) fast. I added a case fan, and it
would run fine until I did heavy calculations. So I had to add TWO more case
fans. Now I've got FIVE total fans, screaming away in my office
twentyfour-seven. I think the small size case might be to blame, because
removing the cover seems to help, but who wants a monster-tower on their desk?
Multimedia performance has been a bit diappointing too. I'm not sure whether
to blame the hardware or the software though, but it's consistenly worse
performance than I expect. Even with a lowlat setup, I can't record many
tracks without xruns. I'd say 4 to 6 are the max. Also, I can't capture and
encode video at full size, only very small size frames. As I said, this could
be due to the current state of Linux A/V software, or some setup problems on
my part, but I'd expect more out of this monster, especially since I used to
record several tracks of audio on my PIII-500 without problems. Non-realtime
multimedia performance is amazing though... graphic rendering, transcoding,
effects processing are all blazingly fast in NON-realtime.
Hope that helps a bit.
Austin
--
Austin Acton Hon.B.Sc.
Synthetic Organic Chemist, Teaching Assistant
Department of Chemistry, York University, Toronto
MandrakeClub Volunteer (www.mandrakeclub.com)
homepage: www.groundstate.ca
7838
days inactive
7840
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
10 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
Allan Klinbail -
Anahata -
Anthony -
Austin -
Chris Cannam -
greg -
John Bleichert -
Peter Groves -
R Parker -
Robert Jonsson -
Steve Harris