[Tormod]

I need to upgrade my computer which I mostly use for making music. It's currently running:

ASUS A7N8X (v2) motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (actually an o/c 2500+)
2x1 GB TwinMOS 3200 DDR RAM
1x60 GB HDD (ATA-133), 1x250 GB HDD (S-ATA 150)
GeForce FX 5600 (AGP 8x)

Due to upcoming updates in the music department (lots of new software coming out, which I'll get due to subscriptions), and also considering my PC has been acting up for a loong while now, I am not sure what to go for.

It seems I'll need to swap the mobo no matter what I do - either the AMD 64 X2 or the Intel Dual Core is what I'm looking at.

I need at least 2 Gigs of Ram and so far I've not been able to find a configuration that will cost much less than a new Dell PC (but I want to build things myself).

Can I keep the DDR RAM with a new mobo, or will that just make the upgrade not worth it?

Since I will need a new mobo, cpu, ram, and GPU, the Dual Core 6300 looks interesting. I don't play much games anymore (have an Xbox for that) but am also considering the 6600 (which costs $150 more over here).

Any ideas? Suggestions? Checking out the online computer stores is like walking into a candy store and asking for something sweet...

[alexander]

are you planning to spend most of your time using a single application or multipple applications?

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by alexander

are you planning to spend most of your time using a single application or multipple applications?

I will be using audio applications running multiple (like 4-5) VSTi and VST FX plugins simultaneously. I'll also do a lot of audio editing, bouncing, rendering and mixing.

I got a cheap 939 socket (fanless) mobo on auction so I can use my old DDR 400 RAM, and then I got a 4 months old Athlon-64 x2 3800 from a classifieds listing. Now I only need a fanless graphics card and I'll be all set! Don't need anything really fancy but it would be nice to be able to play a decent game now and then. I was thinking of an Nvidia 6600GS or a 7600GS.

[KickAssClown]

Have you thought about aquiring a Flash Harddrive? You know solid state permanent memory storage access? Makes me giddy thinking of it.

[Tormod]

Yeah...but the ones available are hardly worth the price for me...

[alexander]

well, T, then you will be better off with a core 2 duo from intel then amd64. while AMD still outperforms intel per watt by miles, the core 2 duos are way better at multitasking then amd x2 64bits... an unfortunate fact of today's world...

or you could wait for quad cores from amd that are supposed to air sometime this fall... (no intel does not make quad cores, they are 2 dual core procs on a processor board, and that means they have to use a bus between the cores which means that if amd succeeds with putting 4 cores on a single dye, it will be magical, and way faster then intel quad cores)

[Tormod]

Yes, I wanted the core 2 duo but the prices over here are insane. The 6300 costs about $250.

I ended up with this rig:

AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800 (bought used for $130)
Asus A8N-SLI PREMIUM Socket939 (fanless, bought used for $80)
Asus GeForce 7600GS 256MB DDR2 Silent, PCI-Express
Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 Ultra Quiet CPU (also for socket 939)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 16MB

In other words, I'm aiming for a quiet system since I use it for audio and not gaming.

There is plenty of room for upgrades since the mobo can handle up to 4 DDR modules (4 GB in total) and I can plug in at least the x2 5000, so when the prices drop next year I can pick one of those up.

Came to about $500 in total. The cheapest option with the Core 2 dual would have set me back almost $800...just not possible for me ATM.

From before I have a Chiefdragon case, a 500W silent PSU, an Audiophile 2496 semipro audiocard, 2GB DDR-400 RAM, Sony DVD-RW, and another Seagate SATA HDD (250GB).

I hope to get about $200 for the parts I sell, so the total upgrade price will be about $300 which I reckon is really good.

Still waiting for the parts to arrive from here and there so I'll not get to put it together until after the weekend.

Edit: Wrong price corrected

[alexander]

oh, you should be happy with your system...

and yes, price-wise you are really good there, but you asked formy opinion on amd vs intel dual cores, hence was my response was aimed at that

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by alexander

oh, you should be happy with your system...

and yes, price-wise you are really good there, but you asked formy opinion on amd vs intel dual cores, hence was my response was aimed at that

Yeah, the Intel core 2 was what prompted me to upgrade...it was simply luck that got me some cheap, used AMD stuff.

I got the new stuff yesterday but have been holed up in bed due to a nasty flu. In the evening I felt a bit better so I ripped out the guts of my old PC and put in the new stuff. The drivers that come with the A8N-SLI motherboard are major POS and caused hours of tweaking and debugging - it was even impossible to remove them properly...not to mention the time it takes to install Windows XP, SP1, SP2, updates...blabla.

But today I got to play with it for a little bit. The Athlon x2 3800+ runs at 2.0Ghz out of the box. However it overclocked to 2.5Ghz without a hitch. Even the RAM o/c-ed without further ado. So it now performs better than a x2 4600...not bad! The graphics card isn't exactly meant for gaming but hopefully it will do allright in Half-Life 2...

Enough rambling...back to bed and Ibuprofen. Hopefully I get to play more with this new puppy tomorrow. Need to reinstall tons of software (now where did I leave all my license codes...).

[alexander]

well, i have been reading a lot lately on amd and how people think it's trailing behind, but AMD is not out of the picture, they have a lot of real crazy good stuff coming! like their quadcores will feature HT2 bus and faster memory access, HT3 is in development for the means of grapics cards haveing faster bus speed then even 8x PCI EX! Dual cores are about to get changed too for higher clocked, more cache procs that will most definitely rival those of intel!