Help! Pc Hardware

General Discussion
1

Hi,

I’m building a new computer and I’m wondering what the best platform for audio (e.g. renoise)

I don’t no what to choose, AMD or Intel, and wich mainboard???

I previously owned: MSI board, VIA chipset, AMD CPU, M-Audio Delta 44, SCSI Host adapter with 4 harddrives.

I’m never buying a mainboard with a VIA chipset again.

Last week I scored a ASUS P4G8X Deluxe with a Intel CPU 3Ghz. (and all the hardware previously mentioned)
This worked very well (5 ms Asio latency, 25 Vsti’s under Renoise) But this setup died after 2 days (mainbord defect)

I’m looking for Mainbord & CPU that is very stable (for audio use), has no problems with SCSI, and gives me low asio latency.

Help me Please!

Oh, and my Delta 44 is beeing replaced with a RME Multiface next week. :yeah:

2

well, one thing i know is that VIA chipsets are not preferrable for audio.
Asus is a pretty good board manufacturer but stay away from the the VIA chipsets.

mlon

3

from ASUS, avoid p4p800-x bacause it cannot disable hyperthreading from BIOS, which is bad in renoise

4

Good to know about the via chipset.
What problems do you have with it?

Looking to move into a budget A64 platform myself.

I have always used AMD for cpu and nvidia for chipset.

5

recommended (best “bang for the buck”)
CPU: A64 3000+, Venice Core, 512kb 2nd Level, 1,8Ghz (110-120 EUR)
Board: DFI Lanparty Ultra-D (if you plan to overclock, 117-130 EUR)
or: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (if you do not plan to overclock, big plus: heatpipe chipset and PWM IC cooling, completely passive, ~155 EUR)
RAM: any CL2.5 standard pc3200 RAM, if dont wanna clock anything beyond specs. (2x 512MB or 2x1024MB for dual channel)

6

VIA Chipsets are bad, because they often give high latency, unstable timing and audible jitter on Asio Cards.

Someone suggested the following setup:

Asus P5GD1 + Intel 630 3.0 Ghz Socket 775 (800 Mhz FSB, 2MB Cache) + Corsair TwinX 1 GB (DDR1 400 Mhz) + SCSI Host Adapter.

He thinks Intel is better for Music apps.

Any opinions?

7

also nforce 4 chipset is known to have issues due to PCI Express bus…

Hopefully there will be BIOS update to fix it… but you never know