P3 vs P4 worth the upgrade?

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 10:03 pm

How much performance improvement could i expect from a p4 1.8 (on a p4b266) vs a p3 866 (on a tusl-c)?

Like how many tracks would i be able to run (approx) on a P3 vs a P4?

What sort of track counts are people getting on P3's vs P4's?

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 7:07 am

not so much because of the CPU which will only be about 50% faster despite being double the speed, the memory bandwidth is amazing. it helps a lot for more plugins-tracks etc.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Wed Apr 10, 2002 7:21 am

The basic project open / close / new device / screenset draw etc is certainly much faster. saves a lot of time (at least migrating from my PIII 600).

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 1:20 am

I just did the P3866->P41.8 upgrade, but I went for RD-RAM. (P4T-E)
On my P3 I could already do 64 24bit tracks, so I didn't really bother to check that on the P4.
But Plugin power is amazing:
P3=15 PlatinumVerbs
P4=34 PlatinumVerbs

Kim.

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:28 am

Hey kim,

What's your new set up consist of? I'm considering getting:

P4 2.0Ghz
Asus P4B266 (no audio, with onboard lan)
2 x 256Mb DDR PC2100 (Crucial)
80Gb Seagate Barracuda IV (partitioned O/S and audio)
Matrox G550 32Mb
Black case, 300W power supply
CDRW, floppy
Win XP home

What does everyone think? From the forums it seems the goer...

Is the P4T worth getting? (are there many problems?)

dguna

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 5:19 am

..also, is there any advantage in doing 2 HD's? It seems raid isn't really the go with pulsar is that right?

What sort of track count could i expect with this setup (with pulsar 1 and logic 5)

thanks...

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 6:54 am

That CPU can mix something like 5000 tracks, so it is all up to your hard drive, and that is one of the best ones you can get.

if you use 2 hard drives (say an 80 and a 40 gig both the same kind)

you can put your programs and windows on a different drive from your audio data, which will make things run smoother.

RAID is good for people who do nothing with their computer except benchmark it and play games. if you need the PCI bus for anything else forget it.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 8:51 am

Dguna,
That's almost exactly what I bought two weeks ago. The only variations are I have a P4 1.8, a single 512Mb stick of DDR SDRAM and a cheaper Geforce videocard. I had a problem at first because I didn't select "standard PC"; and there is a known bug with a couple of Celmo devices (

). I did very few deep tweaks, only the obvious ones.

And it's smoooooooth.

Very smooth.

Incredibly smooth.

So smooth in fact I'm just waiting for this pleasant dream to end.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-04-11 09:54 ]</font>

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:13 pm

Thanks guys!

hey spirit, did you get the P4b266 with sound/lan/usb2?

does the onboard usb cause problems?

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:18 pm

What configuration are the 2 hard drives in?

does this increase track count or just produce less problems?

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 4:31 pm

You could try configuring your hardives these ways:-

1.
IDE1 - Disk1 os/apps master
Disk2 audio slave
IDE2 - CDROM/Writer master/slave (doesn't really matter)

or

2.
IDE1 - Disk1 os/apps master
IDE2 - Disk2 audio master

CDROM/writer slave on either IDE1/2

I've setup my system the same as the 1st configuration.
I'm using win98se at the moment and to my knowledge, IDE does not work like SCSI drives in that the win98 os can only read/write to one device at a time regardless of the seperate IDE controllers. The second IDE controller is there to allow you to connect more IDE devices and that's all. So i decided to keep all slow devices on the second ide controller. In the old days you would have to do it this way otherwise the slowest device would dictate the max speed for all devices on the same controller. These days "speed switching" resolves this issue.

I don't know how winxp/win2000/linux handles multiple ide controllers. If the os allows simultaneous I/O on multiple IDE controllers then the 2nd configuration would be better.

If anyone else has more info on this I'd like to hear it.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 4:48 pm

I need the USB because I transfer large files (devices & samples etc) using a 100Mb USB Zip drive. It causes no problems at all, but the controller does sit in front of one of my PCI bays which is a bit annoying.

I've got one Barracuda IV 40Gb program drive as the primary master. A Iomega CDRW is pprimary slave, the second Barracuda 80Gb file storage drive is the secondary master.

I've had none of the "CD won't open" problems that seem common on some XP systems.

I can't really comment on track count because I haven't reached a limit. Whatever I want to do I can (ahhh...feels good writing that). My most complex piece takes 20 Acid tracks and it just purrs along...

dguna · Post by **dguna** » Thu Apr 11, 2002 9:40 pm

thanks fellas..
I think i'll get a 40g and a 80g HD (removable) now...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dguna on 2002-04-11 22:41 ]</font>