Core Duo or Quad DAW

[hunterross]

Hello,

I am upgrading my dated Athlon 64 3000 system. I already have a nice antec sonata case, but had some nightmares with the Chaintech mobo over the years. This time round Im going for stability and compatibility and I have some money to spend (roughly £300-400) on mobo, CPU, RAM. Ideally I'd like to get the best bang for buck with cubase and reason - i use alot of soft synths and vst effects. Here's what I have in mind:

2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=797637

Intel Core 2 Duo, E8600, Wolfdale Core, S775, 3.33 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, 10x Multiplier, Retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=860610

Intel BOXDP45SG Mobo
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=860614

Maybe this setup is overkill? I was thinking maybe a DDR 2 board would be more than adequate I know the P45/P35 chipset is pretty solid for DAWs.

If anyone thinks the above setup is a bad idea for any reason, then I will probably go for one of the components from a top spec red submarine DAW PC - what do you think?!

Maybe a quad core would be a better bet?

Cheers Ross

[Powderhound]

I wouldn't use an intel motherboard; take a look at the DFI P45 motherboard range or Asus P5Q series. DDR2 will offer much better value for money with virtually no performance drop; 4GB of DDR2 would be better than 2GB DDR3 in most cases, and you can probably get away with an E8600, or for your purposes possibly consider one of the Intel quads.

[Webby]

If you will work with programmes which will utilise all 4 cores then a quad is better, you may want to consider overclocking to get the most out of your purchase.

I would personally go for something like this,

Q6600 - £120
Asus P5Q-Pro - £92
4GB DDR2-800 - £50
Scythe Mine CPU cooler - £22

Total £284

You should be easily able to overclock the Q6600 to 3GHz (most will do 3.4GHz no problem with some going to 4GHz)

The is certainly no advantage to buying DDR3.

If you decide that you will not be overclocking then the E8500 is much better value for money than the E8600, and if you want a faster clocked quad core then the Q9550 is your only real option. However, overclocking is easy as long as you can give it a couple of days to find your optimum settings.

[Pob255]

I think you may of fallen for the cpu 1333fsb trap.

To break this down simply
The fsb number given for the cpu is "quad pumped" ie 4 times faster than the actual fsb the motherboard is running at
The speed of the memory is two times the actual fsb of the motherboard.

So to run the e8600 at it's stock speed the motherboard fsb is actually 333mhz, while the memory can run at 666mhz at stock.
the only reason for getting DDR3 atm is extreem overclocking.

Yet again I almost totally agree with webby.
the q6600 is great value for money atm if you're preparied to overclock it a bit (which is dirt simple, only start becomeing more complex and tricky when you try to really push these)
That said you may find a place selling off older e6x00 cheap (scan have already flogged off there old stock) which could give you near simular resaults for half the cost if you can find something like a e6750 for £75ish

If you don't want to delve into overclocking I'd actually look at the e8400 at £110 with a stock speed of 3ghz it will still be a good cpu with great performance.

Ether way DDR2 pc6400 800mhz is the best bang for your buck here, it will give you a good overclocking headroom on a q6600 and on the e8400 you can run it at stock and still have head room to leave the possibility of overclocking (all while still running the memory at stock speeds)

EDIT: One other thing, if you go for a core2duo then consider the Asaka AK-965x3 cooler it's great on a c2d and is only £10.21
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=608228

If you go with the q6600 I'd go with the better performance of the scythe mine

EDIT2: if you're still on xp and have no real desire to swap to vista yet then you really only need 2gb of memory atm, there are still very few games that will run into casheing with 2gb on xp

[hunterross]

Thanks so much for your help, you were all instrumental in helping me choose the right gear!

For those that may be interested here's what i ended up with:

1 x Asus P5Q PRO P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache
1 x Akasa AK 965 (Socket 775) Aluminium with Copper Base Processor Cooler
1 x OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC with LIFETIME WARRANTY
1 x Extra Value YV19WB2 19" Monitor 1440x900 700:1 300cd/m2 5ms VGA Black
1 x Asus 8400GS 256MB SILENT VGA DVI PCI-E Graphics Card
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII *32MB Cache*
1 x Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound Thermal paste 3.5gram

As soon as I've built it I'll let you know my thoughts! R

[hunterross]

This system kicks butt! Im not even over clocking and its fast enough for my needs by far. Mixing down cubase projects that use lots of VSTi and VST's is so much faster than before. I really like the Asus performance software that can adjust the voltage of the cpu and the speed of the fans automatically depending on what you are doing - you can force it to silent mode too which is great.

The only annoyance so far is that there is some on chip mini OS that you can use as soon as the computer is turned on to browse web etc. I found you can only use it over IDE (still on a sata drive). since all mine are using the other faster protocol, i cant use the app. Oh well dont really need it anyhow start up is very quick!

Thanks R

[Powderhound]

You can disable it in the BIOS if you bored of the nag screen at startup BTW.

[EarlGrey]

Go Quad and get DDR2-800.
Simple as that. Save your pennies for something else