J
Jerry Natowitz
I've always been an incremental up-grader, but since my last upgrade there
has been such an explosion of new hardware that I need advise on what to
upgrade. Here is a brief list of what is in my system:
Iwill A500 mid tower case
Shuttle AK32-A systemboard (KT266A)
AMD XP 1700+ Thoroughbred - slightly overclocked at 1608 MHz (12x134)
2X512 MB PC2700 DDR
Western Digital WD1600 - 160 GB 7200 RPM ATA100
Maxtor 6L080J4 - 80 GB 7200 RPM ATA133 (running at ATA100)
Plextor PX-712A - 12X DVD+-RW
Generic 16X DVD-ROM
ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 8 MB video with TV in/out
Creative Sound Blaster Live Value
The major deficiencies as I see them are:
1) Video is *way* out of date.
2) Processor is too slow for video processing.
3) Motherboard lacks USB 2.0 and Firewire
The last item is why I am looking at an upgrade. I have tried to use the ATI
for video recording, and it barely works on Windows 98 (2% dropped frames),
is useless on Windows XP (50% dropped frames), and I haven't been able to
get it to work on Linux.
I've decided to get a Canopus ADVC-50, which uses Firewire 400. For just
a few dollars more than the $40 that a Firewire card costs, I could buy
one of the following (pricing from Newegg.com):
EPoX EP-8RDA+PRO $68
ABIT NF7-S V2 $78
EPoX EP-8RDA6+PRO $86
ABIT AN7 $87
They would give me Firewire 400 (1394a), USB 2.0, and the ability to run my
memory at 333, rather than 266.
This brings me to my next decision: Do I also buy a new processor?
If I was to do so, I'd pick one of these:
Athlon XP 2600+ Barton 1.9 GHz $79
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 2.083 GHz $100
Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 2.167 GHz $111
But then, this leads me to another decision: Do I stay with 32 bit, or do I
go to 64 bit?
I can get an Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz for $146 and there are a large number
of motherboards in the $100 range.
So, where to go?
1) New motherboard $80
2) New motherboard and Athlon XP $180
3) New motherboard and Athlon 64 $240
What I didn't do is look at new video cards versus using an on-motherboard
video solution. Even the latter would be faster than what I currently have.
has been such an explosion of new hardware that I need advise on what to
upgrade. Here is a brief list of what is in my system:
Iwill A500 mid tower case
Shuttle AK32-A systemboard (KT266A)
AMD XP 1700+ Thoroughbred - slightly overclocked at 1608 MHz (12x134)
2X512 MB PC2700 DDR
Western Digital WD1600 - 160 GB 7200 RPM ATA100
Maxtor 6L080J4 - 80 GB 7200 RPM ATA133 (running at ATA100)
Plextor PX-712A - 12X DVD+-RW
Generic 16X DVD-ROM
ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 8 MB video with TV in/out
Creative Sound Blaster Live Value
The major deficiencies as I see them are:
1) Video is *way* out of date.
2) Processor is too slow for video processing.
3) Motherboard lacks USB 2.0 and Firewire
The last item is why I am looking at an upgrade. I have tried to use the ATI
for video recording, and it barely works on Windows 98 (2% dropped frames),
is useless on Windows XP (50% dropped frames), and I haven't been able to
get it to work on Linux.
I've decided to get a Canopus ADVC-50, which uses Firewire 400. For just
a few dollars more than the $40 that a Firewire card costs, I could buy
one of the following (pricing from Newegg.com):
EPoX EP-8RDA+PRO $68
ABIT NF7-S V2 $78
EPoX EP-8RDA6+PRO $86
ABIT AN7 $87
They would give me Firewire 400 (1394a), USB 2.0, and the ability to run my
memory at 333, rather than 266.
This brings me to my next decision: Do I also buy a new processor?
If I was to do so, I'd pick one of these:
Athlon XP 2600+ Barton 1.9 GHz $79
Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 2.083 GHz $100
Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 2.167 GHz $111
But then, this leads me to another decision: Do I stay with 32 bit, or do I
go to 64 bit?
I can get an Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz for $146 and there are a large number
of motherboards in the $100 range.
So, where to go?
1) New motherboard $80
2) New motherboard and Athlon XP $180
3) New motherboard and Athlon 64 $240
What I didn't do is look at new video cards versus using an on-motherboard
video solution. Even the latter would be faster than what I currently have.