I'm interested in building a high quailty audio machine for my music production. While, Core 2, is nice option....I still have faith that the AM2 chips using the 65nm will prove to be just as good if not better. Now why would I pay $2000 for the AMD opteron, when the X2 FX-62 is half the price. Now I mentioned AM2 because I'm interested in going with an AM2 motherboard which will allow me to newer X2s built at 65nm. Still, whats the big difference from the Opteron & X2? I love AMD chips, what can I say.
Well, if that
is the case then you won't be building the machine now will you? AM2 at 65nm could be anywhere from 3 months off to a year say some. Also, reports do not show a significant challange to Core 2 yet.
The way I see your options are like this:
1) Wait until Core 2 hits the market and AMD slashes prices radicaly across the board, then an inferior (althoug certaintly not bad) chip like the 4400+ or
similar may be of use
if you are going to be using multithreaded aps or doing a lot of multitasking.
2) Wait until Core 2 is released and buy one! Look at the huge amount of benchmarks showing the E6600 be all amazing for such a low price compared to what you get. You could have your high quality audio machine within two weeks - blowing just about everything on the market away.
3) Wait for an unknown period of time until AMD produces something competitive to take on Core 2. Just how badly do you want this machine? Sure in 3 months AMD
may totaly surprise everyone and release a killer CPU at competitive prices, utilising the AM2 platform and its increased bandwidth potential.
I really see either choice 1 or 2 to be viable, no mention of Opteron at all. 6 months ago, I would have disagreed with myself, as Opty is a quality processor, but I dont think they are in AM2 form yet, and the San Diego 2.4GHz is going to get a good beating from an E6600 (which is currently about half the price, roughly). So that is not a way
foward for you I dont think.
My friend works in a highly successful audio production company (no, really), and from the things he has said, they have quad core Xeon servers (d'oh, but they got them cheap) but only single core workstation machines where the actual audio processing occurs. Audio isn't video (lol - sorry), it's not that intensive and if you do really want the best on the market for it, then unforunately that won't be AMD for the near future, including Opty, X2 and FX.
To conclude my unqualified oppinion/advice, after potential massive price drops, an X2 at a low price could be a really good buy, otherwise Core 2 all the way.
Maxtoons, what about an Opteron UP 144 at 1.8GHz and seriously overclock it? I post this
without checking to see if your motherboard supports good overclocking features or not (I think your board is sound though). Otherwise, this chip is seriously cheap and potentialy massive value.