Hi,

You've got 2 basic options:

1. Determine the maximum speed and type processor your motherboard will accept, find one for sale on eBay or similar, and use that as the basis for your upgrade. This is hard to do, as most people will have 'maxxed out' their motherboards of that vintage by now if they are keeping them, and the necessary processor will be a keenly sought item which would probably cost more than it's worth.

2. Replace the 'heart' of your system - motherboard, processor and RAM, to give yourself the basis of a modern system upon which you can build as you have funds available.

My recommendation would always be the second option.


If you are interested in pursuing the first option, you will need to supply details of the make/model of your PC, or of the motherboard if it's not a 'Name Brand' system.

Moved to the 'Hardware' section, by the way

K thanks, ill find out my hardware information tomorrow but ill most likely get all new stuff. Intel pentium 4 2.3GHz should be good. Any suggestions on a motherboard i dont know much about one brand from the other.

I would suggest a Pentium 4 'C' class processor, for it's increased front side bus bandwidth, and you should purchase at least a 2.4 GHz unit. P4C 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz processors are now quite affordable, and the first of those is probably the best 'bangs for bucks' option.

A good option for a motherboard would be the best you can afford from the ABit IC-7 series. Any motherboard with an i865PE or i875P chipset will be fine, really, but I'd suggest you avoid actual Intel brand motherboards, as they generally have most of the 'tweaking' functions disabled that later allow you to squeeze extra performance out of your system.

You should also match it with a couple of 'Branded' modules of PC3200 DDR RAM. Avoid unbranded 'generic' modules, for fear of low quality. The 'budget' lines of manufacturers such as Kingston or Geil are the best choices amongst lower cost alternatives.

I'll look around for that hardware when I get home from work later and post what I came up with

Yeah if you are going for an upgrade you have to change your motherboard, processor and RAM at a minimum. Something else you need to consider is your video card. If it is built-in to your motherboard then you are going to need one.

Now there's a point! If onboard graphics are a must, then suitable alternatives from ABit's range could be the IS-10 or !S-20, with integrated Intel Extreme2 graphics, or the SG-71 or SG-72 with integrated SiS graphics.

Of course, equivalent boards from other manufacturers are suitable alternatives as well.

So basically i might as well get a new computer? :-D I used to have a Nvidia TNT2 but now i have a geforce 2.

If you have a GeForce2 display card it should be fine for video editing, although it's getting to 'long in the tooth' for Gaming. Is it a PCI slot card or an AGP slot card, do you know?

pci, i play a ton of games and its great, its just editing is sooooo slow and choppy