e8400 or e7400/ p5k or p5q for music production?

J

j-brady

New Member
I know this question has been asked before, but always in relation to games, which isnt much use to me as i never play games on pc.

basically this is a few questions in one thread, so bear with me.

Im using cubase 4 with various vst plugins, e.g. Kore 2 etc on a dell inspiron 1525 and my software just eats up the cpu, so im going to upgrade.

what i want to know is,

1. a comparison between e8400 and e7400 , is it worth spending the extra money on the 8400? bear in mind im a student so £40 or so does make a difference to me.

2. Asus p5k or p5q? i dont know much about motherboards and how they can increase perormance, apart from what ive read in reviews, so any information would be apreciated here

3. Finally, Vista or XP. I know a lot of people are still dissing vista, but they seem to have most compatibility issues and bugs fixed by now, so i was wondering whether there would be much of a difference using vista over xp, i know it tends to use more ram but isnt there a cap on xp at 3gb?

Im gonna be using 4gb of ram, probably just 800mhz, an antec 650w psu, either earthwatts or trio, and an asus en8500gt 512mb graphics card, probably a scythe ninja 2 cpu cooler

so any advice is greatly appreciated
thanks :)

JB
 
well a E7400 on an asus p5q mobo with 4 gigs of ram would be a nice build, obviously the more expensive E8400 will be a better chip but in all honesty i think the E7400 is still a good chip-if you could afford the extra £40 go for the E8400 but you wont be dissapointed by either "both good performers"

E7400-2.8ghz 3mb l2 cache 1066mhz
E8400-3.0ghz 6mb l2 cache 1333mhz

i have never had 1 single issue with vista, i would recomend the vista premium 64bit to utalize the full 4gig of ram!
 
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thanks funky

but arent there a lot of programs that still dont run on 64 bit systems or will all vista programmes work on it? im not very well informed on this as you can tell.

i guess the .2ghz diference between the two wouldnt make any noticable difference, but what about the 6mb cache and extra 300mhz.
i could afford the 8400 it just means id have to save a bit longer
 
j-brady said:
thanks funky

but arent there a lot of programs that still dont run on 64 bit systems or will all vista programmes work on it? im not very well informed on this as you can tell.

i guess the .2ghz diference between the two wouldnt make any noticable difference, but what about the 6mb cache and extra 300mhz.
i could afford the 8400 it just means id have to save a bit longer
Click to expand...

the cache does help, well its a faster processor thats why its more expensive..

how cpu intensive is your music software?

can you not check the compatability of the music software you are wantin to run?

a quick check on google will tell you if your programs will run on vista 64bit, im sure its backwards compatable with some 32bit software!
 
how cpu intensive the software is depends on how many vst instruments i want to use, the more, the better really though.

i think cubase is supported but my audio interface is not, which is a bummer, and it may make it difficult for any new commercial or freeware audio plugins i might want to use. so i think im gonna have to stick with 32 bit until native instruments sharpens up a bit... or 32.
How much ram can 32 bit vista actually access then?
 
3.25gig i belive!

thats one of the things that put me off, i will eventualy upgrade to 4 sticks of 2gig so 32bit wasnt really thought about for too long

you will manage fine with that amount of ram really

im just going with 8gig becasuse the ram is so cheap now and im not happy with my ballistix
 
yeah il probably just get 2 sticks of 2gb then, any reccomendations of ram or doesnt it really matter what type/ brand i get?

also do you know anywhere i could get a tft monitor on the cheap? I already have one but its not very good and cubase pretty much demands a dual monitor setup if you want a good workflow.
 
j-brady said:
yeah il probably just get 2 sticks of 2gb then, any reccomendations of ram or doesnt it really matter what type/ brand i get?

also do you know anywhere i could get a tft monitor on the cheap? I already have one but its not very good and cubase pretty much demands a dual monitor setup if you want a good workflow.
Click to expand...

no still go for the 4gig mate...

you will benifit from the 1.25gig cos vista hogs ram

good ram
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-086-OC

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

good cheep monitor
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-065-HY&groupid=17&catid=276&subcat=
 
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