EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

--- In exs-users@y..., "robbmasters" <robb@n...> wrote:

> They've been mentioned before, but check out the tests that the 
> German Keyboards magazine (AMD vs Intel vs Apple) did that were 
> reproduced in Sound on Sound:

> http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jul02/articles/qa0702.asp

Another factor is the recent appearance of DDR (Double Data Rate)
memory.
A DDR memory thing includes two arrays of memory chips, which respond 
oppositely to up and down clock pulses, so although the components  
AFAIK aren't necessarily much faster than normal RAM, a block of DDR 
memory can still transfer data at twice the speed (like two little 
pistons going up and down in antiphase!). So if your 133 motherboard 
takes DDR memory, you get an effective memory speed of 266.

I saw this running on a friend's home-built system which was 
essentially the same as mine, except his motherboard had DDR memory, 
and his machine was a /lot/ faster than mine. Just watching it boot 
up was like ... woo, what the hell's going on here???
So I upgraded my  motherboard too to one that was slightly later and 
used DDR, and again, the performance went way up (same processor, OS, 
etc).

Was looking around at mac prices in the shops today because of the 
Apple/emagic takeover, and apparently none of these top-end 133-bus 
G4s yet support DDR memory except on their graphics boards, so for me 
switching to a mac would probably involve spending two grand to get a 
machine that was significantly slower than what I currently have.

Maybe when Apple have cleared their current stock we might see some 
faster DDR-equipped G4's, dunno.

:-(

=Erk=
Disclaimer: I am not really a mac person