upgrade quandry...

[Tobamore]

I am thinking of upgrading my PC, the specs are as follows;

Win XP Pro
Athlon XP 2400 cpu
512MB PC2100 Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo

What do you think would be the best upgrade bang for buck? This is for an
all round multimedia system, I tend to think that maybe changing my Ram to
PC 3200 or better or a more powerful cpu may be the way to go, but I'm not
sure.

Mtia for anyone taking the time to read and reply to this post,

#
T.

 

[Ben Pope]

I am thinking of upgrading my PC, the specs are as follows;

Win XP Pro
Athlon XP 2400 cpu
512MB PC2100 Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo

What do you think would be the best upgrade bang for buck? This is for an
all round multimedia system, I tend to think that maybe changing my Ram to
PC 3200 or better or a more powerful cpu may be the way to go, but I'm not
sure.

RAM is likely holding you back.

If you get PC3200 you should be able to overclock the FSB of the processor.

If you buy a faster processor you'll be stuck at a FSB of around 133MHz or
running FSB and RAM out of synch, which is not very good.

Ben

 

[Rob Stow]

I am thinking of upgrading my PC, the specs are as follows;

Win XP Pro
Athlon XP 2400 cpu
512MB PC2100 Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro video card
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo

What do you think would be the best upgrade bang for buck? This is for an
all round multimedia system, I tend to think that maybe changing my Ram to
PC 3200 or better or a more powerful cpu may be the way to go, but I'm not
sure.

If by "all round multimedia system" you include video editting,
the 512 MB is not a lot of RAM. It you do a lot of video
editting, max out your RAM.

Go ahead, if you wish, with switchng to PC3200. It will help
a little - especially in things like games. It will also
help with things that benefit from a high memory bandwidth
like video and audio encoding. And PC3200 is an investment
that can be carried over to your next system - such as an
Athlon64.

Personally, I wouldn't bother upgrading a processor like yours.
It is already so close to the Athlon XP ceiling that an
upgrade to something like an XP 3000 or XP 3200 will cost lots
of bucks for little additional bang. As well, upgrading to
an XP3xxx is an instant dead end - no more upgrades will be
possible after that.

If you want a cpu upgrade, get a Socket 754 motherboard and
an Athlon64 2800+ or 3000+. It is a cheap way to get on the
AMD64 bandwagon, has a better upgradability, and an Athlon64
2800+ will still be a nice boost in processing power from your
current XP2400+.

 

[Tobamore]

Thanks gentlemen for your replies. It looks like PC 3200 may be the way to
go. This leads to two further questions, where would you recommend the best
uk place to buy ram (512Mb PC3200) and would I need branded ram, or is this
not important if I don't wish to overclock my system?

Again, many thanks in advance,

#
T.

 

[Doug Ramage]

Tobamore wrote:

If by "all round multimedia system" you include video editting,
the 512 MB is not a lot of RAM. It you do a lot of video
editting, max out your RAM.

Go ahead, if you wish, with switchng to PC3200. It will help
a little - especially in things like games. It will also
help with things that benefit from a high memory bandwidth
like video and audio encoding. And PC3200 is an investment
that can be carried over to your next system - such as an
Athlon64.

<snip>

Re video editing - is more of slower RAM better than less of Faster RAM? Eg
4Gb of PC2100 versus 2Gb of PC3200?

With 4 memory banks, it looks like 2Gb (4 x 512Mb) looks the most cost
effective option.

 

[Rob Stow]

<snip>

Re video editing - is more of slower RAM better than less of Faster RAM? Eg
4Gb of PC2100 versus 2Gb of PC3200?

Quantity is more important than speed for editting, but ideally
you want both. Good quality raw, uncompressed video is about
1.5 to 1.8 GB per *minute*, so the more RAM the better - even
PC2100 is much, much, faster than a hard drive.

When you are done your editting and it is time to encode ...
Speed is more important than quantity for encoding, but, again,
ideally you want both.

I don't do any video editting but I have built a few Athlon and
Opty dualies for people who do - most are amateurs editting their
home videos, but two are professionals.

The Athlon dualie owners mostly have 4 GB of PC2100 ECC.
I'm sure all of them would riot if I tried to switch them
to 2 GB of PC3200.

The Opty dualie owners both have 8 GB of PC3200 and they
are dreaming of the day when 2 GB PC3200 DIMMs become a
little more affordable - and that day doesn't look too
far off with Crucial 2 GB PC3200 ECC apparently down to
$1000 now. Just four months ago they were $1800 each -
and at the time I got 1 GB PC3200 ECC for $375 each.


Linux video editting tools are getter a little better, so
a switch to Linux is being contemplated by one of the people
I've built an Opty dualie for. He sent me this link a
couple of weeks ago:
http://www.lmahd.com/cinelerra.html

 

[Doug Ramage]

Quantity is more important than speed for editting, but ideally
you want both. Good quality raw, uncompressed video is about
1.5 to 1.8 GB per *minute*, so the more RAM the better - even
PC2100 is much, much, faster than a hard drive.

When you are done your editting and it is time to encode ...
Speed is more important than quantity for encoding, but, again,
ideally you want both.

I don't do any video editting but I have built a few Athlon and
Opty dualies for people who do - most are amateurs editting their
home videos, but two are professionals.

The Athlon dualie owners mostly have 4 GB of PC2100 ECC.
I'm sure all of them would riot if I tried to switch them
to 2 GB of PC3200.

The Opty dualie owners both have 8 GB of PC3200 and they
are dreaming of the day when 2 GB PC3200 DIMMs become a
little more affordable - and that day doesn't look too
far off with Crucial 2 GB PC3200 ECC apparently down to
$1000 now. Just four months ago they were $1800 each -
and at the time I got 1 GB PC3200 ECC for $375 each.


Linux video editting tools are getter a little better, so
a switch to Linux is being contemplated by one of the people
I've built an Opty dualie for. He sent me this link a
couple of weeks ago:
http://www.lmahd.com/cinelerra.html

Thanks, Rob. I have opted for dual Xeons, but I have not got round to
building the system yet.