Need advice for upgrading my computer.

nick101181 · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 07:45

I want to upgrade my processor to give me better encoding speed. Right now it takes say 10 hours to encode a hour show captured with the huffy codec and 6 hours to encode a dvd-rip to dvd.I was wondering if all I had to do was buy a motherboard combo that had an athlon xp2400+ processor and just install it in my current pc? what I have now is an older HP bundle I got from wal-mart 3 years ago. It came with 128 mb ram,20 gig harddrive,intel 833mghz processor, and windows ME. So far I've got a dvd-rom drive(then later a dvd-burner) got more ram to make it 256 mb and added a second harddrive. So any advice? Is this a good deal and can someone lead me in the right direction? I saw this on pricewatch.com

with cpu - ATHLON XP 2400 , 266MHz FSB, With Heatsink & Fan, Lan, 5xPCI, 1xAGP(4x), 2xUSB, ATX, 266FSB, Combo Kit

for 90 bucks Is this what I need?

thanks

jeex · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 08:37

if the motherboard will fit correctly in your current case, then i dont see why you couldnt do it.

a few things you may want to consider;

will the RAM you currently have work with your new m/b?

i'm assuming you have an onboard video card with your HP.. so that means you would have to buy a video card.. same thing with sound card & NIC.

you'll probably need to re-install your O/S too, but the HP recovery CD's wont work on your with your new m/b.

its hardly ever as easy as just putting in a new m/b & CPU.

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redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

You will probably need a micro atx card if your case is not full size. Also you want DDR memory, 256M minimum, 512M better. I am assuming the board you are looking at has on board audio and video. Your encoding times aren't that bad, so without buying a whole new computer, don't expect miracles. As far as upgrades, spend a lot of time on research and it will really pay off in the long run. One popular board that I have recently put in a HP case is an ECS K7S5A, $40; AMD 2400+ and heatsink, $82; 512M DDR 2100, $112. These are US prices.

nick101181 · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 09:04

Well the case it came with is long gone, I bought a normal size case that had 3 slots for dvd-rom's cd-rw's etc. I mean the drive bays. so anyway are the prices from pricewatch.com pretty good? I heard someone with an athlon xp2400+ could encode a divx file with ac3 to dvd in 2 hours or less and that's what I'm looking for. Thanks for your help guys

rallynavvie · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 12:32

Is that 2 hours to encode a 2 hour feature on a 2400? That seems a bit fast, but it would also depend on what it was encoding from and which settings were used on the codec I guess.

I think you'll need to get new memory for the new board. That other stuff is probably PC100 which may or may not work with the new bundle but isn't really optimized for it. That new system is probably using PC2700 sticks. You should be able to find a good price on 2 sticks of 256 for that. 512MB is a pretty good amount of RAM for most folks. Also upgrade your OS. Even 2000 is a giant leap above ME, though most are running XP Pro now. Shop around since you can get the OEM WinXP Pro installer with the purchase of hardware components like that mobo for pretty cheap.

I do think you're going to see faster encoding times, at least twice as fast as what you've got now. More like 3-4 hours for a DVD rip I would guess.

SLICK RICK · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 12:37

As a couple of other members stated, you are going to need more than a new mother board and processor. Check out newegg.com, they have really good prices on just about everything and fast shipping also.

SLICK RICK

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nick101181 · Posted: Nov 06, 2003 17:37

One thing to add when I said 6 hours to encode a dvd-rip to dvd that's If I don't have to do a 3:2 pulldown in tmpgenc, If I do it takes 20 to 21 hours. That's so insane. Like the few that I have that are 23.976 if I have to encode them to dvd using 3:2 pulldown, why does this add that much more time to the encode? that seems like a long time. Does anyone remember the tweaks for windows me to boost video encoding speed/time? thanks