Intel QX6800 vs i5 3450 vs AMD FX-81xx series

Howdy,

Up until now I've been running a system with a Core2Extreme QX6800 and 6GB DDR2 ram, using Reaper x64 (DAW). It was running very solidly and powerfully and I'd never been near touching the ram or CPU limit. But then my motherboard died and I have to look for either a replacement motherboard, or a new system altogether.

It'll be for music production and music production only.

I don't have that much cash to spend, so my first option is obviously to replace the motherboard and keep using my old (socket 775) system. That would be by far the cheapest option, but I'm not sure how I feel about throwing more money at old technology.

So the next option is to build a new system altogether. I've been looking at either an AMD Fx-8120/8150, or an i5 3450. I want to keep costs to a minimum, but I also want to have a system that performs better than the one I've been running up until now.

As I said my current system had more than enough power to deal with what I'd been throwing at it, so for me that was powerful enough.

The AMD vs Intel debate is confusing me. I'm seeing a lot of criticism for the FX-81xx chips, but most of the criticism has come from a gaming POV, of which I'll be doing none. The downside to going for Intel is that the socket 1155 is now pretty much over and a new socket is on the way. Whereas AMD's 3+ is new and there will be room to upgrade later if needs be. That said, with Intel I could always upgrade to an i7 down the line when they become cheaper because of newer chips on the new socket. I don't really care about using older tech if it's giving me the power I need.

Most of all I want a system that's more powerful/efficient than what I have already, otherwise what's the point in spending all the cash to upgrade? The only comparisons I can find between my current QX6800 and other chips places the FX-81xx at similar performance to it, and the i5 above. But again, that was in gaming. I can find no info on how they perform in music applications (multicore/multithread). Reaper has excellent multicore/thread support.

Any advice here?

Thanks a million.

 

New 775 motherboards are all but extinct. If you're going to upgrade, go for a new board, CPU and DDR3 memory.

My gut feeling is to go for an i5. Although I don't have much experience with AMD's newest series of desktop CPUs, I have seen many overheating issues on newer (< 2 year old) notebooks with AMD processors. In contrast, I have yet to see an overheating issue with any of the i3/i5/i7 desktop or notebook CPUs.

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers. Yeah, I think I will upgrade.

It's a toss up between an i5 3450 (Ivy Bridge) and an AMD FX-8150. They're exactly the same price. I use Reaper and it's excellent at spreading processing over multiple cores which is making me lean towards the 8150. However, I've heard nothing but good things about the Ivy Bridge i5s. But apparently they're better at single threaded apps (gaming) but similar to the 81xx series is most other things. Except the 8150 has 8 cores and would be better at multitasking (music production).

So it's a tough one...