Pentium 4 vs. Celeron

[Cold Truth]

would it be worth an extra $100 to purchase a pentium 4 instead of a celeron? otherwise they will be the same system. i will be using to run cubase and sample tank, recording acoustic audio and vocals, as well as soft synths via cubase sx and sampletank. the ram will be 512 with 60 gig HD on both.... would the P4 be a lot better, or just a little better? both will run at 2.0 or 2.4 ghz... so at that speed does it matter?

 

[MadScientist]

Get a Power Mac G5 ... its worth it .... they start at $1999

In single-processor tests, the Power Mac G5 completed the set of floating-point calculations 21 percent faster than the Pentium 4-based system and 30 percent faster than the Xeon-based workstation.

The Power Mac G5 supports more audio tracks with real-time effects and more software instruments than any previous desktop system in history, giving audio pros a wealth of creative resources in a native environment. In addition, Mac OS X Core Audio offers a scalable platform that supports 32-bit high-resolution audio, a single plug-in called Audio Units for DSP and software Instruments, and plug-and-play connectivity for modern and legacy audio gear. And the built-in optical S/PDIF connects to other audio equipment for pristine sound quality — without those pesky ground loops.

To quantify the performance advantages of the Power Mac G5 for audio production, Apple tested two of the industry leaders in professional audio software: eMagic's Logic Platinum for the Macintosh and Steinberg's Cubase SX 1.051 for the PC. We created a processor-intensive project containing multiple unique audio tracks; assigned five default reverb plug-ins to each of the audio tracks; and tested each platform to see which could play more plug-ins.


The dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 with Logic Platinum 6.1 can play 115 plug-ins, compared with a maximum of 35 on the Dell Dimension 8300 and 81 on the Dell Precision 650 each with Cubase SX 1.051. More impressively, the 1.6GHz single-processor Power Mac G5 played 50 percent more plug-ins than the 3GHz Pentium 4-based system.

 

[Cold Truth]

ummm.... i am working with $5-600 dollars here! how much does that thing cost?!!

 

[MadScientist]

$1999

 

[Cold Truth]

not happening any time soon. so what about my question about the celeron vs. P4? would i be ok with the celeron?

 

[MadScientist]

I don't know ..... I'm a MAC GUY .... I can work on both, but I choose not to. Just too much of a headache (PC's)

 

[Fade]

Originally posted by Truth Told
not happening any time soon. so what about my question about the celeron vs. P4? would i be ok with the celeron?

From my experience, go with the P4. I think what it breaks down to is that the Celeron is a good processor for regular computer use (families, teenagers, teenage girls posting their naked webcam pics, etc). The P4 has more power and is more stable for audio/video.

Check this PC buying article:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/bguide/0,guid,14,page,2,00.asp

 

[Some Guy]

Originally posted by Truth Told
not happening any time soon. so what about my question about the celeron vs. P4? would i be ok with the celeron?

Go for the Pentium. Celeron is meant for checkin your email and doing word processing. A celeron will still work but you wont get as good performance. If you really wanna get the most heat for the money look for a AMD athlon chip. A 2600+ athlon is about as fast as a Pentium 2.6 but costs a couple of hundred less.

Whatever you do dont get a fuckin G4! Thats the slowest machine I've ever worked on, the dual 1.4ghz system is slower than my cheap ass compaq from 5 years ago. If you're going mac get a g5.

 

[Deez]

I was contemplating the same deal when I was going to buy my computer..... it's only a hundred dollar investement, but worth it by far.
Your putting your computer threw sooo much when recording on a "home pc", get the most out of what you can affored!!!!
I personnaly just got a celeron for all my amateur porn productionzz, Oh you guy's didn't know!!!! "They don't call me Deez for nuttin, all of a sudden!!!" Lol
dz

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

I won't go into the technical details, but what it boils down to is that the Celerons have smaller cache than the Pentiums and they run on a maximum 400mhz system bus.

Myth: Celerons are designed to do only emails and Word.
Fact: It doesn't take much more than a PI to do email and word processing. Celerons are up to 2.6ghz nowadays, they'll handle audio just fine.

MadScientist: please don't get brainwashed by that retarded Macworld presentation where they lined up a BT track on Logic/Mac and Cubase/PC, it was the biggest farce and I can't wait for some lawsuits to start flying around. I can run 20+ tracks of audio on my PIII-866mhz with effects etc. in SX, you don't need a super bad-ass machine to do this.

Wait until someone like Sound on Sound or Electronic Music (both reputable audio magazines) does an A/B test on both machines with the same softwares and hardwares before making a decision to go down the G5 route.

I'm not saying that it is a slow machine, in fact I'm quite sure it is a real smoker and will give PC guys a run for their money...but for FOUR times the cost? Is it worth it?

And does this mean that the amazing G3 and G4 processors are absolute shit?

Take care,

Nick

 

[Cold Truth]

hey.... the brand itself doesnt really matter, does it? i found a loded hp pavillion with a 2.6 ghz P4, 512 ram, 120 gig HD, windows xp, burner software, etc., for $550..... i know that the digi 001 with pro tools wont work for this particular brand, but it should work with cakewalk and cubase, right?

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

When buying a brand computer, I make sure of a few things:

1. It has normal PCI slots. A lot of the recent Dell and Gateway computers have mini-PCI slots which won't allow you to put in normal soundcards.

2. It comes with a REAL Windows OS disk, not this 'system restore' crap. Compaq and HP used to do this all the time, it prevented you from being able to strip down the system the way you wanted it to by loading only the basic software and drivers; instead you had to load everything from their disks. Gateway and Dell computers give you separate OS and driver disks.

3. I've had great luck with Dell computers. Don't know if they're any 'better' than other brands, it's just what we used to use at work.

4. When you decide what sound card to get, find out which chipset it works with and make sure that whatever computer you buy has that chipset.


Cakewalk and Cubase should work on any Windows machine...the question is 'what soundcard'?

Take care,

Nick

 

[Cold Truth]

well, i have been thinking about an Aardvark card.... one of the cheaper ones, like $350.... its an ASIO driver, which is what cubase sx recommends.

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

Then you're sorted! They last released a driver for XP/2000 in December of last year, hopefully they aren't planning to discontinue the card anytime soon.

Take care,

Nick

 

[Cold Truth]

hey, how would this work? i am being proposed a trade (havent set terms yet, because he has a long list of things... im waiting on his response now.) what would the pros/cons of this be? he says that it has a registered version of cubase sx installed along with the reason and a few other things. any thoughts?

apple g4 500 mhz titanium powerbook..Gorgeous15.2" Display -20 GB
Internal Hard Drive-384 MB RAM (Up gradable to 1024 MB)-Airport card
-CDRW/DVD-ROM -Type I and Type II PC Card Slots-One FireWire Port-2 x USB
Ports-10/100 - Base T Ethernet-56k Modem ,S-Video Out Infrared Port,
OS9.2, OS 10.2, NORTON 2003, REASON 2.0 For OSX and OS 9,loaded with
software

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

Very nice machine, but you will have to get a specialised soundcard for laptops...you'll have three options:

1. USB
2. Firewire
3. PCMCIA/Cardbus

Pros:

portability
wireless networking ready
nice big screen
s-video is really really cool (my laptop has s-video, I use it a lot)

Cons:

not as powerful as a desktop for the same money
hard drive not as fast as a normal ide drive
not as expandable
easier to lose or have stolen
screen not as big as a monitor
screen doesn't look as good as a monitor
shorter lifespan (speaking from experience with a pc and two mac laptops; hard drives slow down or fail, screen hinges break, ports get loose, etc.)
more expensive to replace components
no number pad (although you can buy a number pad separately)
no right-click

This will cause a big debate:

While I don't have problems with Macintoshes as computers, the software and hardware for them tends to cost a little more than PC equivalents and are sometimes harder to find. A few months ago I was asked to find a 56k modem and cd burner for a graphite G4 (desktop), it was a REAL nightmare: I could only find one modem that will run under OSX, it was USB and cost $100, it had to be special ordered; you can find PC modems, both USB and PCI, at Walmart for $25. As for the burner...the only one I could find was a Yamaha firewire/USB combo drive, it cost $170; for PC you have your choice of literally dozens of drives that barely break $100, sometimes you can get really nice TDK or Plextor 48x drives for $50 if you look for sales. I am certain that there are other drives out there which work on Macintosh, but when you got to three computer stores and only find one, amongst a ton of PC drives, it makes you wonder.

For audio software, you pay the same price for programs like Cubase or Reason, but for things like wave editors you're stuck with Peak or Spark, both of these cost around $400-$500, while on the PC you can get Cool Edit or Sound Forge for less than $300. There are other professional and semi-professional editors for PC that I haven't mentioned, I don't know of any others for Mac except Sound Designer and Sample Wrench (which no longer exist).

Take care,

Nick

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by vitaminman
........While I don't have problems with Macintoshes as computers, the software and hardware for them tends to cost a little more than PC equivalents and are sometimes harder to find......

I don't want to debate .... but the reason the parts cost more is sort of like the same way the car parts of a Benz cost more than a Honda.

 

[Copenhagen]

Originally posted by MadScientist
I don't want to debate...

Then don't. You're clearly trying to say that Mac's are better machinery and therefore their parts cost more, a statement that may provoke PC owners, especially with our many discussions that usually end up with equal cons and pros for both sides, making the result even.

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by Copenhagen
Then don't. You're clearly trying to say that Mac's are better machinery and therefore their parts cost more, a statement that may provoke PC owners, especially with our many discussions that usually end up with equal cons and pros for both sides, making the result even.

Basicly this is want you want .... you want to debate, by replying with that comment. Or maybe your instigating one ..... I really don't care if you reply with another remark because I'm leaving it alone right now!

 

[Copenhagen]

Well, actually not. Read my reply again.
I'm just saying you can't really say that...it's like saying "I'm not going to shoot you" and then pull the trigger.
You might say you don't want to debate it but you know that saying what you said might provoke PC owners and that might open a debate. I don't want to debate the issue either, we've already been there too many times, I was just pointing that fact out...no beef, no debate wanted