On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 03:19:32PM +1000, Allan Klinbail wrote: > 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. Agreed, but making SMP machines quiet is a real challenge. > 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
