Last week we mentioned something about PC computers with the Athlon chipset not working with some hard disk recording systems. Predictably, this triggered a bunch of questions about what we are talking about as well as inquiries about some of the effected systems. A little history is in order.
With PC computers the distinction between active chipsets can be important. While there are standards every PC maker must adhere to, those standards do not define every detail of how a processor handles data so there can be differences. Intel and AMD are two major manufacturers of processors used in PC computers. Their products are very similar, but not the same, and obviously each brand has a variety of processors within it that also differ.
By the time Intel began manufacturing the Pentium II chipsets they were including a floating point processor in them, which dramatically increased the efficiency in dealing with heavy computations that are sometimes required when processing things like audio data. AMD followed up the Pentiums with their lower priced K6 processors, but these processors had no floating point capability. They worked fine for word processing, but were not as efficient for doing many audio DSP tasks. AMD then came out with the K6-2 series, which they said added additional software code to aid in floating point computations, but in practice most users doing heavy audio work didn’t observe much difference. Meanwhile Intel came out with the Pentium III line, which is a very powerful processor. AMD has followed with what they call their Athlon, which is much more similar to Pentium designs than their previous efforts and has true floating point capability. But there are still differences (actually the main processor in the Athlon chipset is a Motorola chip). The problem arises because many manufacturers of DAW systems only test them on Intel based machines. Consequently “some” of these systems do not work on Athlon systems. This is likely to continue to be a problem until the makers of DAW hardware and software begin to test these alternative platforms as vigorously as they test their systems on Intel machines, and is a key reason why we often recommend sticking with Intel when building a PC based system.
Lexicon’s Core 2 and Aardvark’s Aark20/20 are two systems we know do not currently work on the Athlon based machines. Other manufacturers such as Midiman, MotU, and Emagic say they have “no known conflicts”, but do not specify whether they have specifically tested for conflicts (this may mean you (the customer) are the testing ground). Granted all of this is a bit scary, but you’re pretty safe if you stick with Intel. As always we recommend you contact your Sweetwater Sales Engineer prior to making any decisions about a system. These and other facts are changing literally every day.