[64studio-devel] Which AMD processor

[Quentin Harley]

Chris wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am about to buy a new AMD cpu. I'm looking at Athlon 64 or Athlon 64 
> X2 around 3800+. The single core runs at 2.4GHz, the dual core X2 is 
> 2x2GHz and they are quite similar in price. Is there any benefit in dual 
> core for 64Studio apps? Any other recommendations? The box would be used 
> for VJing as well as video editing and audio editing.
>   

I run the Athlon x2 3800+.  What a pleasure!  I can recommend it (or one 
of it's faster siblings) without hesitation.  The dual core makes your 
system seem invincible.  Instead of power hungry apps eating away you 
quality of service (the responsiveness of the desktop is one) it gives 
all the power of one CPU, while the other is available to the rest,

I saw this recently when I made the patch for gcdmaster.  The bug caused 
the application to consume 100% cpu of the CPU assigned to it.  On 
single CPU this would mean a sure crash.  In x2 this means 1CPU is very 
busy while the other looks after business as usual.

The difference between 2.4 and 2 is also not so great.  you'l have 
closer to 4 with dual core because things happen in parallel.

So! that was my sales pitch for the day.  Just a pity I am not getting 
anything for it...

Cheers,
Quentin