[David Chou]

No idea can I ask such questions or not.

I would like to buy a desktop PC for audio purpose, to extract CD, storage and play my lossless files, maybe find certain PCI sound card with digital out to my opera afterwards, or simply take USB out to opera.

The question is, does the CPU type matter? I mean - does Athlon or Pentium platform matter to sound quality under XP? Or any other known issues which may impact audio operation, such as compatible concern? If not, I just choose the cheaper one.

 

[catachresis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Chou /img/forum/go_quote.gif No idea can I ask such questions or not. I would like to buy a desktop PC for audio purpose, to extract CD, storage and play my lossless files, maybe find certain PCI sound card with digital out to my opera afterwards, or simply take USB out to opera. The question is, does the CPU type matter? I mean - does Athlon or Pentium platform matter to sound quality under XP? Or any other known issues which may impact audio operation, such as compatible concern? If not, I just choose the cheaper one.

It seems that the issue has never been whether one design manufacturer of cpu was better than the other but which chipsets are being used to play audio through. There used to be imfamous problems with the VIA drivers for AMD chipsets. I encountered some issues (with USB) where coders seemed to have written their sound compatability software with Intel chipsets in mind (this was especially the case I found with USB 1.0 applications). I do not believe you are likely to find a difference in the chipsets themselves any longer so long as you get a motherboard using technology licensed from ATI (now DAMMIT) or Nvidia or original Intel. Faster cpus and more memory make the medicine go down more smoothly and in the most delightful way.

 

[pedxing]

If you avoid the common onboard mobo solution, you can avoid many problems. Either use an external USB DAC solution or buy a quality sound card with a really good SPDIF out.

 

[catachresis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedxing /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you avoid the common onboard mobo solution, you can avoid many problems. Either use an external USB DAC solution or buy a quality sound card with a really good SPDIF out.

What he said. For serious high quality audio, it's very nearly always better to use either a pci soundcard or an external dac than it is to use the audio chips bundled with the motherboard.

 

[Nugget]

Quote:

Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif What he said. For serious high quality audio, it's very nearly always better to use either a pci soundcard or an external dac than it is to use the audio chips bundled with the motherboard.

If using a semi-decent soundcard or DAC, you can change that to "always." The newer onboard solutions aren't terrible, but you can still better them with a $20 Chaintech AV-710.

 

[ErnDiggity]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedxing /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you avoid the common onboard mobo solution, you can avoid many problems. Either use an external USB DAC solution or buy a quality sound card with a really good SPDIF out.

What he said.

 

[pentachris]

The CPU should do none of the work in producing audio.

They will make a difference in the speed of your mp3/flac/ogg/whatever encoding.

I used to recommend Intel for multimedia content creation and AMD for gaming, because they were both better in those respective categories. For general web surfing, occasional office apps, emailing etc, I recommended AMD, because it was better bang-for-the-buck.

Intel has taken over as the leader for gaming machines, remains the leader for content creation and has taken away AMD's bang-for-the-buck edge to boot. I currently recommend Intel hands down.

 

[Gautama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pentachris /img/forum/go_quote.gif The CPU should do none of the work in producing audio. They will make a difference in the speed of your mp3/flac/ogg/whatever encoding. I used to recommend Intel for multimedia content creation and AMD for gaming, because they were both better in those respective categories. For general web surfing, occasional office apps, emailing etc, I recommended AMD, because it was better bang-for-the-buck. Intel has taken over as the leader for gaming machines, remains the leader for content creation and has taken away AMD's bang-for-the-buck edge to boot. I currently recommend Intel hands down.

The AMD X2 5200+ is like $170ish at newegg, and its on par with E6300 (similarly priced) in the benchmarks ive seen. So grab that if you prefer one over the other, like I do

 

[Henmyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gautama /img/forum/go_quote.gif The AMD X2 5200+ is like $170ish at newegg, and its on par with E6300 (similarly priced) in the benchmarks ive seen. So grab that if you prefer one over the other, like I do

This is without overclocking. A E6300 or E4300 can be overclocked to match a E6700 with ease.

EDIT: In almost all cases they can even surpass E6700 without sweating.

 

[skinnie]

I suggest you to take not only intel cpu,because nowadays they are better than amd's ones,and intel chipset mobo,I heard that they are the "ones" that could perform godd (overclocking,etc) and have no strange sounds coming of soundcards...for example nforce 4 boards of amd have a lot of this noises with xfis,etc

 

[Rempert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pentachris /img/forum/go_quote.gif The CPU should do none of the work in producing audio.

Well, it will handle decoding the compressed formats, any software-based DSPs, and so on. But for typical music listening, any CPU that isn't a complete dinosaur should be able to handle it with ease.

The motherboard compatibility quirks are something to look into, but otherwise I wouldn't worry much about which processor you pick for audio. It won't make any difference (unless you are using your computer to create new music).

 

[pedxing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedxing /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you avoid the common onboard mobo solution, you can avoid many problems. Either use an external USB DAC solution or buy a quality sound card with a really good SPDIF out.

Yes, I am such a great person, I have to quote myself.

I should have been a little more specific. There are few and far between motherboards where the manufacturer has put some though into the sound solution on the motherboard. However, its rare and if anything. Usually they design the board to accept ten different DSP/DAC chips and then buy the cheapest one for the day. Here is a list of interesting problems I have found putting various computers together over the years:
1) Audio channels were mixed up or reversed.
2) Defective - Complete static in the output or complete silence.
3) Dimming toslink jack - yes I have seen some fade to almost nothing in 3 months.
4) Two boards of the same model with different DSP/DAC - sound very very different from each other.

Most of them implement some variation of AC97 standard meaning you are pretty much stuck with 48 kHz or 96 kHz output sampling.

Of course, its a wonder how the motherboard continues to operate without damaging hard drives, corrupting memory, frying memory sticks ....

 

[Surgical]

Just get an iMac or Mac Mini. Makes things easier

 

[pheonix991]

Why would it even matter which brand?

 

[pentachris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pheonix991 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Why would it even matter which brand?

Well, that's the debate we're having.

Intel & AMD CPU's are built on different architectures with different pros and cons.

[edit]
Link to comparison article.

The audio benchmarks shows the Intel contenders beating the AMD chips in LAME & OGG conversion, but not in AAC conversion.

Quote from the conclusion:

"They [the AMD chips] don't have a chance against the Core 2 Duo, however, if you are looking to encode or transcode digital audio or video."
[/edit]