AMD vs. Intel audio performance in V5?

Hulk wrote on 1/6/2005, 6:09 PM
I'm running a 3GHz P4 right now and sometimes run out of cpu power while mixing. I use quite a few Waves plugs ;)

I'm thinking about building a new system and was wondering how the Athlon 64 chips, especially the ones supporting the dual memory controller, the socket 939 and FX parts do with audio in Vegas?

Does anyone have experience with both the P4 and A64 chips when mixing in Vegas?

I would be willing to upload a test script for people to test vary system configurations if people were interested. I guess it would have to only include stock Vegas plugs for compatibility.

- Mark

Comments

bgc wrote on 1/7/2005, 10:40 AM
I haven't done any scientific tests but I do have some experience with Intel and AMD chips and Vegas. I have a dual 1.7GHz P4 system and a single 1.7GHz AMD system (a bit overclocked) and my AMD system seems to be more stable and have more juice than the P4 system. I've also had similar experience with my dual P3 systems (dual 1 GHz PIII system).
At this point I will stick with AMD Athlon processors for my Sony audio workstations.
B.
Hulk wrote on 1/7/2005, 5:31 PM
Thanks for posting your experience. I have a P4 3.06 and laptop PIII 1.2 and although the P4 is certainly performs better with Vegas for audio, the difference is not nearly as great as I would expect considering the huge clockspeed advantage of the P4.

In fact, I notice a MUCH bigger performance delta between the two systems for video operations. I believe this indicates that the audio portion of Vegas does NOT rely heavily on P4 optimizations, but more on a strong floating point unit. The PIII does have a strong fpu, and the Athlon stronger still so I think these observations correspond somewhat with theory.

I've never owned an AMD system but am seriously considering AMD for my next system. I think I'm going write an audio script that hopefully some of the people in this forum will download and run.

BTW, that's a dual Xeon 1.7 system, right?

- Mark
bgc wrote on 1/7/2005, 5:50 PM
Yes dual Xeon P4.
tmrpro wrote on 1/9/2005, 8:00 PM
I have P4 systems of all makes and sizes and I get the best performance from the Rambus P4 systems. I built an AMD dual Opteron 244 system and I liked it so much that I now have 3 of them!

I am totally convinced that Intel was completely foolish to exit the Rambus development. Their latest processors suck IMHO when compared to the Opterons.

The Opteron processors operating at half the "Intel" claimed processing speed, render my V5 projects at about twice the speed of a 3.5 XEON.

I believe overall the AMDs are about 10 times faster and operate with a HELL of a lot more CPU headroom.

I was working today on a 84 track project with a plug count of 43 DX plugs. 22 of my tracks were stereo tracks. So it would be equivalent to 106 tracks. Tons of enevelopes, splits, faders and automated effects.

I can't get close to the AMD performance capability with the XEON system, but I can definately beat any 1x XEON system with my 1x 2.0 Rambus system.

The 2.0 kills the XEON in a hands down render and it is suppossedly operating with less than half the bussing capability.

I've addressed this with Intel and they are aware of the better performance from the Rambus concept. They indicated to me that it was a matter of $$$ regarding the cost of memory and consumers not wanting to spend the additional money for the more expensive memory....

.....Well I spent my recent $$$ on the more expensive and better performing Opterons....
Hulk wrote on 1/10/2005, 7:09 PM
RAMBUS was (is) a good memory design, it has much lower latency than the fastest memory of the day. But DDR400 performs as well if not better than RAMBUS systems. If you remember Rambus was unwilling to allow other memory manufacturers to sell that type of memory without paying them huge royalities (I remember some legal problems surrounding Rambus(t)). It wasn't Intel that soured the deal, it was that Rambus memory prices weren't going to come down and THAT was a deal killer for Intel, as I remember it anyway.

If you could render the same audio project using your AMD and Intel systems I would be very interested in the results.

Thanks for your input.

- Mark