Looking to upgrade, question about mobo

[jpc82]

I'm finally ready to upgrade my aging Barton 2500+. I have been fairly out of the mobo and system loop for a while, so I am hoping someone could give me some suggestions. Below is the parts I am currently considering. I am not sure what would be the best mobo for the money? I am having trouble finding reviews of the P5B (everything is the deluxe or other models). Also, what memory speed should I be looking for with this system ( I am not planning on overclocking)

I don't plan on using this system for any gaming or anything. I am actually planning on throwing in an old PCI video card for now since my ATI 9500Pro won't fit. All I want it for is video processing (XviD and MPEG encoding) and for use with VMWare.

Finally do you think I will notice a large improvement between my Barton and the E6420 when it comes to encoding times?

Antec® SLK 3000B Steel Super Mid Tower Case, Black (Invis: 5419) $64.99
Intel® Core™2 Duo E6420, 2.13-GHz @ 1066Mhz w/ 4Mb Cache (Socket 775) (Retail Box) w/ Heat Sink & Fan (Invis: 7465) $229.99
Asus® P5B, Socket 775, Intel® P965 Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX) (Invis: 6172) $139.99
512Mb DDR2 Ram Module, PC5400 (Invis: 4445) $69.98
512Mb DDR2 Ram Module, PC5400 (Invis: 4445) $69.98
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATAII-300 7200RPM 16Mb OEM (Invis: 6151) $99.99
Pioneer DVR-112D Dual Layer DVD±R/RW Drive (IDE) OEM, Black (Invis: 7306) $39.99
Enermax® Noisetaker EG425P-VE SFMA 420W ATX 12V Ver 2.0 Power Supply (Retail Box) (Invis: 3563) $79.99

[Hello World]

The P5B that you're currently choosing is probably good value for money. It is popular, meaning that you may be able to get answers when you ask questions on forums.

My suggestion is to go with 2 x 1GB RAM. DDR2 RAM is cheap right now, no reason not to have 2GB. ;)

From the benchmarks that I've seen, the C2Ds are generally faster in encoding than Athlon 64 processors. So I'd think you'll notice improvements in encoding times versus the Barton.

[goofball]

That ram is way too expensive. Just get some 1GB Crucial Rendition Value DDR2 PC5400 for $45/stick approximately.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=18727&promoid=1030

Shipping will cost but depending on where you're located, it may be mostly offset by not paying PST. It's $25 cheaper than what you're paying for half the memory!

I'd also recommend you go to an SATA DVD writer.

[bcbgboy13]

You can also buy ASROCK 4CoreDual-VSTA or 775-Dual-VSTA. (both are ~$75)
In this way you can use your old ATI AGP card and your old DDR memory (if you have 1GB or more) or you can buy a new set of DDR2 as they are dirt cheap now.
You can buy everythinf from www.directcanada.com - they have now some specials and if your order is over $300 - it is a free shipping. Plus if you live outside BC you are going to pay only GST.

Good luck.

These MB are amazing as they support both AGP and PCI-Express and both DDR and DDR2 memory (but only two sticks and not mixed)

[Keas]

You can also buy ASROCK 4CoreDual-VSTA or 775-Dual-VSTA. (both are ~$75)
In this way you can use your old ATI AGP card and your old DDR memory (if you have 1GB or more) or you can buy a new set of DDR2 as they are dirt cheap now.
You can buy everythinf from www.directcanada.com - they have now some specials and if your order is over $300 - it is a free shipping. Plus if you live outside BC you are going to pay only GST.

Good luck.

These MB are amazing as they support both AGP and PCI-Express and both DDR and DDR2 memory (but only two sticks and not mixed)

if you do that your basically crippling the new cpu and system your paying alot for. best to go with the ddr2 memory if your going for a c2d. any of the main brand value rams are good -just make sure they offer lifetime warantees. also if your old ddr ram is ddr400 it is probably can be sold for about what the ddr2 costs since ddr400( ddr 3200) costs alot more to buy than the ddr2 stuff, the rest of your system items arent worth much sad to say - even the next gen stuff is hard to sell.

[rc51]

You mentioined VMWare...which flavor of it? Workstation, GSX, ESX?

Workstation should work the easiest....across different h/w configurations. But if VMWare is a priority, I would suggest checking out the sight to make sure you get compatible hardware.

I've run into hassles before trying to use some lesser known NIC's, chipsets etc. etc.

Still can't get ESX to work on any of my hardware.

[Hybrid88]

What did you end up getting? I've been doing some encoding lately and my poor Athlon 1.4 is just not up to task. There are obvious improvements but how much faster is it?


I'm finally ready to upgrade my aging Barton 2500+. I have been fairly out of the mobo and system loop for a while, so I am hoping someone could give me some suggestions. Below is the parts I am currently considering. I am not sure what would be the best mobo for the money? I am having trouble finding reviews of the P5B (everything is the deluxe or other models). Also, what memory speed should I be looking for with this system ( I am not planning on overclocking)

I don't plan on using this system for any gaming or anything. I am actually planning on throwing in an old PCI video card for now since my ATI 9500Pro won't fit. All I want it for is video processing (XviD and MPEG encoding) and for use with VMWare.

Finally do you think I will notice a large improvement between my Barton and the E6420 when it comes to encoding times?

Antec® SLK 3000B Steel Super Mid Tower Case, Black (Invis: 5419) $64.99
Intel® Core™2 Duo E6420, 2.13-GHz @ 1066Mhz w/ 4Mb Cache (Socket 775) (Retail Box) w/ Heat Sink & Fan (Invis: 7465) $229.99
Asus® P5B, Socket 775, Intel® P965 Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX) (Invis: 6172) $139.99
512Mb DDR2 Ram Module, PC5400 (Invis: 4445) $69.98
512Mb DDR2 Ram Module, PC5400 (Invis: 4445) $69.98
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATAII-300 7200RPM 16Mb OEM (Invis: 6151) $99.99
Pioneer DVR-112D Dual Layer DVD±R/RW Drive (IDE) OEM, Black (Invis: 7306) $39.99
Enermax® Noisetaker EG425P-VE SFMA 420W ATX 12V Ver 2.0 Power Supply (Retail Box) (Invis: 3563) $79.99

[Cafe_333]

if you do that your basically crippling the new cpu and system your paying alot for. best to go with the ddr2 memory if your going for a c2d. any of the main brand value rams are good -just make sure they offer lifetime warantees. also if your old ddr ram is ddr400 it is probably can be sold for about what the ddr2 costs since ddr400( ddr 3200) costs alot more to buy than the ddr2 stuff, the rest of your system items arent worth much sad to say - even the next gen stuff is hard to sell.Actually I used to have this board and this was one of my primary concerns when I was first considering it. However several reviews can confirm that the performance difference were actually quite comparable untill you get to DDR2-800 simply because ASRock only supports only up to 667MHz. Anyway for what he does, the extra performance he'll get going with DDR2-800 and a mobo that supports it isn't worth the extra costs IMO.

This review shows DDR400 being comparable to DDR2-667 in both applications and games:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=4

This review shows the (ASRock's) PT880 chipset being comparable against the 965P and 975X:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2813&p=5