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Does anyone have an opinion on the AMD six-core processors?
They seem to be a good value for the price, has anyone had any practical experience with using AMD computers?
I'm considering and AMD system for my next computer.
anyone?? is EVERYBODY using Intel processors?
well, it seems generally that audio applications run better on intel processors and to be honest: we haven't tested on AMD computers since the days of athlon something, but no current issues are known.
the 6-core AMDs (Phenom-II-X6) are looking rather good besides the fact it supports *only* 2 memory channels (opposed to the i7-9xx with 3 memory channels)
I am running two AMD 8-core server CPU's (Magny Cours)
1) I have yet to meet an Intel computer as good as my own.
2) Intel has nothing on AMD. Hyperthreading is a 0-30% performance boost at most while having twice the cores is 100% better.
3) Intel benchmark tests are designed to use the slowest methods on non-intell CPU's, most third party benchmark tests are designed the same way. Very few tests are accurate, in the U.S. the FTC has now even had to stop intel from spreading this misinformation. Many intel fanatics never seem to want to listen to this. If you want AMD, a 6-core machine would be great. I don't mind intel to be honest, I just have a good personal experience with AMD. I remember the first AMD machine I tried to this day, I noticed how certain things were smoother, certain things weren't. Different CPU's handle different tasks VERY differently. I say this cause I want to stress that I'm not trying to make fun of CM, or any other Intel fan on here... I just want to add that AMD is a viable option and I personally have had a better experience and think that cubase, VSL, etc run smoother on my machine than an intel friend of mine.
4) I would recommend trying your software on both machines to be honest. I'll never convince my East West friend to change... specs hardly seem to convince people over their own experience. Personally, I think that VSL blows East "wurst" WAY out of the water, but it doesn't change his mind.
Hopefully that helps.
You may also want to consider what you are intending to do long term? For example, if you eventually thought you would want to purchase MIR, if you went with AMD now, since MIR does not support AMD, you would need to buy Intel eventually anyway. Obviously, if you have no desire or intent to purchase MIR, that would be a non-issue. It is worth noting that the major DAW builders, who use their own benchmarks, much prefer Intel over AMD, though the new 6 core AMD seem to be viewed as ok.
I'm not trying to make fun of CM, or any other Intel fan on here..
i don't care aboput if it is intel or not, my favourite design would be a power-7 btw. if someone would support it ...
to my knowledge even the Magny Cours provide only 2 memory channels and i don't have any comparable tests related to its integer and floating point calculation units ... i'm not willing to spend money on a machine just to get confirmed it still doesn't work, especially MIR.
btw: AMD support for MIR is not an issue (iirc it actually runs on AMD with a few changes), it is the speed of filling calculation buffers and data throughput to/from memory and caches that counts.
"iirc it actually runs on AMD with a few changes" - what changes? Changes to the software that have been done, or by users, settings, etc?
power-7 is cool, but like you said... I have only briefly read about the Tile-GX by Telera but I think that recent architecture developments are exciting anyway.
Magny Cours has 4 memory channels, just to clarify.
Magny Cours has 4 memory channels, just to clarify.
right, but look here: one node (6 cores) has 2 DDR3 memory channels, the package (2 nodes, 12 cores) has then 4 DDR3 memory channels.
i7 has 3 DDR3 memory channels per node (4 or 6 cores without HT, 8 or 12 cores with HT) and this is what i was talking about:
it is critical to get data from harddisk to memory, from memory to processor and back again, many powerful cores (in fact calculation units) don't help if data transport is the bottleneck.
the change of the (QPI) architecture finally was what made MIR possible - before the i7 arrived we had 2 sockets of 4-core XEONS 3.2 GHz and dual channel DDR2 memory @ 1600 MHz, which was not enough (didn't matter if with or without HT). also the significant changes of HT architecture for the i7 helps much to get the calculation units filled with data in time.
i'm sorry, but AMD has always been a great number cruncher for integer, but not to be preferred for floating point calculations ... this may change of course as time goes by.
I know this isn't exactly a new thread but I was reading about Hypertransport and came across something that now has me confused.
HT3.1 (2008) has the same bandwidth. If that is the case, then why is MIR not just as supported for AMD?
I'm not intending any kind of ignorant debate here... it's just that usually when Intel fanboys argue Intel superiority to me they usually give statistics that are either unreliable (intel-compiler, etc) or that are outdated, or compare the newest Intel specs to previous generation of AMD specs, or something along those lines.
I'm not accusing you of having a bad argument with what I just said... simply saying that because of a bad history of debate with people I simply want to understand exactly why MIR wouldn't be supported on AMD cpu's - Not to feel the need to defend some beloved company, but simply cause I feel that my AMD setup is perfectly fine and my own experience has been that several i7 setups I have worked on have been more than problematic. I am the first person to realize that the system board, audio interface, etc have just as much to do with any problems I might have had (if not more)... but simply that because 1) I usually hear crap arguments with intel/amd - 2) I have a great experience with AMD - 3) Every Intel argument provided to me has never stood on very solid ground - and 3) the QPI point you brought up doesn't seem to be an accurate cause of MIR incompatibilty with AMD based on the QPI and Hypertransport bandwidth point I brought up.
Lastly, again not accusing... simply saying from my personal experience and where I am looking- that doesn't seem right. And for a potential buyer of MIR or MIR Pro especially. I think it's a perfectly valid point to address. I certainly might be wrong, I just want to know for sure. The Bulldozer architecture, though specs haven't truly been released or tested, is being touted by AMD as having a "new memory controller with higher bandwidth". I'm wondering about Bulldozer and MIR as well but I guess I'll have to wait on that.
well, to my knowledge the bulldozer architecture was introduced resp. announced 2 weeks ago at computex and a few motherboard vendors actually presented boards for the A and FX series.
whereas HT has finally been expanded to 6.4 GT/s i still can see only 2 memory channels, I/O virtualization has been improved with chipsets 99x and such ... so lets see how that does in the real world aside from the gaming scene.
IIRC a german user ist running MIR with a not too big setup on an AMD computer but especially for MIR data throughput between caches, processor and memory is crucial for receiving oustanding results, so IMO it doesn't make too much sense to support configurations which allow expecting just an average score.
if the new processor generation becomes available and we have some money left we'll maybe testdrive the stuff .again ..
My AMD six-core Sempron II 1090T seems to be working fine for me, except that the Realtec LAN that's onboard the ASUS Motherboard isn't cutting it. So I put an order in for a PCI-E INTEL Gigabyte CT Desktop Adapter today. I'm feeling confident that this will take care of my LAN issue. I understand that there have been issues with Realtek NIC's. :)
