Mobo compatibility

[WeedVender]

I want to buy a Cap card/ video. Mainly the ATI AIW 8500(DV) and I requieres an AGP slot. This PC im writing on Doesnt have an AGP slot. IS there anyway I can go to the store and buy something external or do I have to upgrade or buy another Mobo (motherboard)?

[mrtristan]

I've never heard of such a device. If you have USB ports, you can pick up something like Dazzle. If you're set on the AIW, then you probably have to upgrade your motherboard.

External connectors for internal hard drives are common, but I haven't seen anything to externally connect PCI/AGP devices.

[sterno]

If you want to use an AGP card and don't have an AGP slot, you're just screwed. You'll have to either pick a different device or buy a new motherboard. Most current machines without AGP slots are mass-market consumer models sold by big manufacturers like HP or Compaq, and a lot of those can't use standard 3rd-party motherboards either.

If you go with an external USB device make sure it does hardware compression with MPEG or something, USB doesn't have the bandwidth for uncompressed video. USB 2.0 could probably handle it, but I don't know if there are any USB 2.0 video capture devices available yet.

For special applications there are external PCI interfaces, but not AGP. You couldn't use those for a capture device anyway because they work by using a PCI-PCI bridge controller, all the PCI cards in the external box actually share the bandwidth of one PCI slot in the computer. It's sort of like the way ISA slots in a modern PC are all connected through the PCI bus via a bridge controller. These external PCI boxes are used for things like data collection or control systems, a company will sell interface cards that let you plug in a given number of devices and then sell the external PCI chassis (or certify compatibility with somebody else's) to put lots of cards in one machine. They're also very expensive.

[WeedVender]

You are right, I do have a dam Compaq. But Im planning to ugrade to another system thats going to be way faster (quad processors running at 3.06 ghz each.

[mrtristan]

Make sure the software you plan on using can support 4 CPUs. If not, you'll have a shitload of processing power for nothing.

[WeedVender]

Yeah, Im the type of person who likes to over do things. I cant find a Mobo that supports Quad P4s and I already bought 2 of the 4 CPUs. But I don't have the CASE, I had a $5000 spending limit, with the CPUs which cost 500$ each and plus the Mobo ($250) wich leaves me with a considerable ammount of money for other things like Ram and hard drives. So what case can I buy that would give me a huge amount of HD space and at least 4 front drive bays?

[mrtristan]

Why don't you go with a dual P4 setup? That's still plenty powerful, for consumer video projects.

I haven't really done any research on P4 boards, because I tend to lean towards AMD.

[WeedVender]

The guy at the store said that Pentiums are better than AMD, is this true?
And y do u stick with AMD?

[mrtristan]

The fastest P4's that are out there recently got beat by the newest AMD chips. Until now, the P4's were faster, without a doubt.

The P4's used to be faster than the Athlon XP's because they have a higher front side bus speed. All information going to and from the CPU has to travel through the FSB.

I wouldn't say that any brand is inherently better. They're both stable and fast, so the question is price. AMD is usually cheaper than Intel, at similar processing speeds.

I don't have anything against an Intel machine. I've only had experience building and AMD setup, so I want to stick with something I'm familiar with. If I could find a really good deal on components for a P4 box, I would probably build one.

[snowmoon]

FWIW:

Personally, and this is just personal experience, I would take intel any day over and AMD. Don't get me wrong I love the AMD CPU's it's the rest of the system that drives me up a wall.

non-intel based chipsets always have sneaking problems with compatibility. Yes, I know most can be worked around by upgrading to the latest bios, chipset, 4-in-1, and other drivers, but that is time and energy that I just don't have to trouble shoot each and every peice of hardware and software to determine which one is conflicting with which driver and how to resolve the problem.

Case in point ATI video cards ( esp capture ) have always had trouble with VIA chipsets to some extent. I had a Athlon 700 + via kt133 MB and it could not capture for more than a minute or so without locking up. It wasn't until months after I switched out the motherboard that ATI kind of announced compatibility problems with VIA MB's.

I'm not saying that you will have a problem, just that I've been burnt personally and have heard many stories of problems. I liked the speed increase ( ~10% over a PIII700 ) and most others who have done AMD also agree the speed is nice. Speed without stability, is a problem.