Hi, I need suggestion on regarding upgrade my computer, Right now I mainly use it to surf internet, email, etc.. But I want to do Editing digital video and DVD. It take to long to encoding to dvd format. any help will be appreciated and thank you. Here what I have right now. win xp sp2 azza 693btx mb pIII 1ghz 512mb sdram color case (don't know what model) tt cpu cooler two 40 gig maxtor hdd 72000 ati expert pro2000 soud blater live value 19" kds tosiba 16x dvd row TDK 10/16/40 cd/rw
Alright. You'll be a little better off sticking with the Pentium 4. For this upgrade, you'll need to upgrade the motherboard, memory, power supply and heatsink, besides the CPU. While the specs of the video card should work fine, you might have better support with a bit newer video card. Here's what I'd go for, all prices off Newegg, which I've bought lotsa stuff from personally. Motherboard: Abit IS7 -----$85.00 CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Retail (includes heatsink/fan) ---$199.00 RAM: Corsair Value Select 1GB kit (2x512MB) PC3200 ---$163.00 Power supply: Thermaltake 480W Silent Purepower Xaser edition ---$55.00 Total ---$502.00 + shipping (although Newegg has very cheap or no charges for the more expensive items). I run the IS7-E myself, and it's great, solid, stable board, the IS7 has on-board IEEE1394 (Firewire). With video encoding, the Pentium 4 is a better choice, and the 'C' chips have something called HyperThreading, which is an extra hand to help processing, so if you decide that the 3GHz mark is too rich, you'll find it advantageous to stick with a 'C' chip, which go down to 2.4GHz. You don't have to, but getting a retail box CPU does offer two advantages: a CPU cooler and a longer warranty, in this case 3 years. The RAM: 1GB is becoming cheaper and cheaper, so it makes more sense to go with it. The Pentium 4 loves memory bandwith, so the better P4 motherboards have a dual-channel memory feature. This requires two sticks of memory, one for each channel, and buying a dual-pack makes sure you get both sticks. You will have to get new memory as you currently do not have this type of memory in your Pentium 3 system. You can cut corners by only going with 512MB, but this is the lowest I'd go. Power supply. I don't know what you have, but there will be a little bit more juice required, and I don't know if your current one has a special 4-pin Auxillary connector (it's a 2-pin x 2-pin square, FYI). That Thermaltake unit is flashy, but it's rather inexpensive and puts out a lot of juice. As I said earlier, you might want to consider upgrading your video card, if for nothing more than better support. I suggest a Sapphire Radeon 9250, which runs for $62 at Newegg. With video editing, you're going to want to have some extra space, so you should seriously consider getting a large hard drive to accomodate this need. I haven't used Samsung hard drives, but I have used alot of their other products, and they've been very reliable. You can get a 160GB SATA hard drive for $94.50 (Newegg). SATA is supported by the IS7 I listed, and has two ports in addition to the standard 2 IDE ports. I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but with all the DVD editing, you'll want a DVD burner. I haven't had the need myself, but I'd go with Samsung, seeing has how they've been quite reliable. Look at the TS-H552B 16x +/- DVD-RW drive. It can burn/read CD's and DVD's, so you can get rid of both current optical drives. That one runs $79.00.
I have a antec power supply which I don't know how my watt. here is the s/n #21004252, I don't know it will work with the new mobo. I have one more question? If I want to use the new SATTA drive as my boot drive (C) and made other 2 40 gig hdd as storage, do you have it a wise ideas. thank you.
The serial number isn't something I can really work with, but it should say on the label: Antec Power Supply, No. ________. As for the SATA, you'll want to reinstall Windows anyway, and you should find the SATA hard drive to have a few improvements that will have it a bit quicker, so, yes, that wouldn't be a bad way to go.
My power supply model is pp303x it 300watt ATX2.03, will this work on my new system that you recomemded. If not, I will buy the one on you list. thank you.
You might be able to get away with it, seeing as the highest power component would be the CPU, which uses the Northwood core. I'd be much more concerned if you were trying to run an 'E' chip, which sports the power-hungry Prescott core.
