Need a cpu recomendation

[SandTiger]

I have a friend who wants to upgrade his computer so he can do much better with his audio/video editing. I am not sure what programs he uses, but he promises me one of them requires 1.5gigs of ram.

Currently he has a Dual P3 1gig Hrz system with 1.5gigs SDram.

He was telling me he wants to upgrade, and was looking into buying a Dual Opteron system.

My question is this.. are dual processors really going to make a difference? Would a AMD 64 3000+ be sufficent? He was also wanting to keep his SDram, since its costly to upgrade that also. I told him good luck on that. I don't know of any current processor that doesn't use DDR.

Is anybody here an audiophile who composes/writes/records/edits their own music? I think he is mostly using it for Audio stuff and not as much video.

So, recomendations on dual opteron processors? Are they worth it?

 

[TooRisky]

I guess the question is, is he making money at what he does, if not forget the upgrade..if he is making a living at it...hell yes, a duel system is made for that situation, heavy duty computing....so if making money go as far as he can afford...if not....why bother if he is getting by..??
I would go for the IBM side even though I am a AMD fan, concidering the IBM CPU would best fit his computing needs.

but hey just my opinion, its his money not mine.

 

[Markfw]

If the software he has is SMP aware, then a dual Opteron would be killer. No, there is virtually NO system out right now that can use sdram, regardless of the upgrade path.

 

[MegaWorks]

dual Opteron

 

[BW86]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
dual Opteron

i second that

 

[prometheusxls]

Originally posted by: SandTiger
I have a friend who wants to upgrade his computer so he can do much better with his audio/video editing. I am not sure what programs he uses, but he promises me one of them requires 1.5gigs of ram.

Currently he has a Dual P3 1gig Hrz system with 1.5gigs SDram.

He was telling me he wants to upgrade, and was looking into buying a Dual Opteron system.

My question is this.. are dual processors really going to make a difference? Would a AMD 64 3000+ be sufficent? He was also wanting to keep his SDram, since its costly to upgrade that also. I told him good luck on that. I don't know of any current processor that doesn't use DDR.

Is anybody here an audiophile who composes/writes/records/edits their own music? I think he is mostly using it for Audio stuff and not as much video.

So, recomendations on dual opteron processors? Are they worth it?

I think you really have to look at the software that he is using and how he is going to use that software and then make your determinations based on that. If the software will take a benefit from parallel computing then that is a great option, if not then it may not be needed. If money were no object then you would just go ahead and buy the best right? You need to find out what his needs really are and lookup some benches as far as what software he will be using. HTH.

 

[carlosd]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
dual Opteron

Yeah!

 

[crimson117]

Dual opterons are cool if his software takes advantage of it, but otherwise high end pentiums always beat out amd's at media encoding.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: BW86

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
dual Opteron

i second that

 

[Gamingphreek]

Dual Opterons

Also 1.5 - 2.0 gigs of RAM is a lot but it will reduce any bottleneck you could possibly have.

-Kevin

 

[Adn4n]

Originally posted by: crimson117
Dual opterons are cool if his software takes advantage of it, but otherwise high end pentiums always beat out amd's at media encoding.

Always? I don't think so.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: Adn4n

Originally posted by: crimson117
Dual opterons are cool if his software takes advantage of it, but otherwise high end pentiums always beat out amd's at media encoding.

Always? I don't think so.

agreed. amd's socket 939 are as good, if not better hten encoding/decoding vs intel right now.

 

[SandTiger]

I talked to my friend. His software that he uses does take advantage of Hyperthreading. So thats a plus. He was looking at getting dual 244 opterons.

He is not doing it for a buisness, just personal stuff.

If it were me I would go for a AMD 64 3200+. But that is just me. Much more bang for the buck. And im sure a huge improvment over his dual pentium 3 1ghrz.

Thanks for all the replies. I will let you know which he buys. Im not sure if he is going to do it now or not.

 

[Lithan]

What I hear is that A64 is equal or slightly better at audio but slightly behind at video... or that might be the other way around. We haven't seen enough benches of the new .09's (which might and might not have sse3... have seen conflicting reports), they might put AMD in the lead.


Nothing short of a Quad CPU rig would beat dual opterons in SMP stuff though. So if he has the cash... that's your buy.

 

[Vee]

Some while back something as simple and cheap as a dualchannel ddr400 2.8P4C would have been a good recommendation. And in fact my only reservation even now, is the fact that I expect this sort of activity to eventually move to 64-bit software.