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threeornothing

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Any computer geeks out there able to help me?

I've really fallen behind with the times with PC's, the state of play I last knew was that processors were up to 1ghz, memory up to pc133 and the chips were P4/celeron from Intel, and Athlon/Duron from AMD. Arsed if I know the socket numbers.

I need to know what the latest stuff is just now, can't get a straight answer anywhere.

Whats the Good Intel stuff, whats the cheap stuff, socket numbers, and what sorta mobo and memory would I need. Same for AMD. I've just discovered something called Semrpon. Does this replace Athlon or Duron? Don't have a f*** clue about this shit, so if anyone can help....it would prove how great you are in public.

Cheers

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Any computer geeks out there able to help me?

I've really fallen behind with the times with PC's' date=' the state of play I last knew was that processors were up to 1ghz, memory up to pc133 and the chips were P4/celeron from Intel, and Athlon/Duron from AMD. Arsed if I know the socket numbers.

I need to know what the latest stuff is just now, can't get a straight answer anywhere.

Whats the Good Intel stuff, whats the cheap stuff, socket numbers, and what sorta mobo and memory would I need. Same for AMD. I've just discovered something called Semrpon. Does this replace Athlon or Duron? Don't have a f*** clue about this shit, so if anyone can help....it would prove how great you are in public.

Cheers[/quote']

just take a browse on tomshardware.com, anandtech.com, amdzone.com etc. etc., they will fill you in.

not personally interested in intel anymore so can't say much for that.

as far as AMD goes they are really pushing the 64bit chips at the moment. there's a few options:

Athlon 64 - standard 64bit chip (socket 939)

Athlon 64FX - higher performance 64bit chip (socket 939)

Opteron - SMP capable 64bit chip (socket 940), hyper transport capable (e.g. direct memory interconnects between each CPU, waaaaay faster than an intel frontside bus)

Athlon 64 X2 - Dual core Athlon64 chips.(socket 939)

at the moment the Athlon 64 X2 chips are great value and offer great performance gains over intel's top of the range chips (xeons et al). the benefit of not having to get a dual cpu motherboard to achieve SMP computing is a huge bonus.

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Cool, ta.

I take it I should avoid the Sempron's then? I notice the 2.6ghz semprons are selling for around 40 (I was about 150 for my first 450mhz processor, which was lightning fast at the time :D) and a suitable mobo is around 50, so if I could upgrade for under 100, it would be great. My PC is currently a humble duron 1ghz with pathetic performance in cubase/ASIO drivers: latency shoots up, CPU usage peaks a lot, my P3 1.2ghz laptop is nice and stable, but if the 2.6ghz sempron is only a little better, then I may wait before upgrading the PC. I need to start using my PC again as I have an 8in card, but the thing is currently way too noisy and bulky. Tempting to go waste my money on the sempron rather than wait and save for an athlon 64...what do you reckon I should do. I'm not a gamer so am only looking for an optimal audio workstation....

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well the sempron is like the duron, i think it has lower L1 or L2 cache, can't remember. not quite as pointless as a celeron chip, just cheaper. if i were you, i'd save, save and save, and get an athlon64 x2 3800. think it's a 1.8ghz chip, but because there are two cores, the performance for audio stuff would be great - means your UI doesn't update like a scrolling console on a 14.4 modem whilst your VSTs and stuff are hammering the CPU. you can get the athlon64 x2 3800 for about 250 at the moment, but AMD just announced price drops so they may come down in the coming weeks.

what should you do? well, i suppose a sempron + mobo + ram might come to about 150-200. the athlon64 x2 with mobo and ram would probably come to around 450. i guess if i was in your boat i'd pick up the sempron - an immediate power boost is better than the promise of a super power boost some time in the future.

however, audio processing is very FP intensive, and the athlon64 really would fly with that stuff, even in 32 bit compatibility mode. i'm quite convinced that VSTs compiled for 32bit systems will not work if you ended up using the 64bit version of XP though (i.e. using the chip in 64 bit mode).

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however' date=' audio processing is very FP intensive, and the athlon64 really would fly with that stuff, even in 32 bit compatibility mode. i'm quite convinced that VSTs compiled for 32bit systems will not work if you ended up using the 64bit version of XP though (i.e. using the chip in 64 bit mode).[/quote']

I'm not sure - the 32bit emulation support in Windows XP 64bit is pretty decent. The big problem Windows XP 64bit has is the lack of device drivers compiled for it from hardware manufactures at present. I couldn't get my wireless network card to work with it because of this and then had to give up using it much to my disappointment. I imagine soundcards and the like would be a similair story

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so have you got a 64 bit chip? which one? what's the performance like?

i use VSTs for my audio software on linux, and the developers told me that dll's (i.e. VSTs) compiled for 32bit systems won't work when running in 64bit mode, but that could be more to do with WINE than anything else. i know when you install Gentoo x86-64 you get a set of compatibility libraries for 32 bit stuff.

it's all a bit of a headfuck, hard to learn more about it when you don't actually have a 64bit chip to cut your teeth on either!

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so have you got a 64 bit chip? which one? what's the performance like?

Yeah, I've got an Athlon 64 3200. Performance is great but then I'm not going anywhere near VST or really pushing the processor to it's limit. I play games and that is the most intensive thing it has to handle - it copes just fine with the likes of Half Life 2 and Far Cry but then the graphics card also plays an important part there. I only have an Nvidia 6600 though.

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I'm not sure - the 32bit emulation support in Windows XP 64bit is pretty decent. The big problem Windows XP 64bit has is the lack of device drivers compiled for it from hardware manufactures at present. I couldn't get my wireless network card to work with it because of this and then had to give up using it much to my disappointment. I imagine soundcards and the like would be a similair story

I found the same as you' date=' there were drivers for lots of stuff for 64, but they weren't anywhere near what you get for the 32 version. One site i found that was good for 64 stuff is [url']http://www.planetamd64.com/

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Eeek...don't think I'll be spending 250 on a cpu' date=' not till I win the lottery anyway...sempron it is ;([/quote']

If you're scared of price, look for Newcastle-core chips. The semprons get OK reviews all over the place, but running at stock frequency on stock cooling wasn't as stable as it should be.

Bite the bullet and get one of the lower end, non-sempron chips. I can't tell you enough how disappointed I was when I bought a sempron.

(I'm a mac fag now though, so I don't care :))

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