E8400 vs. 9850/9950 Black Edition - Recording Computer

[formula428]

This computer is being built for studio recording & gaming.

What should I get...(and price is a consideration too):

E8400 + EP45-UD3R mobo for $265
or
9850 B/E + MA790X-UD4P for $200
or
9950 B/E + MA790X-UD4P for $220

Other parts are:

eVGA 9800GTX card
G.Skill 2x2GB 1066DDR2
WD 640GB SE16 HDD
500W Rosewill v2.01 PS

 

[stridervm]

Change the 9850/9950 to a Phenom 2 X3 or X4.

 

[AKM880]

+ 1, weren't those original Phenoms like the 9950 bad overclockers and CPUs?

 

[gkay09]

^+1 Change the old Phenom to newer X3 or X4...
P II X3 + MA790X-UD4P for $240

Or even this...
1. AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDX920XCGIBOX - Retail
2. GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Combo Price: $253.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.182490

 

[Ravenica]

For gaming i say go with the e8400 combo.. But since your doing studio recording the extra cores would come in handy..

 

[apache_lives]

quad it - duals are a poor choice these days when quads are soooo cheap.

oh and avoid those old "original" Phenoms - rubbish, unlike the new ones.

 

[Ravenica]

quad it - duals are a poor choice these days when quads are soooo cheap.

I agree these days.. It would be a waste if anyone were to buy a dual.. Since the new quads are as cheap as duals..

 

[NatteDraak]

Loading a lot of real-time plugins when mixing could benefit from having a quadcore.

 

[Ravenica]

I have to say if your considering on using vista 64-bit or already using.. I think the quad would be a better choice..

 

[NatteDraak]

By the way, do consider a seperate harddrive used solely for audio tracking. You don't want anything to happen other than writing streaming data to the disk, and turning off the page file prevents swap file reads while tracking as well.

 

[NatteDraak]

Keep your recording software installed on the system drive, and of course I meant ONLY have the page file running on the system drive, but off on the tracking drive.

 

[jerseygamer]

For gaming i say go with the e8400 combo.. But since your doing studio recording the extra cores would come in handy..

My x3 sits at 3.4 on stock voltage. Games like a pro with a 4870 1gb. The extra core is nice all around as well. The e8400 is a great chip but pretty much strickly for gaming only these days.

 

[Wisecracker]

9850 B/E + MA790X-UD4P for $200 being that price is a consideration (and thinking that your recording software can run multiple threads across those four cores).

I've got a Phenom 9600BE @ 2.6GHz that has pretty much been encoding non-stop for the last month - works like a champ.

Just be sure to *ungang* the memory controller ...