Does the AMD64 still lag behind Intel on audio?

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TopGeezer

With all the impressive noises about AMD's kit...I was wondering whether
there is still a significant gap in the abilities of AMD and Intel with
regards to audio encoding (inc. real-time), editing and heavy mixing?

Also what can we expect from the 64 when the OS and apps are optimised for
it?

Is it a wait and see situation, or worth a shot?

Cheers
 
TopGeezer said:
With all the impressive noises about AMD's kit...I was wondering whether
there is still a significant gap in the abilities of AMD and Intel with
regards to audio encoding (inc. real-time), editing and heavy mixing?

Also what can we expect from the 64 when the OS and apps are optimised for
it?

Is it a wait and see situation, or worth a shot?
Click to expand...

I'd have thought it was more dependent on the memory, motherboard and sound
card than the processor myself.
 
TopGeezer said:
With all the impressive noises about AMD's kit...I was wondering whether
there is still a significant gap in the abilities of AMD and Intel with
regards to audio encoding (inc. real-time), editing and heavy mixing?
Click to expand...

I'm curious, what benchmarks show this "significant gap"?

I don't see how real-time encoding is relevant, since it should not be a
problem for any recent CPU. "Encoding" and "editing" are too vague to attach
a measure to, and mixing is probably memory bandwidth limited.

Alex
 
Alex Fraser said:
I don't see how real-time encoding is relevant, since it should not be a
problem for any recent CPU. "Encoding" and "editing" are too vague to attach
a measure to, and mixing is probably memory bandwidth limited.
Click to expand...

And if it needs to go to the hard disk then limited by that too, and even
more limited if the OS starts writing to a page file.
 
TopGeezer said:
With all the impressive noises about AMD's kit...I was wondering whether
there is still a significant gap in the abilities of AMD and Intel with
regards to audio encoding (inc. real-time), editing and heavy mixing?
Click to expand...
Also what can we expect from the 64 when the OS and apps are optimised for
it?
Click to expand...
Is it a wait and see situation, or worth a shot?
Click to expand...

Mathematica version 5 is making claims about gains from their work
optimizing it for specific cpu's, and now mentions gains for 64 bit.
One item said something about 50% and Linux but I didn't go look
for the details on that. There is a large collection of benchmark
data for people running Mathematica on various cpu's and you might
find the 64's included in that by now. Google can find that with
the expected search words.

I wish I could find a fairly reasonably priced motherboard so I
could try it and see what gains I could get.
 
Don Taylor said:
Mathematica version 5 is making claims about gains from their work
optimizing it for specific cpu's, and now mentions gains for 64 bit.
One item said something about 50% and Linux but I didn't go look
for the details on that. There is a large collection of benchmark
data for people running Mathematica on various cpu's and you might
find the 64's included in that by now. Google can find that with
the expected search words.

I wish I could find a fairly reasonably priced motherboard so I
could try it and see what gains I could get.
Click to expand...

A cheap motherboard? How about some cheap chips :s
Considering AMD is no longer going to be using these sockets later on this
year, I find it incredible they are still wanting £500 odd for a bloody FX
chip.........Now Windows 64 is out, we might see some drops, but at those
prices, considering the upgradability is non-existent, seems like a stinking
deal to me. Steer clear of 64 bit for the next 12 months.............
 
Alex said:
I'm curious, what benchmarks show this "significant gap"?
Click to expand...

IIRC last year I compared my 1800XP with a friend's 1.5 GHz Intel. We were
both doing MatLab projects at university so were quite keen to compare
performance. The programs we were running didn't use much ram, but
certainly used lots of cpu :-) We seemed to get almost identical run-times
for our programs on both machines, my XP certainly wasn't 20% quicker as it
"should" have been. Of course there are loads of other factors, like speed
of RAM, cache size etc etc.

As I understood it, the advantage a 1.5Ghz AMD XP has over a 1.5GHz P4 was
reduced when you gave it very simple things to do repeatedly, like when
inverting a big matrix ;-)
I don't see how real-time encoding is relevant, since it should not
be a problem for any recent CPU.
Click to expand...

Depends how many channels and what compression algorithm.
"Encoding" and "editing" are too
vague to attach a measure to, and mixing is probably memory bandwidth
limited.
Click to expand...

Indeed, you only need a few minutes of 8-channel stereo and you're up to a
gig ;-) If you're up to 96 kHz and/or 24-bit then it's definitely a fast HD
required!
 
From what I've checked up on and asked elsewhere it seems in what it lags
behind in encoding it makes up for in other ways...so it's a decent shot..

Just wish the 3400+ was a few quid less as it appears to be a cracker of a
cpu.
 
TopGeezer said:
With all the impressive noises about AMD's kit...I was wondering
whether there is still a significant gap in the abilities of AMD and
Intel with regards to audio encoding (inc. real-time), editing and
heavy mixing?

Also what can we expect from the 64 when the OS and apps are
optimised for it?

Is it a wait and see situation, or worth a shot?

Cheers
Click to expand...

question doesn't make sense. depends on mobo and soundcard: the only way to
tell is to benchmark.

ric h
 
question doesn't make sense. depends on mobo and soundcard: the only way
to
tell is to benchmark.

ric h
Click to expand...

Well it does make sense...because no-one in pro-audio would touch an AMD 4
or 5 years ago due to instabilities and drop-outs/glitches...

Although they are now being used more widely (still the majority of
specialist builders will use Intel)..I wanted to get a sense of how the 64
chip was faring in general audio terms...and that includes any current
driver issues and whether anyone has given the new XP beta a try with an
audio set-up.

BTW - Encoding has a hell of a lot to do with the cpu
 
TopGeezer said:
Well it does make sense...because no-one in pro-audio would touch an
AMD 4 or 5 years ago due to instabilities and drop-outs/glitches...

Although they are now being used more widely (still the majority of
specialist builders will use Intel)..I wanted to get a sense of how
the 64 chip was faring in general audio terms...and that includes any
current driver issues and whether anyone has given the new XP beta a
try with an audio set-up.

BTW - Encoding has a hell of a lot to do with the cpu
Click to expand...

speaking as someone who builds pro audio machines, it never really made a
difference: people just thought it did. encoding CAN use CPU, but if it's
say dolby or spdif it'll be done on the card.

ric h
 
Ric H said:
speaking as someone who builds pro audio machines, it never really made a
difference: people just thought it did. encoding CAN use CPU, but if it's
say dolby or spdif it'll be done on the card.

ric h
Click to expand...

So in your opinion is AMD and 64bit sufficiently stable these days (as that
seems to be the more contentious issue)?
 
TopGeezer said:
So in your opinion is AMD and 64bit sufficiently stable these days
(as that seems to be the more contentious issue)?
Click to expand...

they're *all* stable. no manufacturer would *dare* base their business on
something that wasn't fit for purpose - problems arise from dodgy
implementations/drivers etc.....

ric
 
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