Recommended Cpu(s) For 1.8

So I had been using primarily v1.52 on my G4 867 powerbook until yesterday when the power supply seems to have mysteriously died. I’ve been trying out the 1.8 betas and was really looking foward to switching over to RC1 since beta 8 already seemed pretty stable to me. Now I’m stuck with two really underpowered machines (a desktop celeron @ 450mhz and a pb G3 @ 400mhz) so I’m trying to figure out what to do about a system on a tight budget. for now I’m bouncing between 1.8 on the G3 and 1.52 on the celery, not at all satisfied with the performance of either, and switching back and forth from mac laptop 1.8 keys to desktop pc 1.52 keys…well… yeah. :o :blink: :huh:

Question is, now that SSE is required for the PC version of Renoise, what is the new affordable sweetspot for CPU power? I don’t want to run 5000 VSTi at once or anything ridiculous, just being able to sample some of the more power-hungry ones and bounce them to samples without the whole system choking would be a nice change for me. Is there any point in getting a good deal on say an older high-end Athlon/P4 system to tide me over until I can afford a dual core (someday… maybe, I hope…) or will a newer low end chip be a lot better for audio? Are people with aging P4s pretty happy with performance in 1.8 considering the age of the chip or already itching for more power?

(sorry for the rambling, i’m still frustrated that my only halfway decent audio machine is now a shiny aluminum paperweight.) :angry:

Building an Athlon64 system is pretty cheap currently, though RAM got a bit expensive. I’d save the money and get a Intel Core Duo system instead, lot’s of power for audio stuff. Can’t you just exchange the power supply or let it repair by someone? Would be cheaper i suppose and you can save your money for a better system.

thanks for the replies. It’s been a while since I built a PC and all the choices these days make it a little more confusing, especially since some apps don’t really exploit dual cores, etc. I am actually going to have someone look at the broken powerbook, it was having strange problems when running on batteries up until it suddenly stopped recognizing the AC adapter, so I’m hoping it’s just the power board. I will still be in the market for a PC at some point soon anyway depending on how much the repair sets me back, since the G4 @ 867 wasn’t quite cutting it anymore.

I have a three year old Intel Pentium 2.4 GHz with 1 gig ram (though I’ve never really gained much use of the extra 512 MB I added last summer) on a 533 MHz FSB Asus motherboard. My Renoise-songs tends to build on mostly samples, a couple of vsti-synths (mostly Synth1, which is quite low on cpu) and quite a lot of misc. effects.

This machine mostly copes with my tracks and works wonder for all other things I do with it (browsing etc) but I’ve been thinking of buying a new PC someday, to get a lot more power for more cpu-intensive VST and VSTis. It still works so good that I don’t feel like “man I gotta buy a new computer” just yet.

atm, my system specs are doing okay for me.
i do use long samples sometimes and a few stable vsti’s, tho when i get to patterns that have alot of interlacing, (connected rthyms) they will halt renoise.

tho if i go an kill processes i dont need, an up renoise’s priority, i can usually get my power back…

renoise is kinda heavy on the graphics side, so having a better or good video card would probably benefit me much more than anything else.

You realize you can get Pentium D dual-cores for less than $100, right?. I have an 805, and it works fine for Renoise. =) Of course, I always want more. I always push my machines to the limit. I’m running a Pentium D 805 with a 600 GB RAID 5. I still manage to choke the CPU (both cores pegged) with plugins.

The RAID was the expensive part of this project. The CPU and MB cost me less than $200, total. You could easily toss those into a system that costs you less than $500. My whole system (including RAID, sound dampened case and 20" flat panel display, excluding audio components) cost about $1500.

This is my config and finally I`m more satisfied with Renoise than ever:

Samsung SyncMaster 970P 19";
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, S775 (Core2Duo ready), iP965exp/ICH8, PCI-Ex16, DDR2-800 DualCh, SATA2 RAID, G-LAN, SC7.1
Intel Core2Duo E6300 (Dual) Box, LGA775, 1.866GHz, FSB1066, 2MB cache, 64bit, SSE4, Allendale dual-core (65nm)
Western Digital 320GB WD3200KS, 7200rpm, S-ATA2, 16MB buffer, desktop high performance, Serial-ATA2 300MB/s, OEM
Maxtor 80GB DiamondMax 10 (6V080E0), 7200rpm, 8MB buffer, Serial-ATA2 300MB/s, OEM pack
TV/FM tuner Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP Expert, remote control, Conexant CX23881 chip, 10bit, stereo, PiP, MPEG4 capture, PCI
DIMM 2GB DDR2/667MHz Kingston ValueRAM, 240-pin, PC2-5300, CL5, 1.8V, unbuffered non-ECC
Club-3D GeForce 7300GT, PCIE16, 256MB GDDR2, 128bit, 350/600MHz, G73 core, 8 pipelines, Dual DVI, TV-out
DVD±R/W drive NEC ND-3570 black, max.16x DVD±RW, 8x6xDVD±RW, 8xDVD+R9, 6xDVD-RDL, 48x32xCD-R/RW
Chieftec Mesh series LCX-01B-B-SL 400W+, midi tower, 4x5.25", 2x3.5", PSU 400W, w/door, black white color
E-MU DSP Audio Processor (WDM)

Renoise flies now and I`m more than happy! :)
p.s. maybe still listing samples in long sample list takes longer but ok, nothing I can do for now.

i ran renoise on my work computer… now i must retract my previous post.

renoise runs wonderful on it, only once in a while it skips & adds beats. (mainly when i input or c/p something)

i dont have the specs with me but, i know it is a single core 2.6 ghz pentium, with only 512 of corsair value mem & onboard video, with an isa creative awe64. (the reason i have isa slots is cuz i must interface with cad digitizing equiptment)