[Stephonovich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek Man, upsampling uses so much cpu power on my Athlon.. I need a P4...

Eh? Athlons beat out P4s currently, if you hadn't checked. I've got FB2K running right now through my Chaintech AV-710, upsampling to 96KHz/24bit, and it's consuming less than 20% resources. On an XP 2000+ w/ 512MB RAM running WinXP Pro. Unless you're trying to compile something or load massive images in Photoshop, this isn't really an issue. I've got Trillian and Firefox open right now and not suffering in the least.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek For cost, the worst is PC audio. Not only do you have the multitude of standard audiophile upgrades, but you have: "Well, since I EAC stuff, i might as well get a really good bit-accurate drive." "Since power conditioning matters, I might as well get the best PSU." "Man, upsampling uses so much cpu power on my Athlon.. I need a P4..." For me personally, i'm a computer nerd as well as audiophile, though.. so upgrading my system components has dual excitement. w00t w00t for being nerdy.

Eh? I'm running a 800Mhz Celeron with 128 MB of RAM and Windows ME here.

Not exactly hardcore, but it gets the job done. I'll simply upgrade whenever I feel the time is right and even then I'll likely still get the cheapest computer I can find (although it definately HAS to be relatively quite). Besides, has it ever been proven that the quality of the power supply or CD/DVD drives actually matters when it comes to PC audio? From what I've read it seems like the jury is still out. One would assume that better a better power supply would make a difference but then again don't most soundcards have power-filtering circuitery? And when it comes to CD/DVD drives aren't they all bit identical (with the only differences being offsets--basiclly starting points--and such)? Correct me if I'm wrong, though, I'd love to improve the sound in anyway I can--as long as it's on the cheap.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephonovich Eh? Athlons beat out P4s currently, if you hadn't checked. I've got FB2K running right now through my Chaintech AV-710, upsampling to 96KHz/24bit, and it's consuming less than 20% resources. On an XP 2000+ w/ 512MB RAM running WinXP Pro. Unless you're trying to compile something or load massive images in Photoshop, this isn't really an issue. I've got Trillian and Firefox open right now and not suffering in the least. (-:Stephonovich

My P4 2.4 has no problems with upsampling Foobar and Photoshop.

Although this machine I'm typing on has only 512MB RAM, and I only use Photoshop for basic image manipulation. My main workstation I'm working on (which is right next to this one) has a lot more RAM.

-Ed

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Upsampling to even 192kHz only sucks about 25% on my Barton when it is down at 2600+ speeds, and obviously a good bit less at 3400+ speeds.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Upsampling to even 192kHz only sucks about 25% on my Barton when it is down at 2600+ speeds, and obviously a good bit less at 3400+ speeds.

17% CPU average on mine.
6,324 K RAM

-Ed

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood 17% CPU average on mine. 6,324 K RAM -Ed

Sick amount of RAM you're running there! Is it PC3200, or higher, or what? I take it you must need all the memory speed you can get as well.

 

[Distroyed]

I've got a p4 2.4 and foobar takes an average of 25% cpu, and 17mb ram (I've got 1gb of ram). But then again I also run the equalizer and crossfeeder alongside the resampler.

But back to the EMU.... can this card mix two sources to the output? You know how the RME has no internal mixer so can handle only one source at a time without software mxing? Could one loop a soundcard through the EMU 1212m and play audio from that soundcard and the EMU simultaneously through the balanced analog output? If it can I may be letting my RME go afterall...

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Yeah, you can mix multiple inputs, you just have to enable the montoring for the outputs you want to hear, and adjust the volume levels to you liking.

 

[10068]

Quote:

And when it comes to CD/DVD drives aren't they all bit identical (with the only differences being offsets--basiclly starting points--and such)

Uhhh. no.

Cheaper drives use cheaper materials. What this means is that, for example, if you rip a CD with your 25$ Aopen, you'll most likely get errors and NOT get a bit-accurate copy (and god save you if the disc is scratched). This is especially evident on EAC. My crappy Dell CDRW almost never gets 100% rips.

The drive I bought, the Plextor 708A, can rip a bit-accurate (i.e. no data lost whatsoever, so no potential loss in audio quality) CD at 32X, even if it's scratched to heck and back.

As far as taking 65% cpu to upsample to 192khz (and run an EQ btw), perhaps this is just the difference of Winamp versus Foobar? I love the interface of Winamp so i'll never switch, though. Go ahead, call me "set in my ways"

PSU makes a decent difference too, especially if you're going to test the limits of your CPU.. i.e. encoding, gaming, overclocking, etc. Although if you've already got an Antec or Enermax or whatever, the benefits of a PC Power and Cooling might not be extreme.. but a top of the line PSU would definitely improve things over a generic PSU.

Every component in the PC matters, just like everything in the signal path of audio matters, heh.

As far as AMD being better than Intel.. depends on what you're looking at. I'm seriously avoiding 64bit CPUs at this point because i've had really bad experiences with buying and using new pc technology (SATA being the most recent example). So I'm going to get the best 32bit CPU, which is the newest P4, although I haven't decided between Prescott and Northwood yet. Considering 32bit only, P4 trounces AMD. Period. I don't care what type of fanboy you are, you can't deny benchmarks. Granted, the 32bit AMDs are still a better speed/price ratio, but for pure performance the P4 wins hands down.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, P4 has HyperThreading, which helps massively with something like upsampling. Even if it's using, let's say 50% cpu, HT basically tells Windows you have 2 CPUs. So one CPU is doing the upsampling whilst the other CPU does all your other fun stuff. AMD can't do this

EDIT times 2!: Since someone asked, the PSU i'm getting is the PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe. ONLY 200$ MSRP.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Sick amount of RAM you're running there! Is it PC3200, or higher, or what? I take it you must need all the memory speed you can get as well.

Eh? that's K not MB. You know the lists in Task Manager? I *only* have 2GB PC2700 of RAM in dual channel in my workstation.

And it's still not enough. I will have 4GB in my next workstation, but 2GB is enough for now. I've delayed my workstation upgrades due to head-fi.

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek Uhhh. no. The drive I bought, the Plextor 708A, can rip a bit-accurate (i.e. no data lost whatsoever, so no potential loss in audio quality) CD at 32X, even if it's scratched to heck and back. PSU makes a decent difference too, especially if you're going to test the limits of your CPU.. i.e. encoding, gaming, overclocking, etc. Although if you've already got an Antec or Enermax or whatever, the benefits of a PC Power and Cooling might not be extreme.. but a top of the line PSU would definitely improve things over a generic PSU.

32X rips? Are you sure you're running in secure mode in EAC?

Yeah, don't cheap out on power supplies, folks. I learned the hard way. There's nothing more fun than watching sparks fly out the back of your computer and a big POP!

-Ed

 

[10068]

Quote:

32X rips? Are you sure you're running in secure mode in EAC?

No, i'm not saying I actually plan on running @ 32X. The point is it CAN do that. My current drive can only do ubersecure (and still not 100%) rips at like.. 4X.

But yeah, i've seen people post reports of ripping what could basically be called "really fast" with all secure and quality-related settings set. All the sites that talk about DAE just love that drive.

 

[ayt999]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jasper994 Don't get a P4, just run dual Athlon64's

when you ever do successfully get a dual Athlon64 system set up let me know.

in the 64-bit AMD CPU lineup, only the opteron is dual capable btw. if you really want to talk about dual CPU computing, visit the other website I frequent a lot, www.2CPU.com.

I wonder how my dual 2.93Ghz xeon with HT enabled (four CPUs shown in task manager

) does at 192Khz resampling. I never really cared to check it out, but it would be interesting to see. these resampling apps are SMP aware right?

and then I can compare it to my dual 2.25Ghz barton to see how AMD based systems handle it.

they bench similarly in other apps btw.

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek Uhhh. no. Cheaper drives use cheaper materials. What this means is that, for example, if you rip a CD with your 25$ Aopen, you'll most likely get errors and NOT get a bit-accurate copy (and god save you if the disc is scratched). This is especially evident on EAC. My crappy Dell CDRW almost never gets 100% rips. The drive I bought, the Plextor 708A, can rip a bit-accurate (i.e. no data lost whatsoever, so no potential loss in audio quality) CD at 32X, even if it's scratched to heck and back.

It may be that your Plextor can more easily read scratched discs but I have my doubts about it being any more "bit accurate" than cheaper drives. Correct me if I'm wrong if cheaper CD/DVD ROM were to drop bits (ie leave out information) then many of the programs installed on computers via discs wouldn't work correctly because some of their code would be missing. Other programs that must continuely read data off of discs (such as many games) would also have the same problem. I've never heard of any such thing happening, and such a thing sounds pretty far fetched to me. Just my opinion.

 

[10068]

Patrickhat2001- I think we're arguing semantics here... when I say it can rip bit-accurate, i'm basically saying that no matter WHAT you get perfect rips. As mentioned, my current drive (fine for normal stuff like games and apps) can't compare at all, because EAC doesn't even show a 100% on most rips, and even when it does show 100% I don't trust it, since this drive is just generally not reliable with DAE.