Tracktion Software

terrynoakes · Post by **terrynoakes** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:25 pm

Hi,

Thinking of upgrading my Athlon 4000+ 939 socket to either a
AMD ATHLON 64 FX-60 DUAL CORE SOCKET 939 2600MHz
or AMD ATHLON 64 FX-57 single SOCKET 939 CPU 2800MHz,
I have 4 GIG of Ram
ATI Radeon X300 series graphics card
E-MU 1212M sound card
Express Power Motherboard M1697 Chipset
I'm using T2 as T3 crashes to often on this set-up,
Any suggestions as to which CPU would be best to go for.
Many
thanks
Terry

BushmasterM4 · Post by **BushmasterM4** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:32 pm

Ive had great luck with all the AMD processors I have used in my DAW rigs. I started out in late 2006 with an AMD single core 850htz. Anthlon (dinosaur) and it worked fine. The one thing I have found is the motherboard is the key component. Through trial and error I found that Gigabyte make the most stable boards out there. DFI also makes great boards, but they are pricey and hard to fined. DFI sort of left the consumer market and focus on industrial use boards. Anyway your current cpu has plenty of power. I've tried Asus and other name brands and always have some issue and return them. I will never again buy anything other than Gigabyte.

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:42 pm

nooooooo!!

you are talking about replacing a Model T with a Tucker Sedan..

i would really save money and get an Ivy Bridge Intel CPU, 8gb DDR3 and a new motherboard..! 2012 technology will treat you a whole lot better.. really - why gain 400 passmarks when you could get 4000 easily with a little more money? your whole system will be faster by far and you won't even need to buy a video card because almost all new Intel chips have decent graphics on the chip..

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:57 pm

At this point I would also vote Intel in terms of price-performance logistics, and a new MB/CPU. You don't need 8GB ram, people seldom do - but a new MB would be worth it. Gigabyte do not make the most stable boards, that would be Intel. However gigabyte boards are great too.

rlindsey0 · Post by **rlindsey0** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:40 pm

Agree with the others. I just dealt with this issue, and after taking everything into account, it seemed clearly better to do more than just replace the processor.

I had had an Athlon 3200, but this time I went Intel. For less than $500 (making use of the special dealss available at my local Micro Center), I got this:

Intel i5 2500K (includes graphics chip, so no need for a separate video card unless you also want to do gaming)
Asus ATX MB with SATA III 6GB/sec and USB 3.0 (forget the model, I think P8Z68-something)
Kingston DDR3 RAM, 8GB
Inland 500W power supply
Hitachi 500GB SATA III 7200RPM 3.5" HDD (for audio drive)
eSATA card for another option for hooking up external drives

The system is WAY faster and better in every respect.

Don't know what your budget is--and believe me, I understand budgetary constraints very well--but if it's feasible, you might consider taking a similar road.

terrynoakes · Post by **terrynoakes** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 1:32 pm

thanks folks,

money is major a consideration, prices in good old Blighty, slightly
more expensive than the US,but I have been advised.

many thanks

terrynoakes · Post by **terrynoakes** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:52 pm

Hi Guys

invested in a modest up grade to
Intel Core i3 2120 Processor @ 3.30Ghz / 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory / Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PV using on-board graphics card
2 x hard drives 300GB and 500GB.
unfortunately still cant get T3(3.0.4.8)to run properly, loaded up 16 track midi file and 1 instance of Jamstix3 /15x Roland VSC module & 15 Mackie plug-ins to quick test and found that the plugins would black out when clicked on instead of showing gui, system set to background services and a few other accepted tweaks.
Installed T2 same setup runs no problem!?

any ideas & help would much appreciated
many thanks
Terry

Ps, should I maybe get a graphics card, if so what would you recommend,I don't do gaming computer solely for music

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 2:29 am

I've recently developed a pc with the same motherboard for a friend,
you need to upgrade to the most recent bios (use @bios on the motherboard driver disc) and download the most recent graphics driver from intel.
I DON'T know whether this will fix any of your problems.

terrynoakes · Post by **terrynoakes** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 10:23 am

Thanks Meta,
did you use the same cpu and was it for music? if so are there any other tweaks I can do specific to this combination of cpu+mobo.
cheers
Terry

skipkent · Post by **skipkent** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 2:01 pm

Don't forget Ebay. You can get a nice (older) Lenovo or other dual core laptop for a couple hundred bucks. Might be time to say goodbye to the old beige box.

metamorphosis · Post by **metamorphosis** » Sun Jun 24, 2012 2:40 am

terrynoakes wrote:Thanks Meta,
did you use the same cpu and was it for music? if so are there any other tweaks I can do specific to this combination of cpu+mobo.
cheers
Terry

No, but the cpu doesn't really matter in this case.

Load optimised defaults in bios after updating it,
and make sure turboboost is turned on.

Other than that it's non-cpu/mobo specific, see my guide in sig.

Few tweaks are genuinely music-specific, but there are a few.

You haven't mentioned your OS.
If you're running Win7, see some of the posts people have made in this thread about getting it to work.
You're better off running XP 32-bit for tracktion.

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Sun Jun 24, 2012 3:23 am

ya - my system is really stable - unless i try to use Cubase x64..
plugs blacking out sounds more like a software issue than anywhere near the CPU.. your i3 is nothing to sneeze at - i would be sure that your issue is CPU related first, but an i5 offers a lot of performance if you require it.. do try T2 32bit if you have not already.. i am not unhappy about running Cubase 6 32bit, but i do seem to get better VST performance using REAPER x64..

Tracktion Software

KVR Audio

CPU upgrade