> As this machine is going to spend most of it's time doing DSP, I figured > more and high speed RAM is good and hence a faster FSB which I think > means a faster processor as well, specially at 400Mhz for the FSB but > is it worth it? Does it make a difference? Well, if you can build your modules yourself or get Pentium-4 builds of your software, the Pentium4 offers a ferocious DSP bang for the buck, even older versions like the Rev-A Northwoods (400-533 FSB). They offer SSE + SSE2 which if used to build your effects modules, can really boost the DSP performance a significant amount. AthlonXPs only offer SSE (SSE1). Modern GCC's (>= 3.3) offer fairly good Pentium4 code generation quality, but for real OOMPH! in your binaries, the Intel C compiler is the way to performance nirvana. gcc options as a starting point: CFLAGS='-O2 -mfpmath=sse -msse2 -march=pentium4 -mcpu=pentium4 \ -fomit-frame-pointer -s' CXXFLAGS='-O2 -mfpmath=sse -msse2 \ -march=pentium4 -mcpu=pentium4 -fomit-frame-pointer -s' ./configure blah.. =MB= -- A focus on Quality.
