ORIGINAL: Jim Wright

Woody, Zendin --

RE: Poor performance numbers with 845-based P4 motherboards.

Jim, I hadn't noticed this before, but I wanted to thank you for putting the time in to construct this very cogent, informative post. I appreciate your input very much. I'll have to research this a little. For now, I've switched to the EMM drivers and have a very stable, decent-performing system, but if I could spend $100 or so and have a really great system it may be worth it in the long run.

Thanks!
Mike

ORIGINAL: JAB3

Where did you get your parts? And how do i go about guaranteeing that I get a matched pair of RAM. If the company I order from says it is, how will I know if it truly a matched pair? Thanks in advance.

regards,
John

I got most everything from PCClub (.com). The Corsair TwinX is a matched two sticks of Corsair XMS - hence the name Twin X. It's been super stable and I'm very happy so far. Left it running for two days solid now and testing as I had time.

Okay, where'd them there DP Opteron 248 specs come from, eh?! Care to share the hardware list for this beastie? Please, please, please....

Hi Scott

Some "new" figures for my o/clocked P4 2.4C rig.

Up unitl a few days ago, it was running at 3.0gig = 12x250mhz.

I have now optimized the o/c further and it is running stable at 3.2gig = 12x267fsb - memory is still at 1:1 with 2x512 in dual channel mod.

It's peformacve now would equal to a "3.4gig" given the fsb boost - noting of course that although the 3.4gig P4 dont exist yet, they will still only run at 200mhz fsb x 17 which I would suggest would not be quicker than 267mhz x 12 .

As before - I use ASIO drivers only and H/T and MP is turned off due to Kontakt "instabilities" with Sonar 3.1's MP engine [Kontakts problem not Sonars' ]

New figures for this " 3.4 " P4 are:-

46.4 24
23.2 26
11.6 31
5.8 39
2.9 57
1.5 92

Boosting the fsb to 267 from 250 has given something in the order of about an overall system boost of %7 - nothing to sneeze at - also, at 250fsb, 1.5ms would simply not even engage - now at 267fsb is still stable at %92.

amazing to think that a P4 has to hit a souped-up 3.4gig to just match the Athlon64 3200 down to 5.8ms - at 2.9 and 1.5, the Athlon 64 3200 is sitll %19 and %27 [respectivley] quicker than this souped-up 3.4gig - astounding really if you think about it - no wonder my next rig is going to be an Athlon64 3XXX.

Timboe

ORIGINAL: kellyg

Maybe this should be a separate post. If so, apologies. I clicked on the Sonar3Test link and downloaded the zip file, which contained the .CWP file. What about the audio files? The original SonarTest was a bun file with the audio in it. Am I missing something?

This test is designed to stress CPU only... so all tracks are input monitored. There is no audio... and nothing to hear. Just note CPU usage at various latencies with the audio engine on.

-S

The "delta" between an Athlon 64 system and an XP3200 (incl consideration of the mobo) is $300 or more. Maybe $400 if you go with the XP2500 which, according to other BB's I've read, runs nearly as well as the XP3200. I'm just starting out and don't consider that I will be recording more than 2-4 tracks simultaneously, nor do I envision projects with particularly high track counts. Most of my tracks will come from outside audio sources, but I do imagine that I'll use some soft synth sources as time goes on. Considering that most people seem to "trade up" systems every 2 years or so, would a good XP system be a logical starting place for me? There seems to be a lot to shake out over the next year or so in the transition to 64 bit.

Here is my setup:

HP a410e
Athlon 3000+
1024 GB DDR RAM (2x512)
Western Digital 120 gig 7200 RPM 8mb cache
Western Digital 80 gig 7200 RPM 8 mb cache
NVidia GeForce 4 440MX
M-Audio Audiophile 2496
Windows XP Pro SP1
Sonar 3.1.1

WDM with M-Audio Delta driver .36
DMA 640

46.6ms 34%
23.2ms 36%
11.6ms 44%
5.8ms 45%
2.9ms 47%
1.5ms 49%

I'm actually quite shocked at how well this system performed. How is it that these numbers turned out so good. It never went over 50%!

ORIGINAL: JoePaz

Just got a new Athlon64 laptop, so I thought I'd post up.

eMachines M6805

Hey, how's the build quality and noise level of that thing? Glad you're liking it.

I assume the hard drives didn't come with the system, right?

When you are posting latency setings; for example:
46.4ms........28%
23.2ms........33%
11.6ms........39%
5.8ms..........49-52%
2.9ms..........68-73%
1.5ms..........N/A

is this from the Buffer size Latency slider or Effective Latency at 44.1khz ?

ORIGINAL: Danirustic


I use:
RME Hammerfall 9652
SATA 80gigs
764ddr (266Mhg)
AMD64 3000

(in the text my results are 10% of more cpu usage)

Danirustic,

Who's specs are you comparing yours to?

Finally figured out how to perform this test.

2.9----60-68%
5.8----45-48%
11.6---35-39%
23.2---29-33%
46.4---29-30%

Results are about the same as others...I don't think drives or video matter much in this test do they?

Sonar 3.1.1, Echo Gina24 w/WDM driver

Results:

46.4: 32-33%
23.2: 34-35%
11.6: 41-44%
5.8: 54-58%
2.9: 81-87%
1.5: Dropout

Athlon XP 2800
MSI K7N2-Delta L Motherboard
DDR 3200 set up as dual channel

Six weeks, seven pages, and still no Centrino numbers???

Another data point:

Athlon64 3400
Gigabyte K8N Pro
1gb (2x512) Corsair TwinX 3200 DDR
Lynx 2 in ASIO
Sonar 3.1.1
Win XP


23.2 - 26%
11.6 - 29%
5.8 - 32%
2.9 - 41%
1.5 - 58%
.7 - 93% (although the engine ran you can't really do anything at this rate or the engine will dropout)


Scott

Wheee....

Athlon XP 2500+
Epox 8RDA+
256 MB RAM
Windows XP Pro SP1
M-audio Delta 66 (v.27)
Sonar Producer 3.1.1

Latency ASIO WDM MME
-----------------------------------
46.4ms 35% 36% 40%
23.2ms 40% 40% 43%
11.6ms 47% 48% 53%
5.8ms 59% 61% 69%
2.9ms 85% n/a n/a
1.5ms n/a n/a n/a


Thanks for the test Scott.

wren