Upgrade Questions

[aben]

Over the past 3-4 months, I've been using G-Knot to do Dvix encoding on an old AMD 800 MHZ Duron machine that runs Win2K with 512 MB PC 133 SDRAM . I am thinking about upgrading my machine so that I can cut down on the 8-9 hours it has been taking me to complete an average 2 hour movie project. (The thought to upgrade was also motivated by the fact that I've recently burned out my 300 watt power supply. I replaced it with a new 350 watt Antec ATX12V.) However, as is the case for many people, money is an issue for me in trying to upgrade:(

Consequently, I've considered buying a new (older) motherboard (Asus A7V133), a new CPU (Athlon XP2100), and recylcing the RAM modules, drives, and cards from my old machine. My question for the forum is whether or not there would be a big difference in the time saved on my encoding projects if I simply saved up more money to buy a newer motherboard, say an Asus A7V8X KT400 AND 512 MB of DDR? Will the newer chipset and DDR RAM save me that much time in encoding?

Thanks in advance.

[Jackie A$$]

The major limiting factor in the equation is your processor. I'm running an Intel 1.8 gHz processor with only 256mb of RAM and I NEVER use more than 150MB at any given time, however, I ALWAYS max out my cpu usage. If you can manage to simply replace your motherboard and chip then you'll definitely see an improvement in processing time. Good luck.

[Xayd]

Depending on your mobo's chipset and it's power circuitry there may be a bios update for it to support the XP CPUs. If you've got a KT133A or later chipset (assuming it's a Via mobo) it's worth checking into.

[aben]

Thanks for both of the replies.
I broke down and ended up simply buying a Pentium 4 2.4 GHZ cpu/mobo combo; the mobo is a ECS P4VXASD2+. Fry's Electronics is selling them for $159. I'm in the middle of an encoding a 2 hour film and it looks like it will finish in about 4-5 hours. The new board will take both DDR and SDRAM, so the only other thing I had to buy was a new fan.

I will definitely check out Xayd's rec' re a bios update to support an XP. I would still like to keep the other motherboard and if I can get an XP in the near future and use it on that board, that would be great.

[wmansir]

I was going to recommend a board that can take SDRAM and DDR, but I was waiting for my new 512MB of DDR RAM to arrive so I could give you some real world numbers.

Well, it arrived today and switching from 512MB SDRAM to 512MB DDR on my k7s5a gave me a ~15% boost in CCE encoding. My 1.25Ghz Athlon consistently gave me 1.2 Realtime with a basic crop, simpleresize, addboarders avs script for SVCD. Now I'm getting 1.4 RT.

My old board, before the k7s5a was an Abit KT7 which was handed down to my little brother. It's been very flaky and I'm going to give it one more troublshooting session before declaring it dead. I'm looking at the Biostar M7VIG pro as a replacement. It takes Both SD and DDR, has onboard 6channel audio, video (and an AGP slot), and Lan, plus USB 2.0. But since you've made your purchase I won't go on.

The Fry's combo was a good deal, the P4 is worth that price alone. I would have loved to have gotten in on Fry's k7s5a pro + XP 1800 for $79 last week, I would have replaced my brother board and handed down my current chip to him. But I started looking too late.

If your looking for DDR memory I got my 512MB pc2100 direct from Crucial for $53, checkout the www.fatwallet.com hotdeals forum for info. Prices are still falling so if you wait you might get an even better deal, but then again maybe not.

[aben]

Wmansir, thanks for the info. I agree that the P4 by itself was worth the $159 that I paid. However, I am sorry to report that the board is a piece of garbage. Long story short - it won't recognize the P4 as being a 2.4 GHZ CPU. I've found complaints about this board on a number of different online hardware forums and the consensus seems to be that the board often has problems id'ing the 2.4 cpu and supporting the 533 FSB; it id's it as a 1.8 CPU during the boot sequence and if you try to set the jumpers to 133 speed, you won't even be able to boot. I ended up buying an ASUS board, the P4B533, and buying a stick of Corsair 2100 MB RAM. My old computer was built on an ASUS A7 board and it was rock solid. The new ASUS has been running great and I've cut down the 5 hour encoding time for a 2 hour movie that I reported with the 2.4 GHZ CPU running at 1.8 GHZ to 3.5 hours with the new board and RAM.

The Long Story - I tried returning the board by itself to Fry's and the clerk was actually quite understanding, but would not accept the board by itself. They would have to take back the cpu and the board in order for me to receive a refund or credit. I didn't have any problems with this policy since the item was sold as a combo. However, the clerk also noted that a number of folks have complained about the board and it supposedly has a design defect. I was able to get a replacement ECS board which they tested at the story with a 2.6 Celeron cpu which was recognized during the boot sequence. This demo did not convince me that the board would be able to support the 2.4 cpu since the FSB's are different. And, after getting the board back home, I tested it out with the new cpu and found that I still couldn't get it to even boot. Bottom line - if you get this board in a similar combo deal, don't expect it to work with the cpu and just buy a separate board which you are certain can support the higher FSB speed.

[Kb_cruncher]

I would recommend an epox 8dra+ nforce2 mobo(quite cheap)and an amd 2100+ t-bred cpu.This combination would give you the best price/performance and the 2100+ overclock to at least 2.2gig with halfway decent cooling.

[Xayd]

That's about the third recent ECS mobo that I've heard of having major issues out of the box.

It ain't worth saving 40 bucks on a mobo to have all these problems ;). If you want a good inexpensive brand take a look at the Soyo boards, they're the only brand other than Asus/Abit/MSI/Epox that I've used for years with no problems.

[woodlikesbeer]

If you want to cut encoding time significantly use DDR memory, as much as you can get of it and as fast as you can afford. Yes a quicker processor will reduce it a bit but processors only really come into play when playing games or DVD's not so much in encoding.
I would also recomend changing from G-not to Vidomi. Get the latest version but install version .44x 1st (I think that's right) as I couldn't get the latest one to work without installing an older version 1st.
Once you start encoding u can click on the control button and set priority to highest, this will slow your computer down to unusable levels so do it overnight.
when encoding at CBR I average around 3hrs for a 2hr film using 900mhz AMD but 768 ddr pc2100

DDR prices have crashed over here in the UK, no idea if they have t'other side of pond but if they have get it while it's cheap :D