I still have not ordered parts for this sound editing system, need more advice!!!

[Herkulese]

As you may know from my other posts on this subject, this system will be used by the Pastor of my church for sound edeiting and Office apps, such as Word Perfect, Word, Excel, Desktop publishing, etc...

I was all set to get either the ASUS or EpOX Nvorce2 board and use the onboard sound header for SPDIF Coax Digital in and out riser. Then I realized that the P4 tends to be faster in office apps than the XP-XXXX. I then asked which Intel board to buy and the ASUS P4B533 was highly recommended, which seems to have turned out to be an awesome board. The only problem is that it does not support PC2700 (333mhz) DDR ram.

The PE chipset is also highly recommended, has support for 533fsb and 333mhz ram, and I was all set to get one of these boards, when I found out about all of the Cold Boot issues with this chipset (many boards with many power supplies). This kind of a problem would simply be unacceptable to the customer.

This needs to be a stable system (No OC'ing) with support for 533fsb, 333ram and usb2. I would also like Lan, FireWire and Serial ATS but they are not manditory. Raid, Sound or Video are not required.

I am now very confused, and need to order parts.

1) Whech chipset and or Mobo shoud I go with to meet these requirements.

2) If I end up going with an Intel board, I plan to use the Phillips Acoustic Edged, as it has SPDIF Coax Digital In and Out, via a spliter dongle cable. I have chosen this card because the Audigy cards are complete overkill for this system (No Gaming). Any comments on this choice.

Thanks for all assistance,
Herkulese

 

[mechBgon]

The nForce2 chipset takes a large chunk out of Intel's lead in the CC Winstone 2002 tests, even with a P4/RDRAM setup. The benchmark itself is also surrounded by significant controversy, as it seems to have been "massaged" towards the specific routines where P4's have the most performance lead over AthlonXP's. Given the proper massaging, it could probably be made to look as if AthlonXP was fastest... And then there's always this fascinating little table. 12.8% and 24% performance boosts just by switching from KT333 to nForce2 kind of underlines how much nVidia is doing for AMD here. Note that a lot of it may simply be a combination of good hardware and great drivers, particularly IDE drivers.

If you did get a P4 for that kind of work, I would recommend using PC1066 RDRAM or else 32-bit RDRAM on a board designed for it. That's what cuts loose the ponies with P4's, barring overclocking.

Corrolary to that: if you want a system that will run CCW2002 benchmarks fast, get a 15000rpm Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 hard drive and an Adaptec 19160 and you will surely make any performance differential between P4 and AthlonXP look like peanuts by comparison.

P4 on PE has lots of overclocking to offer, taking a bite out of RDRAM's performance lead, if you don't mind OC'ing the pastor's rig. Duvie is one of the experts on this, having done extensive tweaking to find the sweet spot for video-conversion sessions, and I've seen him running his RAM at up to 442MHz DDR Q) to wring the most performance out of his 845D mobo.

Take note of the lack of an S/PDIF-out on the current EPoX 8RDA+ board. There's a fancier version coming out which will probably have it. The Asus has one in the rear panel.

Lastly, here's a review to check out, featuring a P4 2.53 on PE with PC2700, a KT400 and an nForce2. Make sure to read the notes on the first page, there are two results shown for KT400 (both 2.0GHz but one using 133/133 bus and one using 166/166) and three results for nF2 (133/133, 166/166 using dualDDR, and also 133/166 single-stick).

 

[Herkulese]

Thanks MechBgon,

I am finding it hard not to go with the Nforce2 here (I do plan to put in 2ea. 256mb sticks of PC2700 ram, so as to use the duel channel memory system in the 333/333 configuration), and you have made some very good points in favor, but I do want to make sure that I do the best thing for this machine. BTW, while you are correct about the COAX SPDIF in and out connectords not both being included on the ASUS and EpOX Nvorce2 boards, both COAX and OPTICAL digital In and Out are available via a $15.00 riser bracket that plugs into a header on the board.

I am considering the Intel because it seems to run a lot cooler and hence has a lot more head room, and, as stated before, tends to be faster in office applications. No I do not plan to OC at all, and I hesitate to consider and RDRAM solution as I do not know where RDRAM is heading, and I want this system to be upgradable for a couple of years.

Right now Intel has so many chipsets on the market that it is like trying to pick out Cerial at the Grocery store, very confusing, and the best of the bunch, the i845PE is plagued with Cold Boot issues. However, on the AMD side there is the Nforce2 and the new 333fsb XP cpu's, very simple, and the Sound Storm seems to be all that is needed for almost any sound needs, so no need for an add on sound card, especially when requiring COAX SPDIF in and out.

Hopefully I can decide soon.

Thanks again,
Herkulese

 

[mechBgon]

For Intel, if you want PC1066 then the choice is pretty much i850E or else SiS R658 if you can find one.

Seriously, if your storage-capacity needs aren't too high, you might consider SCSI. Go to StorageReview's database and compare the fastest IDE drive you can find against a Seagate Cheetah 15k.3. Compared to the ~10% differences common in P4-versus-AthlonXP graphs, we are talking enormous performance improvements on the slowest item in the computer system. And a 10k or 15k SCSI drive is built to run 24/7 for 5 years, and the warranty covers it as such. Yeah, you will need a SCSI card. Yeah, you will want to provide forced-air cooling, such as the fan-cooled HDD bay on an Antec Performance or PerformanceII case. Yeah, you can hear it seek and yeah, it is fast!

 

[mechBgon]

Incidentally, I just stumbled across the AnandTech 3.06GHz P4 article and they have a whole set of AthlonXPs and P4's in the test!

The P4 is done "right", using PC1066 RDRAM. The AthlonXP is also done "right," using nForce2 and dualDDR. They seem to run very competitively against eachother in CCW2002, where the 3.06GHz's Hyperthreading feature actually hurts it and puts it below a 2.8GHz P4. In video encoding, as in ripping DVDs to Divx, the P4/RDRAM combo pulls away strongly. Dunno if pastor is going to be doing any of THAT, tho... . So anyway, check it out, seems relevant. Too bad there is no i845PE in there to compare P4/DDR to P4/RDRAM. article

PS remember that Hyperthreading is going to require WinXP Home or WinXP Pro, both of which are slower than Win2000. So remember that you could get a 10-25% performance boost with Win2000. At the very least, I would force XP to use the plain-jane Win2000 interface, with the menu animations disabled (right-click desktop, go to Effects tab, and disable them).

 

[Herkulese]

thanks again Mech,

But still no comments on the Cold Boot issuew with the i845PE chipset. Has that been fixed yet?

 

[mechBgon]

I honestly haven't been following the cold-boot issue I've got a strong case of nForce2 on the brain and have been busy reading what people's experiences are with it.

 

[Herkulese]

"I've got a strong case of nForce2 on the brain and have been busy reading what people's experiences are with it. "

I know what you mean. I have been looking heavily into nForce2 as well, and, as a mater of fact, have lived in AMD world for years now, when I decided to check out the P4 platforms for this office machine. I was reading about how good the ASUS P4B533 is but with no official support for PC2700 ram. Then I started reading about the i845PE chipset, and how good it is, and stumbled on the cold boot issue whit that chipset.

On the other hand, Mech, you have made a good enough case for the nForce2 that I am going to go ahead with the order.

Thank you very much for your help,
Herkulese

 

[mechBgon]

Cool, let us know how it works out!

 

[Herkulese]

I will.

I got the EpOX 8RDA+ for my new system, and will be ordering the ASUS A7N8X delux for the pasto's PC. This will be interesting. I have built many systems but never an nForce, and now I will be building 2 nForce2's at the same time.

I will post the results when these systems are completed.

Herkulese