upgrading advice req..

xirokx · 26 Oct 2008 at 09:44

IHi Guys,

Im upgrading from a amd san diego 3700 1g ram to the machine below:-

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor E2180 (2.00GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 - English
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x512]
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache

I will use it for video encoding (converting to VOB files) and surfing etc...

will the CPU and GPU be ok? my concern is the GPU will limit me,

What do you think?

Please advise..

Thanks in advance..

alex24 · 26 Oct 2008 at 10:48

Budget?

CPU will work OK, but won't be as fast for video encoding as you might like. If you're doing a lot, it'd be worth upgrading.

GPU would definitely benefit from an upgrade, even if it's a cheap card. Depending on price, something like this might do the job pretty well.

Which mobo have you gone for? If it takes 6400 RAM, that would give you some improvements too, plus the price difference is minimal.

decto · 26 Oct 2008 at 11:09

Are you buying a prebuilt machine?

The e5200 is only a little more expensive but is also faster

I'd also recommend a second HDD if you do a lot of encoding so that you can have a source and a target drive. Basically the drive head doesn't have to reposition itself between each read (source) and write (target output).

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xirokx · 26 Oct 2008 at 13:04

it is a prebuilt machine...

there will a second dvd rw going in and a second hdd..

it will be faster then a amd san diego wont it?

whats the difference between the intel core duo and pentimum dual cores?

decto · 26 Oct 2008 at 13:16

The pentium dual core series have less cache memory but otherwise there is little difference. Depending on the application performance can be the same or a little less.

You'd be as well off picking up a dual core s939 CPU ... if you can find one cheaply... they are rare these days.

The spec you quote doesn't seem a great deal for the intended purpose. Have you considered a self build?

What is the price of the above?

xirokx · 26 Oct 2008 at 14:33

its £175 inc delivery

surely as its dual core it has to be better then a single core san diego?

i dont have time for a self build..

the video encoding will be using software such as pinnacle studio and I will be encoding camcorder tapes to VOB files..

The budget is £200 inc delivery and V.A.T. which I know doesnt leave me open to much, therefore I saw the above deal and thought that was a good bargain, my only doubt was the gpu which isnt too good but can be changed if really necessary..however the gpu isnt really used for video encoding its more the processor and as its better then the san diego 3700 single core I thought it was a bargain..

If not, what else would you recommend for that money?