Best CPU for audio encoding/compressing??

[acidic]

Which CPU is the best for audio compression/encoding. I plan on using my system for a small home studio, and would like the cpu that would handle audio encoding the fastest.

I'm looking to spend around $200-250 for the CPU.

 

[Captain Newbie]

A Pentium 4 Northwood (C) would do you the best. The AMD's don't encode as well. I would get a 2.8C or 3.0C (sorry if those are out of price range; I didn't check). They scale well.

 

[acidic]

would it be worth it to jump from the 3.0c to the 3.2c performance wise? newegg has a 50+ price diff. on the retail version.

also, would an amd w/ 1mb l2 cache be better then the 3.2c w/ 512k cache?

 

[CPL.Luke]

well the fastest you could get for that type of work would be a g5 system, but if you don't want to go mac then go with a northwood

 

[Sjaak]

The 3.2 isnt worth it, its extra performance over the 3.0 is only marginally, and it would be better to spend the 50$ price difference on your ram.

 

[RubiX³]

well the fastest you could get for that type of work would be a g5 system, but if you don't want to go mac then go with a northwood

From what I've read, that's not the case anymore...

 

[Goldstandard]

Becides, if you get the right mobo you could overclock the sucker way past 3.2...

I heard the ASUS P4C800 and P4P800 motherboards are good for that kind of stuff.

 

[acidic]

what type of ram would make the system quickest for this purpose..
ecc or no?

would acquiring the most ram i can fit in my mobo be useful, or is there a point where it will stop inscreasing performance when a certain size has been reached? -- i plan on getting the fastest ram i can with the motherboard i choose..

thanks for the help guys!

 

[Sjaak]

1 GB it advisable. If you dont overclock, get some decent ddr400. Nothing special there, kingston valueram or something should go. ECC can be used on intel 875 boards, but IMO, is kinda useless

 

[Darryl_D]

ya definately for audio encoding go intel... you don't need anything too fancy (as audio encoding isn't as cpu/memory/harddrive intensive as video editing. I've seen a bunch of amd rigs doing audio encoding... and they work fine... my advice go with a 2.8c intel with 1 gig of pc3200 all together should come to be about 340 dollars for a gig of ram and the processor...

 

[KOXC2003]

well the fastest you could get for that type of work would be a g5 system, but if you don't want to go mac then go with a northwood

Even though Apple put out a Dual G5 with 2.5 ghz processors, they seem to test there systems agaisnt older dual 3.06 ghz xeons. Also with the amount of money you would spend on a top end G5, you could get a cascade vapor chill cooling system and have a P4 3.4 Ghz XE at 4-4.5 Ghz. I would like to see Mac bench agaisnt that setup.

I agree with Captain Newbie, a 3.0C is a great idea, they overclock well to if you get the newer version. A lot of encoders/ high end editors seem to not like overclocking, because they want ultimate stability. But you could still probably get a 3.0C to 3.6- 3.7 ghz Prime stable for several days.

 

[Randyman...]

I'm fairly happy with my P4 2.8E running at 3.01GHz and 1:1 RAM @ 2-3-3-6 (430MHz).

I do a lot of encoding, but MORE multitrack mixing with Nuendo + Waves/TC plugins - which involves LOTS of RAM bandwidth for the plug-ins (I can run over 25 plugs and over 30 WAVE tracks at once with power to spare).

The "E"s 1Meg L2 will help memory bandwidth, but likely hender encoding SLIGHTLY (The "C" will get a bit more work done than the "E" at the same speed). My "E" currently runs at 60*C at full load with this light OC, and a stock HSF.

I have a SLK-947-U and a Thermaltake 90mm fan on the way - so I should be able to get more like 3.4-3.6GHz once I get faster RAM (I REFUSE to run my ram at 5:4 due to plug-in demand on memory).

I'm still a noob, but I'm happy with the 2.8E, and it's OC ability to surpass a chip costing much more (and faster RAM bandwith with the higher FSB as long as your memory will handle it). That's right, a OC'ed 2.8E will BEAT a 3.2E (and maybe a 3.4E) since the memory bus will be running quite a bit faster in the 2.8E's OC. Memory buss bandwidth is a big limiting factor on the P4's.

Later

 

[Elwood1984]

A Pentium 4 Northwood (C) would do you the best. The AMD's don't encode as well. I would get a 2.8C or 3.0C (sorry if those are out of price range; I didn't check). They scale well.

i have sat in done studio time in several pro and home studios and i would say the best setups i have seen consist of power macs ( granted i know nothing about these) one of the studios had a pretty sweet athlon mp setup that was relatively fast.

 

[Elwood1984]

Randyman, have you ever used pro tools?

 

[x3lda]

Uhh....is it me or am I the only one that thinks a winchester would be better?
Athlon64's aren't that behind Intel 3.0-3.2GHz. From all the reviews that I recall, A64's do superbly in audio and is slightly weaker on video with the exception of dvd2avi. A 2.4GHz winchester would rape a Intel 3.0GHz in audio encoding. The problem is the more expensive ram which would can be offset by the cost of an Intel motherboard.

 

[j3lly]

go athlon64 but if you insist on getting P4 and you use professional audio programs like Cubase or Nuendo,etc with plug-in... its highly recommended fresh OS install and with HyperTurd OFF,cuz it cause clicks,pops,hangs and freez,etc

 

[Steelpuma]

The differnce between the Athlon and P4 for audio encoding isn't very big, infact when it comes to cost the Athlon is far better. You can pick-up a AMD 2800 for the same price as a P4 2.4Ghz.
Overall the Athlon is better for the cost to performence ratio. Exept if your doing video encodeing, in that case the P4's are better.

 

[dropadrop]

What will you actually be doing? Sure a P4 is better for encoding / normalisation, but an A64 will do better with most FX and VST-instruments. Add the fact that Cubase SX3 should allready have a 64bit version ready which according to Steinberg incresases performance quite a bit, and I don't think P4's are the way to go anymore.

Still, if it's only the trackcount / amount of audiotracks without alot of fx the P4 might do better.

 

[Notorious Mike]

If you truely want a great setup for encodeing music ect. Id goto to linux, and grab a a64. There is a huge encodeing increase when running the a64 architecture on a fully compliant os.

http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2213&p=7

Mouse over for 64 bit mode, the number's are ratio (second's of encoded content) : (1 second of playtime)

 

[Notorious Mike]

My last post was under the assumption that your using this setup just for compression, not for compileing tracks ect (dunno if it would make a diffrence) . The performace of an application (even in the same field) can vary greatly in window's and probally more so in linux. Usually the P4 archeticture is more optimized for.