OT: motherboards

ronaldf wrote on 10/9/2006, 11:48 AM
My current set up that I have been using for everything(including Vegas 5) is several years old. It is working fine for me so far. I just ordered my upgrade to Vegas 7. My mother in law needs a computer, so I thought about giving her mine and building up a new one. My main use of the computer is word processing, desktop publishing, video work(hobby) and photo storage.

Any suggestions on new motherboards and processor speeds? I don't need top end, just mid range that will hold me for several more years. I'm looking for the sweet spot for cost and performance.

my current setup:
ASUS A7N8X rev. 1 deluxe AMD 1.3 Athlon XP
512 meg ram DDR
C: = 40GB 18GB free
F: = 120GB 31 GB free - data storage
G: = 120GB 115GB free - Video work disk.
Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-104
OEM CD drive

I have been away from the hardware end for so long that I need some suggestions and advice. Thanks

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/9/2006, 11:57 AM
I JUST checked, you can get an Asus MB, AMD 64 3000 & 256mb ddr for under $150. Then you'd just replace components.

But you want a new computer.. Looking in to a core 2 duo is a good bet. Get a mid-range CPU . They're a GREAT price for the $$. if you want AMD then an AMD X2, any of them, are good. Obiviously higher # = faster.
riredale wrote on 10/9/2006, 8:00 PM
The current king of the rendering hill is the Intel Conroe dual-core family. If you want to stay with AMD, however, I wrote up a little summary of my recent very positive experience with the cheap 3800x2 processor chip. You can see it here.

I'm using the excellent Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard, which allows me to use all my old stuff--lots of PCI slots and an AGP slot.
ronaldf wrote on 10/9/2006, 10:56 PM
Thanks for the info. Since my current system does everything that I need, I was just interested in upgrading to some newer equipment and giving my current system to my mother-in-law. I don't want to dump a lot of money into a new system. There is always a price/performance point that provides a good value. Today's king is tomorrow's peasant! I’m just looking for the “lord of the manor” and a good quality motherboard!
Should I be looking at a lower end AMD 64 x2?
psg wrote on 10/10/2006, 5:20 AM
I know you asked about motherboards, but in looking at your current configuration I would also add another suggestion.

Upgrade your DVD-R/RW. You're currently using a DVR-04 which I don't believe is capable of the fastest writing speeds. I just picked up a new NEC DVD-R/RW OEM drive for $30. Cheap upgrade if you're burning a lot of DVDs.
Wes C. Attle wrote on 10/10/2006, 5:39 AM
I love AMD, but Intel's latest are the greatest. The recent surge by AMD forced a nice price war. You can buy a nice low-end full system for under $750 these days that would smoke your old system. Now is a great time to buy.

Below is what I suggested to someone else recently. You can swap the AMD chip and motherboard with Intel for the same price range and slightly better performance. I suggest skipping the onboard video, and going with a video card for a bit more. You might use it for MPEG/directX or other GPU offloading in the future.

from newegg.com:
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $151.99
-GIGABYTE GA-M55plus-S3G Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX $82.99
-HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 HDT722516DLA380 (0A31637) 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $53.99 (you want two for vegas, one for OS, one for swap file & media) so $108.00
- G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) System Memory $119.99 X2 = $240.00
- PC Case Rosewill R804BK Black Steel ATX - $26
- Power Supply - RAIDMAX RX-420k120 ATX12V 420Watt $26.50
- (Optional) Video Card JATON Video-PX7600GS-256 Geforce 7600GS 256MB $105.99

You get an awesome new dual-core PC for video editing from under $650. Just make sure you match the CPU with the right socket motherboard. AMD has both AM2 and socket 939 CPU's named the same for a few more months.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/10/2006, 6:11 AM
if you give us a price we can help more. IE amd X2's are ~double plain 64's. so give us a price.
ronaldf wrote on 10/10/2006, 8:32 AM
The DVR-04 has performed great for me. I'm just a hobbiest as far as editing goes. I'm not cranking out very many dvds. I'm not going to up grade this system at all. The drives will be reformated and a fresh OS installed. My mother-in-law has been getting along with an old K5-500 machine, so this will be more than she will ever need.
A few years ago you had to upgrade every few months to utilize new software. That hasn't been the case for me since I built this computer. I finally had to put in a new video card in my current system just to run a RC helicopter simulator. Before that it has been a couple of years without upgrading. I built this computer right after WinXP came out.
ronaldf wrote on 10/10/2006, 8:44 AM
Thank you for the input. That is right in the area that i'm considering. A AMD 64 X2 4400 is just $30 more. Again I'm just shooting for the best performance/cost setup. I'm satisfied with my current system so anything that I get now will be just that much better. I could just go out and pick up a bare bones system for my mother-in-law for $300 to $400 but then her system would better than mine and that isn't fair!
ronaldf wrote on 10/10/2006, 10:41 AM
Advantages of AM2, 939? What is the better option?
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/10/2006, 10:43 AM
am2 is more "future proof". 939 was future proof until the am2. I'd get am2 if you're looking at something new.
TheRhino wrote on 10/11/2006, 9:49 AM
I wouldn't worry about "future proof" if the last time you upgraded was 3 years ago... Just buy the best bang for the buck now and be happy with it for the next 2-3 years...

Last year I went with ASRock's inexpensive 939Dual SATA2 motheboards because they excepted my existing DDR memory, AGP cards and I could add a PCIE video card later. With the [now] low prices of AMD's 939 dual core chips, you can't go wrong... If you go with an Intel coredual processor, you are going to pay a lot more for the motheboard and matching memory. Sticking with AMD will provide less expensive motherboard & memory options provided you shop around....

There is not a huge difference between the 3800+ and the 4400+ when it comes to rendering, the big improvement is having dual cores - this alone nearly doubles mpeg2 rendering speed. After you bump up to dual cores, the difference between the slowest processor and the fastest is not as big as from going from 1 core to 2 cores...

As long as you do not feel you have over-spent, you will be very pleased with dual core performance compared to your current system. The next upgrade whould be a larger HD and more memory.

Enjoy!

Workstation C with $600 USD of upgrades in April, 2021
--$360 11700K @ 5.0ghz
--$200 ASRock W480 Creator (onboard 10G net, TB3, etc.)
Borrowed from my 9900K until prices drop:
--32GB of G.Skill DDR4 3200 ($100 on Black Friday...)
Reused from same Tower Case that housed the Xeon:
--Used VEGA 56 GPU ($200 on eBay before mining craze...)
--Noctua Cooler, 750W PSU, OS SSD, LSI RAID Controller, SATAs, etc.

Performs VERY close to my overclocked 9900K (below), but at stock settings with no tweaking...

Workstation D with $1,350 USD of upgrades in April, 2019
--$500 9900K @ 5.0ghz
--$140 Corsair H150i liquid cooling with 360mm radiator (3 fans)
--$200 open box Asus Z390 WS (PLX chip manages 4/5 PCIe slots)
--$160 32GB of G.Skill DDR4 3000 (added another 32GB later...)
--$350 refurbished, but like-new Radeon Vega 64 LQ (liquid cooled)

Renders Vegas11 "Red Car Test" (AMD VCE) in 13s when clocked at 4.9 ghz
(note: BOTH onboard Intel & Vega64 show utilization during QSV & VCE renders...)

Source Video1 = 4TB RAID0--(2) 2TB M.2 on motherboard in RAID0
Source Video2 = 4TB RAID0--(2) 2TB M.2 (1) via U.2 adapter & (1) on separate PCIe card
Target Video1 = 32TB RAID0--(4) 8TB SATA hot-swap drives on PCIe RAID card with backups elsewhere

10G Network using used $30 Mellanox2 Adapters & Qnap QSW-M408-2C 10G Switch
Copy of Work Files, Source & Output Video, OS Images on QNAP 653b NAS with (6) 14TB WD RED
Blackmagic Decklink PCie card for capturing from tape, etc.
(2) internal BR Burners connected via USB 3.0 to SATA adapters
Old Cooler Master CM Stacker ATX case with (13) 5.25" front drive-bays holds & cools everything.

Workstations A & B are the 2 remaining 6-core 4.0ghz Xeon 5660 or I7 980x on Asus P6T6 motherboards.

$999 Walmart Evoo 17 Laptop with I7-9750H 6-core CPU, RTX 2060, (2) M.2 bays & (1) SSD bay...

Cliff Etzel wrote on 10/11/2006, 10:37 AM
I just read on Extremetech this morning the initial specs behind they Quad Core processors being released in 2007 - having an AM2 socket future proofs your investment over 939 socket. The great thing is I'm already set for AMD's Quad Core when it becomes available and once the developers actually start coding for 64bit native, things will be soooo fast - HD will edit like DV on todays current technology.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/11/2006, 5:47 PM
I really wish I got a PCIE AMD64 mb two years ago. I got an AGP & now almost all vid cards are PCIE. :(
ronaldf wrote on 10/12/2006, 10:39 AM
Thank you for all the input. I feel that I have come up to speed a little over the last few days. I'm starting to lean towards an AMD 64 X2 AM2. Now I need to look at some motherboards.
Wes C. Attle wrote on 10/13/2006, 5:06 AM
ronaldf, I am totally an AMD guy myself (see my specs). But you should take a good long look at the Core2 Duo Intel chips and motherboards. There are some great buys to be had there too. Search for some benchmarks.

Complete research can make your purchase that much more enjoyable!
ronaldf wrote on 10/14/2006, 8:33 PM
I took the cheap way out. I ordered a socket A board and a new power supply for an old e-machine computer that was dead and lying in my computer grave yard in the barn. It has a Athlon XP 2400 in it with 512 ddr. That will take care of my mother-in-law's computing needs for a very long time. Now I can take my time and do some more research. If I wait another month, the new quad core will be out and the Core 2 duo should take a price drop. I should really get some bang for the buck then.
Wes C. Attle wrote on 10/14/2006, 10:25 PM
Nice work. :-)

I spent about 70 hours over a few months researching online before building mine and my wife's last new PC's. It's kind of fun and much better than ordering that Dell crap online that can't be expaned or upgraded later.
ronaldf wrote on 10/15/2006, 11:00 AM
I agree. The last desktop pc that I bought was a 286! I have always built up my own. My current one has worked so well that I have not kept up with current technology. My mother-in-law's computer is having a lot of freeze ups and that is the only reason that I started to look for something new. Anything that I would buy for her would be more than she needs and it would be better than I am currently running! If I can resurrect this old e-machine then that will buy me some more time before upgrading mine.
Coursedesign wrote on 10/15/2006, 11:21 AM
If your mother-in-law's computer is having a lot of freeze ups [and assuming you actually want to fix these freeze ups :O)], then pull out the RAM sticks and put them in again, then repeat this twice. Surprisingly often this is enough to get rid of the freezes, caused by connector corrosion. Shouldn't happen with nice gold connectors, but it does.

#2 for freezes would be to replace one RAM stick at a time (means buying at least one new stick, as old PCs usually barely have enough memory to boot WIndows).
riredale wrote on 10/15/2006, 11:26 AM
I also get a lot of satisfaction out of building my own stuff. First PC was a Compaq with an AMD K6-2 350MHz chip (and a whopping 105w power supply!). Bumped it up to the 550MHz chip. At that point I began to build my own... 750 Duron, 900 Duron, 1200 T'Bird, XP2000, and now the 3800x2, bumped up to 5000x2 speed (2.6GHz). I've replaced power supplies, motherboards, cases, numerous DVD burners, and hard drives. I've enjoyed the challenge each upgrade brought, both on the hardware and software sides. My wife sometimes thinks this is not healthy; maybe so.
ronaldf wrote on 10/15/2006, 8:18 PM
Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try. The new motherboard is on it's way.
ronaldf wrote on 10/15/2006, 8:21 PM
Actually it is common knowledge that computers will act up if you don't spend money on them occasionally!