Poll: AMD Processors

[Clay Stahlka]

What are your thoughts on the use of AMD Athlon Processors vs Intel Pentium 4, for use in pro-audio DAW applications?

[shaneperc]

Mr. Stahlka,
IMveryHO, I think it would be a fairer fight to put the PIII against the Athlon. Every since it's inception, the P4 has had nothing but bad or mediocre reviews from everyone but Intel. What influence the P4 has on audio streaming, I don't know, but I do that the benchtest marks that I've seen are enough to make me stick with the PIII.

Just An Opinion,
Shane

[Donnie]

Hello Clay!

I recently had a system built for me by Sounchaser that has a 1.2 ghz Athlon, 768 megs of ram, removable 60 gig ATA drive, 15 gig boot drive, and a 36 gig SCSI 160 for audio. I am using the RME 9652 with a RME ADI8 DS.

For me the system is rock solid and I should also mention that the sound quality of RME is outstanding. Many people are saying that the A/D is better than the Apogee. I would have to agree.

Donnie

[Thomas]

Aardvark cards work very well with Intel and AMD systems, and should continue to do so.

From an OEM standpoint, AMD has been very helpful in getting us information and boards for testing with our interfaces. We actually just met with one of their reps this afternoon here at our offices in Ann Arbor.

I can't speak for performance issues between the 2 (right at this moment) but the testing of various systems continues and I'll make sure we post the latest recommendations on our website as soon as the latest testing is complete.

One thing to note is that conflicts and problems in computer audio (the dreaded crackles and pops) are usually related to chipset issues. With so many motherboards on the market using different combinations of Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets (VIA, AMD etc) it can and does lead to confusion for the end user as to which to get and which to avoid. The latest AMD chipsets work very well, I'm told that the very latest VIA's are much better than what they were previously.

[xxFT13xx]

amd kills pentiums...especially when it comes to music. on the outside they run pretty damn close, but if you dig deep into the technical aspect, Amd whoops Pentium. No overheating problems and they run faster. my DAW smokes!! here are the specs:

Abit KT7A motherboard
AMD Athlon 1gig
512 PC133 ram
40gig 7200rpm hard drive
voodoo 3 3000 pci video card
terratec 24/96 sound card
56x cd-rom
4x2x24 cd-rw
fong kai 320 case

smell that? thats my system burnin up those Intel losers!

-Sin
http://zwap.to/ft13