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Post by bennychico11 on Sept 11, 2004 1:25:21 GMT -5
and are you guys having good experiences with them or bad?
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Post by ChrisShaeffer on Sept 11, 2004 4:01:36 GMT -5
I currently use a Mac G4 1.25mhz, but I don't feel like "screw PC's"
My last 2 rigs were a P4-M (moblie) 2gig and a PIII-M 800Mhz.
PT runs the cleanest on the Mac, but only slightly: boots a LOT faster, seems a little tighter- but could be my imagination. PC's beat the Mac processors for price and power, but not by much on the power side of things.
I got the Mac because when my last PC fried there were zero (0) PC laptops on the market without Hyperthreading that I wanted. The ones with hyperthreading could not disable it. I needed a rig that worked so I bought the Mac. I need a laptop for lots of reasons so I'm used to the high prices... what's a couple bucks more for the Mac?
Mac hardware is classy as heck, too. Its 2 am, the lights are out, and I'm typing on my fancy pants back-lit keyboard. Worth an extra few bucks.
(As a side benefit, I now know how to maintain Macs and have added to my income as a Mac guru- already have work as a PC guru. Its a good balance.)
Anyways, I didn't run into any problems with the P4-m. As long as I restarted windows at least every couple days it ran fine. I eventually just made a practice of restarting it before a session. I do the same wiith the mac out of habit, but it also gets squirelly when its been on too long.
-Chris
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lbcstudios
Been here for a while
www.lbcstudios.com
Posts: 67
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Post by lbcstudios on Sept 11, 2004 13:03:22 GMT -5
i have a mac g 5 dual 1.8 which i love...
but if you are a PC guy.. a good choice would be a amd athlon... i have my gaming computer with a amd 1.8 gighz processor.. i used it for PT LE before i got my mac.. and it worked pretty good.
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Post by bennychico11 on Sept 11, 2004 13:16:32 GMT -5
yeah, that's one of the reasons I started this thread. Gonna be building a PC probably soon and trying to see what luck you guys have had on what processors. Didn't want this to turn into a PC/Mac debate (the screw PC thing was just a joke ). If I could spend the money on a Mac right now I probably would...but I also like the to customize how I want my computer, and PCs give me that. As far as AMD vs. Pentium....I hear AMDs are more reliable, but I also like that the P4s are running faster now than the AMD (and they're cheaper). I don't know...keep voting guys. It all comes down to what Pro Tools works well with. one last thing...Chris, where do you look to find out of a processor can disable Hyperthreading?? I know pretty much all the new Pentiums come with it and don't want to buy one by mistake if I know I can't turn it off.
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finster
Been here for a while
Posts: 77
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Post by finster on Sept 11, 2004 14:09:41 GMT -5
I use Mac at my personal studio. And i use a pc at the studio that i mix for. They both seem fine to me. The mac does seem to run a little tighter. I think thats because of the dual gig processors though. Cant say i have a preferance really. I just need the machines to do what i tell them to do. Period.
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Post by Brett on Sept 12, 2004 6:43:04 GMT -5
I use a AMD Athlon 3200+ and haven't had any problems with it!
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Post by skaman on Sept 12, 2004 10:40:53 GMT -5
can you belive it?? there is a guy amongst us, that uses celeron. and i am that poor guy! ;D and its not some new celeron it is fuckin 950 Mhz machine with 320 RAM! But things are slowly changing, im considering to buy a new machine soon.
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Post by ChrisShaeffer on Sept 13, 2004 22:42:48 GMT -5
one last thing...Chris, where do you look to find out of a processor can disable Hyperthreading?? I know pretty much all the new Pentiums come with it and don't want to buy one by mistake if I know I can't turn it off. The only place I know of is the system BIOS. Seems like there MUST be a tool out there that can enable/disable things without going through the boot-setup tools, but I couldn't find any. Desktop BIOS usually have all the tools you need, but lappy BIOS are pretty stripped down. Take care, Chris
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Post by bennychico11 on Sept 14, 2004 0:14:20 GMT -5
hmmm...what about on the specs. that's what i meant. before i buy a processor i want to know if it can be turned off. do you know of any sites that might list whether or not you can turn it off? otherwise i think i might just go with AMD
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Post by reshp1 on Sept 14, 2004 7:41:57 GMT -5
Ben, I found this company a while back here in Michigan. The computers they offer seem to be a very good deal compared with Sweetwater or Carillion dedicated "DAW Computers." I've talked to them briefly via email and they seem to know what their doing. I'd check them out more thoroughly before considering to buy though, but hopefully they aren't a "too good to be true" scam. www.musicalcomputers.com/cat_bare.cfm
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Post by bennychico11 on Sept 14, 2004 13:38:41 GMT -5
hmmmm, thanks i'll check them out
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Post by reshp1 on Sept 14, 2004 14:33:30 GMT -5
Oh btw I use a Dell Latitude Laptop with a Pentium M processor (laptop "mobile" processor) clocked at 1.6 GHz. Nothing to write home about but for what I do it works, and it's FREE. Silly company I work for gave it to me thinking I'd be able to work at home. LOL, I hardly do any work AT WORK. Muuhahahahah ;D ;D
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Post by bennychico11 on Oct 20, 2004 20:55:43 GMT -5
okay, i'm unearthing this post to ask a quick question. i'm gonna be buying the parts for my computer soon and have a few questions. i'm pretty sure i know everything i need to build one, but the fans are what is getting to me. what fans do i actually need? I know there are case fans, CPU fans/heatsinks, chipset fans, and many other ones that i can by. i don't want to forget one fan and find out i set my computer on fire after an hour of operating it. will i be alright if i just get a heatsink and a case fan...or will i still need a CPU fan, chipset fan, and more? thanks guys
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Post by Daemongod on Oct 26, 2004 9:59:35 GMT -5
Hello to all....This is my first post and the funny thing is that I'm not a PTLE user,not yet at least.....
I'm in the stage of decisions about my new set up and I'm unable to decide which way to go:Mac or PC,Logic,PTLE,Sonar4 or Nuendo.
I'm fighting on this decision for almost a year now but this turned to be a very useful time because after a lot of research on the net and reading music mags I've learnt quite alot of things.
Bennychico11:If you take alook at The "Digidesign users conference" Forums and especially at the windows PTLE Forum there is a thread,a really great thread called "Best PTLE Desktop".We're talking for a really great work that all the participants have done in order to help theirselves on finding out what is the best parts for building a PTLE PC as far as stability and CPU power it concerns.
They even perform a test,the so called "DaveC" in order to come out with useful conclusions about what is the best performer PC outthere.
The winner is:Athlon64 range of CPUs and especially the 3400model,running on an ASUS mobo the K8V SE Deluxe.
This set up is performing admirebly and it out performs even the G5s processors in a 50%(of course this happen because PTLE is not yet optimized for the G5s).But still is a remarkable result that one cannot be overlook.
In the first page of this thread you can find the complete PC set up with the exactly components that they propose.Of course it's not necessary to follow the strict set up,for example you can buy the A643000 or 3200 insted of the 3400 or you can purchase a good and reliable RAM and not the specific Crucial model that is on the list but for sure you'd better stick with the exactly ASUS mobo I wrote a bove with the VIA K8T800 chipset.
The DaveC Test is:
1) Open new PT session 2) Create a new mono audio track 3) Add PT stock effects Compressor, 4B-EQ, Slap delay, medium delay, long delay. 4) Open the System Usage window under the Windows menu item to see the CPU utilization. 5) With your mouse select the newly created track from step 2 above. 6) Press Alt-Shift-D (to duplicate the track) 7) Record enable the track. 8) Repeat step 6 until your CPU goes into the red. 9) If your CPU is in the RED delete the last track created. IF it's still in the red, delete another track until the CPU is back in the green. Click on the CPU meter after every deletion to reset the meter (see warning below). Going into the RED means your getting a -9128 message from PT. 10) Hit RECORD, and record for 60 sec. (it doesn't matter what you record as the file still get's created). If your CPU goes into the RED then delete a track and repeat step 10 until you can record 60 secs. without peaking.
This set up can run all the 32 audio tracks with 5 plug ins inserted on the inserts slot+around 28 Auxes also with the same 5 plug ins on them. The number of Auxiliary tracks vary from system to system,for example you can see the same PC with the parts I wrote above to acheive 32audio tracks+10aux and exactly the same system from another user to perform the remarkable 32+28.
If you make the count you'll see that all those 32+28 tracks=60tracks in general make us a total of 300 plug ins and the ability to record for at least 1 minute with record enabled on all 32audio tracks give us an awesome result.
I don't know if you are aware of all that and I hope I didn't tired you with my long post.
I look forward to know what are your thoughts on all the above things I wrote.
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Post by reshp1 on Oct 29, 2004 12:22:54 GMT -5
thanks daemongod, I'm looking for computers too and the AMD 64 3400+ with the ASUS K8VSE looked like the best option. I'm leaning towards buying from these guys instead of building my own. www.musicalcomputers.com/pd_amd_athlon.cfmThey're pretty close to where I live so after sale support should be pretty easy.
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