Nimbus

I do a lot of video edditing on my PC and it's taking ages to encode the bit's I put together. So I thought it would be relativly inexpensive to upgrade the kit I've got rather than buy a whole new PC.

At the mo I have a tower PC which we bought from Time about 5 years ago. It's a Athlon 700mhz with a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, 40GB Primary HDD and 120GB slave HDD, TNT64 GPU, 256RAM and about 4 PCI slots.

I want to upgrade the mobo, CPU and RAM to something a bit quicker. I recon I can get somthing decent for around £300. I've never dabbled in this before so wanted some advice.

Will all Mobo's fit into my case, or will I need to find a perticular type? How do I know which type I should use? I need at least 4 PCI slots for my cards. How do I know which type I should use? As it's going to be pretty intensive stuff, I need a good combination of mobo/ram/cpu to get as much processing speed as poss for the encoding.

Any advice? Is there anything else you need to know about my current setup?

Nimbus

Forgot to say. It's running Win98Se at the moment. Would I see any improvment if I upgraded to XP Home?

Shaun

IMO, you aint gonna get much for £300 mate.

In escence (apart from your cd drives, floppy), everything else needs to be junked!

If your doing something as power hungry as video manipulation, you really need to invest once (well at least as far as PC specs are concerned, with a resonable life span).

My rule of thumb, is (for uses like you are talking about), buy the best bits you can and then it should stand you in good stead, to not have to upgrade until your current processor spec has been superceeded by one that is twice as fast.

Nimbus

Hi Shaun,

Why does everything else need to be junked? I've been doing some looking and found these examples..

Asus A7n8x delux = £91
AMD XP2700 + 333fsb = £114
Crucial PC2700 512mb ram = £68

That's a better set up then I have at the mo

Is it because the new mobo's won't fit into my exsisting case? Why else would I need to get start from scratch? I though I could just replace the above and bob's your auntie.. No???

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

You'll probably need a more powerful PSU too. I'd imagine the one in the case is pretty weedy ?

At least 7200rpm HDD's are a must IMO for video editing. Just got myself another 120Gb/7200rpm/8Mb cache disk from Komplett for £85 delivered. My CPU is an XP2400+ with 1Gb of PC2100 DDR and it handles video/audio editing nicely as well as a million other things running in the background

Edit: Using a Radeon 9200 too, which seems to handle video much better than my old cards. Cheap too.

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 9/17/2003 3:00:37 PM]

Nimbus

I'll have to check the PSU. What do you concider "weedy"..?

Both HDDs are 7200. Havn't lost a frame yet on capture.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

I'd say 350w plus is sufficient for what you've got.
Your drives should be fine then, can't see any probs myself.

Nimbus

So, providing the PSU is up to it, is it not just a case of getting the bits I want and putting them in? I'm just concerned that I get the right mobo to fit my case...

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

If its a standard ATX case, then it should fit fine. Couldn't say without seeing it. Any pics ?

Nimbus

No pics. I'll try and sort some out tonight. I could do you a video..

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

This is a pretty standard ATX case. Not mine



With your new mobo you'll probably get a new port cutout panel. Is the one on yours removeable so that you can put the new one in ? If not, your new ports won't match the holes. Most cases are ATX format.

Nimbus

Yep, that's the fella.


Is the port cutout pannel that bit just below the PSU? I'll check mine tonight to see if it's removable.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Thats it mate. The holes where your ports poke out

That panel usually comes off and can be replaced with a new template to match your new mobo's ports.

If the case looks the same size as that one and the slots on the back are in the same layout, chances are its an ATX case. No real need to buy a new case. Only reason would be if (a) its cheaper to buy a new case with PSU than a PSU alone or (b) your case is minging

Edited to say: All in my semi-educated opinion of course

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 9/17/2003 4:23:55 PM]

Nimbus

Cool. I'll take a few pics tonight so you can see it, but it looks the same.

So the Asus A7Nsx should fit OK? These are the bit's I'm concidering...

A7N8X Deluxe SKT A NForce2 Chipset Motherboard VER: 2.0

AMD ATHLON XP2600+ 333MHz FSB

Crucial PC2700 512mb DDR 184pin DIMM

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Yup, that one will fit fine.

Can't stand ebuyer myself, but you can't deny that they are cheap.
Take a peek at Komplett.co.uk, they're pretty competitive and will give much faster, more reliable delivery and better response when you have a problem with an order. Have had no end of problems with ebuyer when I wanted to return faulty kit.

Nimbus

Thanks Dunk.

Never had any problems with them myself, but I'll check out komplett...

Nimbus

Had a look at my PC case today. It's the same as your pic. It's got two USB ports just below the mouse/keyboard sockets. There are two serial ports next to the parellel and joystick and sound ports below that. It doesn't look like you can remove the cover plate though.

Since I also want to get a DVD writer, I don't need the DVD rom drive. I want to put another HDD there instead. Should it be possible just to remove the DVD rom and stick a HHD there without problems? I just need to get hold of a blanking plate for the front.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

You'll need to check that the port layout is identical if you can't change your panel, otherwise the mobo won't fit Unlikely that they'll be the same.

If you want a 3.5" HDD in a 5.25" drive bay, you may find you'll need a bracket to make it fit. I bought a bracket/panel with a digital temperature display and fan on the front to cool the drive, was only about £15

Are there not any more 3.5" bays free in the case ?

Nimbus

Mmmm, but more research needed then. I'll have another look at the panel tonight.

No more HDD bays free. It only had two. The third HDD is not esensial. I just wanted a but more space for the edditing.

Big Col

IMHO you'll will almost certainly need a new PSU. I've no experience of AMD CPU's but when upgrading from P3 > P4 cpu's + mobo the p4 mobo has an extra psu connection that the p3 psu's don't have.

Nimbus

I've looked at a few cases with PSUs. There are a few at good prices, so maybe worth getting one.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Definately Saves a lot of hassle and they're v.cheap.

Like Col said, make sure the PSU has an AMD style mobo power connector, most will have

Nimbus

Cheers for your help

[Edited by Nimbus - 9/18/2003 1:02:45 PM]

toplad!

Hi Nimbus, you say hat yur getting rid of your Dvd rom for a Dvd writer. You`ll be better off getting rid of the cd writer instead. I`ve got a pionneer Dvd rom and a sony dual format Dvd writer, and the performance on read between the two is a lot. The pionneer is twice as fast as the sony. Try www.cd-rmedia.co.uk for good prices on writers and media

Nimbus

Hi Top,

I dont really use the DVD-ROM drive. I'm creating video DVDs for my player, so don't need a high speed on in my PC. It's a bit iffy at the moment anyway as it's sometimes takes ages to read from the disks.

Cheers

RoosterRoo

I can whole heartidly reccomend the ASUS mobo. Have he A7N8X delux myself. Great bit of equipment with loads of goodies on board. Go for it mate.