well if you have the cash to dish out id suggest getting a dual athlon64 mp and spend the money to get 4 sticks of 1gb ram...

This system might be a pricey one but when you look at the fact your going to be running a dual 64bit system in all reality its rather good. dual 2.2ghz 64bit cpu with 1mb of l2 cache is rather insane.. itd be safe to say youd probly not have to worry about upgrades in a year.

heres mobo/cpu/ram info for one
CPU: 2x AMD Opteron 148 2.2GHz 64-Bit CPU
Ram: 4x Micron DDR-1000-2100-ECC-REG 1Gb PC-2100 266MHz w/ECC Reg
MSI Part No. MS-9131-010S

CPU
• Supports dual Socket 940 for AMD® Opteron DP™ processors (SledgeHammer DP)
• Supports Opteron DP ™ 1400MHz and up
Chipset
• AMD® 8131™ Chipset
• AMD® 8111™ Chipset
Main Memory
• 144-bit DDR at 200, 266, 333MHz
• Supports 6 DIMMs, registered ECC DDR DIMMs memory
• Supports a maximum of 12 GB of memory
Slots
• One PCI-X 64-bit 100MHz slot
• 1 mini PCI slot

Mini PC Upgrade Card
SCSI Add-In Card (MS-9518) optional
- Adaptec AIC-7892B SCSI controller
- Adaptec U160 Chipset

BIOS
• 4Mb Flash EEPROM
• PCI 2.2 compliant, VPD, and DMI
• PnP 1.0A, SMBIOS 2.3, ACPI 1.0A, 2.0
• Supports PXE boot protocol
• APM 1.2, WOL
• PC2001 system design compliant
Power Management Feature
• Wake up on LAN (WOL), USB, PCI, Mouse
• RTC alarm
• Supports ACPI S1, S2, S4 and S5 functions
System Management
• SMBus (I2C)
• Temperature, voltage, and fan monitors
• Chassis intrusion
Video
• ATI Rage® XL video controller
- Built-in DVD decoding
- Provides integrated TMDS transmitter support for digital Flat Panel (DFP) monitors
- Onboard 8MB Video SDRAM
Network
• Broadcom BCM5704 Gigabit LAN controllers
- Provides 1000, 100 and 10MB/s data rates, 64-bit/100MHz PCI-X bus
- Supports dual Ports
Onboard I/O
- 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360KB, 720KB, 1.2MB, 1.44MB, and 2.88MB.
- 1 PS/2 keyboard port.
- 1 PS/2 mouse port.
- 2 serial ports (COM1 serial port + COM2 serial header).
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode.
- 2 RJ-45 ports (with LEDs).
- 4 USB ports (two on front and two on rear).
- 1 VGA port.
Dimension
SSI EEB 3.0 Form Factor: 12" (w) x 13" (h)
Mounting
21 mounting holes (SSI Standard)

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Well i use a 2400xp with abit pro motherboard and its quite decent

but i recomend the 939 sckt(ithink there them) 64bit processer i dunno bout motherboard

www.ebuyer.com

thanks for the info

But lets say I am not going to buy a dual motherboard and all that but a singal one instead... what would you recomend?
And what is better for producing? Operaton or Athlon? and what is the diffrens?

Athlon is the fastest, ive got 3000 mhz, really i have never speed problems, though i must say... If you buy a athlon 2600 you will save lots of money, and whats 400 mhz on 2600 mhz? But i shouldnt be posting this because i have no knowledge on processors, so ignore me

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well then get a athlonfx 53 939
operatron is merely a more powerfull cpu then say the athlon xp. its more server oriented and high load workstation. ie mostly used for cad and shit like that.. honestly tho if your going to dump a grand on a system might as well dump 2 grand and get you a dual operatron. however if thats not an option id suggest getting a athlonfx 53 939 and look for a decent mobo by asus/abit/msi they all make very good motherboards. but keep in mind if you get a athlon fx 53 939 you will still need to purchase registerd ecc ram. and for ram i suggest micron and corsair. the rest just plain fucking suck.

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fastes isnt the case here its about workload. plain and simple the high end athlon fx and operatron series blow the competition out of the water. in all honesty if your going to dump some cash get a athlon fx 53 939 or a operatron 148. the mathamatical processes they can handle are insane.

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devil: about your dual opteron tip there. Does the opteron need ECC memories or did ya just pick them because ECC sounded good?
afaik ECC memories are meant for servers wich need a good uptime etc.


well anyway, I'd suggest you wait untill ABIT comes out with their new SLI motherboards (or if you can't wait, get a DFI lanparty motherboard) and then grab yourself one of thoose together with an Athlon FX 55 processor. And then a Zalman CNPS 7700CU cooler for that.
Then on top of that buy a package of OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Rev2 2x512MB (400mhz) memories.

Now why a PCI express motherboard you might ask, "doesn't that mean that I'm going to need a new graphicscard that works with the PCI express interface?"
Well yeah, AGP graphicscards doesn't work with PCI express so you'll need a new GFXcard too but it's more worth it for the future since PCI express is the future and AGP is not.

"And why would I want SLI on top of that?"
now for thoose of you who doesn't know the SLI interface makes it possible to use two graphicscards at once and let them share all the graphical workload.

"now why is that good for musicproduction?"
Well today it doesn't give any benefits to be honest so you might aswell just start out using one GFX card BUT there's a new technique under work wich will let you utilize your GPU as a DSP processor (so far only for NVIDIA cards though) so imagine how much DSP power you'll get with two PCI express cards working together

"and last, why only 1gb of ram?!?!"
well first of all, it's echonomical. Second it allows you to run them in dual DDR mode and third (and most important of them all). I've seen many indications that systems tend to get unstable when you put in more than 1,5gb of ram into them. Most programs today aren't built to be optimized with more ram than that so instead of working better they start to fuck up A LOT. In theory 4gb of ram would be prefered but unfortunatley it's not like that in practice today :/

okay so in short, a really nice package would look like this:

1 x DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR
1 x Amd Athlon 64 FX-55 Socket 939
1 x Zalman CNPS7700-Cu (this one is really quite but still cools like a monster)
1 x OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Rev2 2x512MB (they sell in packages of matched pairs)(timings on theese monsters are "CL 2-2-2-5")
1 x Geforce 6600GT 128mb PCI-E (it's very very VERY important that it's PCI-Express and NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT _AGP_ since AGP GFXcards wont work with PCI-E)

this package is the future. It has the socket 939 platform for the processor wich will be utilized for at least 2 more years. It has PCI-E wich is the new GFX standard and it has some really fast memories

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quote:

Originally posted by davedresden i suggest getting the gabriel & dresden prog-a-minute. in 3 easy steps you too could change the face of dance music. batteries not included. - dave

you need registerd ecc ram to run operatron and athlonfx 939 systems properly... most mobos ive seen dont even take non ecc..

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vizay made alot of valid points. so id have to go with looking into both options that him and i stated. now personlly id say the ram point is only invalid becuase thats assuming your using a older os.. however it is true i rember in 2000 when i put a gig of ram in my windows 98 system it acted kinda funky sometimes and wouldnt boot correctly.my main system is a athlon fx 53 939 on a msi 9130 with 4x corsair pc3200 400mhz 512mb sticks m-audio delta 1010 ati radeon 9800 all in wonder pro and 4x maxtor sata 300gig 16mb cache 7200rpm drives running 0+1 raid and a plextor 12x dvd+/-rw drive running on windows 2000 pro. honestly its one of the most stable systems ive ever built and probly one of the best. ive encounterd 0 problems with it music production on it is great ive yet to really max it completely out ive gotten close but ive yet to completely max it. running fls5 and a collection of vstis and vst effects. never had any problems with instabilty or anything.

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argh! PCI express?! 64 bit Operating Systems?! SLI interfaces?!

i fear the PC market has left me behind again. i remember when you could install SIMMsin 486s and not have to buy them in pairs! god my dx-2 66 ruled. it doesnt quite rule now...

I suspected that you need ECC for the opteron systems but just to make one thing clear, Opteron is socket 940 and not 939 No socket 939 processor needs ECC ram to run but I guess all the 940 does


and about the big sizes in ram, I guess it comes down to what brand you use. Just over a year ago there were barely any other brands than original and kingston on the market but various high-end brands have popped up now so I guess there's a very little chance that it'll fuck up theese days thanks to the rise in quality wich has come from the competition of the market

well well, about the systems. Wich system you pin down to is mostly depending on what youre using the machine for.
If you want to have good performance in other things than production (olike games & such) I'd suggest the s939 system with the athlon FX-55 but if it's going to be a 100% dedicated machine for production I'd say go with the opteron. (although one should keep in mind that there are no mobos available with PCI-express for opteron platforms as it looks today wich is a big minus imo)


[edit]
OT: devil I take back what I said before, you do post some usefull stuff too

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quote:

Originally posted by davedresden i suggest getting the gabriel & dresden prog-a-minute. in 3 easy steps you too could change the face of dance music. batteries not included. - dave