Best CPU for P3-based (non-Tualatin) board?

[Parrotheader]

Since I own several systems, I've found the best strategy over the years is to have them all be on the same platform so when I upgrade the CPU on one, I can then shift everything down a notch and upgrade them all at once. My main system for games and work is a Celeron 1.3Gig, with my primary secondary system being a Celeron 600@850 with 256MB of RAM which I use for TV viewing, CD Burning and now, video capturing and conversion.

Without changing platforms completely (I know there's MUCH more bang for the buck in other systems now) I'd like to know what you guys think would be the best upgrade option from my current Celeron@850? Since it's not a Tualatin-capable mobo, it unfortunately can't be a 1.3Gig Celeron. I'm assuming a 1.0Gig P3 would be the fastest for doing things like converting DIVX to (S)VCD or uncompressed AVI to (S)VCD. But they're hard to find and rather pricey for only 1Gig. This board WOULD take a non-Tualatin Celeron 1.1Gig (roughly 35-40% the price of a 1Gig P3.) But would it be in the same ballpark speed-wise for video conversion? I tried to find some benchmarks, but couldn't tell how dependent programs like TMPEnc, DVDx, and DVD2SVCD are on cache size.

Also, slightly-related. Would upgrading the memory affect conversion speeds much? I'm probably going to upgrade that anyway, but didn't know if it would have much affect on this type stuff. Thanks.

[sterno]

Forget Celerons for video encoding. More memory is always good, but 256MB is probably enough that more wouldn't make much difference. If you want any real improvement your best bet is probably to look at swapping out the motherboard and CPU both. Unfortunately, at this point that probably also means you'll have to trade out your RAM, and then you're most of the way to a new machine. If I were you, I'd do a little research and decide if I wanted to just keep what I had for a while longer or start with a new P4 or Athlon. With the system you have, trying to upgrade components means you'll end up paying about as much as you would for a new machine anyway. A mid-level Athlon XP and motherboard together don't cost much more than a P3/1GHz processor, and as long as you got a board with enough slots you could keep your current cards and peripherals.

I know that's not what you wanted to hear. Things change things so fast now that by the time I decide I want a faster machine swapping CPUs just isn't practical (especially with Intel changing sockets and bus speeds every few months).

[Parrotheader]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I hate to switch platforms at this stage. With the exception of this video work (which I'm just now getting into obviously) that little system is fine for everything I ask it to do. And my primary system (Celeron/Tualatin 1.3) does just fine for video games. I may end up upgrading some time early next year. Given the choice between the two platforms right now, I may end up going P4 simply because it looks like it has more top end room for growth right now as AMD seems to be having a hard time scaling right now (although they're both light years faster than my current setups.)

As it stands right now, I MIGHT have lucked into an interim solution. Most of our workstations at work right now are all P3-933 based. And since we have quite a few spare systems laying around, my friend in IT said I might be able to borrow a chip until the lease runs out on these systems in the spring. So maybe that'll hold me for a little bit.