I looked around the forum for commentary on computing platforms for BiaB, and outside of generic Mac vx. Win discussions, hadn't seen too much specifically, so thought I would throw out some ideas as I've been looking into buying a second computer that would be more or less dedicated to running BiaB through my hi-fi system.

I currently have a quad core processor 64-bit Dell Win 7 system for work and I've been monitoring the use of the cores on my machine (Athelon quad-core, 64-bit fetch) by BiaB. I can see a reason for BiB to benefit from extra cores. On my quad core system I notice that the NT kernel seems to take one core (#1) and about 18 threads; all of the systems jobs -- around 30-40 with maybe 200 threads -- take the #0 processor; and BiB flips between processor #2 and #3 (only one at a time as far as I can see, but I'm not sure what is going on) with around 20 threads. Based on a response elsewhere on the board, I gather that PG Music is not optimizing their code for multiple cores (a tall order anywhere) and from this monitoring, it seems a fast dual core system may be optimal -- one core for the system, and one for BiaB. Intel's Hyperthreading and AMD's Framewave (which would give a couple of virtual cores to each physical core) would presumably help manage the threads -- I don't know how predictive these can be, but there is enough going on on the computer overall that it is probably very useful to have them. Since BiB would have its own dedicated core, there is less likelihood of it hanging or delaying because of other jobs in the system.


So what I've decided to buy (~$288 marginal cost at Amazon):

ASUS M4A88TD-M ATX Motherboard $98
CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB ( 2 X 2GB ) DDR3 Memory $99
AMD Phenom II X2 3.2 GHz 2x512 KB L2 + L3 Cache Dual-Core $89

These are all 5-star products at Amazon, and I've always been a fan of Asus; AMD uses (I believe) the 45 nm Infinieon fab plants in Germany, and really delivers performance at the lower price points (e.g., $89 for a near state of the art processor)

And I already have (for the computer to hi-fi path):

Firestone Audio Spitfire 24-bit USB-DAC ~$140 (there are lots of low cost units like this that use high quality TI/Burr-Brown DACs and support components)
Carver Tripath Audio Amp $250 + good speakers $1500

I think this should wring out about as much performance (presuming I don't run other software simultaneously with BiaB) as I can get, and give me a hi-fi output as well.

Comments?

Chris