Whats the best bang for the buck cpu/mobo these days?

[Magic Carpet]

Last I heard, the majority of Phenom II 960T's could be easily unlocked in to X6. Should be excellent value, indeed.

 

[blckgrffn]

AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HD96ZTWFGRBOX

$125 w/free $15 gift card (so $110 essentially)

Potential six core CPU as well. I am not sure if that helps your particular application, but if your app scales out (multi-threaded) a six core CPU is going to smoke that dual core.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I agree, AMD should be considered.

Ableton FAQ shows that it can be single-core limited, though. http://www.ableton.com/articles/high-cpu-load-on-one-core-only-with-multi-core-machines

Need more data on whether he's having a problem working single tracks or multiple tracks. If it's single-track, AMD is not the way to go.

 

[BD231]

Buying a phenom II this late in the game is kind of a waste unless you're looking for an ubber cheap box, if you can swing it you definitely get your monies worth going intel, you'll have much better performance/upgrade options moving forward.

 

[Chiropteran]

you'll have much better performance

Sure.

upgrade options moving forward.

How do you figure? It sounds like ivy bridge is going to be very similiar performance, at slightly lower power usage, not exactly an amazing upgrade option.

On the other hand, you buy a nice modern 900 series chipset board and a cheap 960t, and if AMD ever fixes bulldozer you are set. Or if they don't fix bulldozer, you are in the same situation as you are with an intel build, no significant upgrade options.

 

[machasm]

I know this is a boring answer and has been mentioned before but I would put my money on a decent SSD. You could always use it in a future build and am pretty sure that this should speed things up a fair bit.
The hardware you currently have should be quite adequate for the job and is probably 'slow' due to I/O.
But hey, if you want a new rig then who am I to stop you
Mac.

 

[nyker96]

my opinion is:
if you overclock, get a 2500k+mb should be nice bang/buck

if no OC, get a x6 off ebay for about 125 or so+mb. that's decent bang/buck.