Would this MB make a faster computer?

Tim

I've had an Abit NF-7 motherboard with a Barton 2500+ CPU overclocked to 2.2 Ghz (11X200 FSB) for a year and a half now, and it's been a very good setup, but I'm thinking of making a more powerful computer, since I do a lot of digital video work and am just looking for something faster anyhow.

I've been thinking for a while of getting an Asus A7M-266-D motherboard, (dual Socket A) with a pair of Athlon MP 2400, 2600, or 2800 processors on it. I'd try to find a motherboard version with the MPX chipset instead of the MP version.

The biggest things I wonder about are the FSB (266 vs 400 on my NF-7), and the age of the motherboard, which is a few years old now.

Somehow I've got it in my head that a 266 bus board simply can't ever be as fast or as good as a 400 FSB board. Right or wrong?

I'd like to make the new system a dual CPU design, but all this Socket 754/939/940 64 bit stuff is out of my price range.

Another concern is that I think the Asus board is more limited in overclocking options.

So I wonder if an A7M-266D board is a good choice, or is there something better out there? I've read reviews on the Tyan Tiger dual Socket A motherboards and don't like them.

Tex

Ive owned three or four of the asus and even more of the MSI dualies based on the MPX chipset. I've RMA'd multiple MB's of each. The MSI had better OC options but I really wasnt trying to OC them much either.

You would be hard pressed I bet to find one with warranty remaining.

If I were you... And I say this after building maybe 8 MPX chipset box's as well as 6 dual opteron rigs and three dual xeon rigs..... I would skip this excercise and watch ebay for a low end opteron's and a dual opteron board. Even if you start with one cpu and add another later you are way better off to start with and in the end also.

Tex

Sledgehammer70

Trex makes a good point. You can also get into a basic 939 setup with a 3200+ Athlon 64 for about $280.00. later on, down the road you have many options with the 939 as you have dual channel DDR400 along with being able to jump into a dual core. and if you get a SLI setup, you video editing will benifit 100% even if you get one card now and add one later "Nvidia is making it where you can mix vendors for the grpahics cards". something like a 6600GT or even a 6800GT as they are becoming much more affordable these days. there is many options on the market, and If I were you I would jump into a platform that has tons of room to exspand...like the 939 and 940 socket sets. but good luck in your set up!

Qeldroma

You're getting some good advice Tim.

My only addition would be to focus on memory size, HD speed and FSB throughput. I do sports videos (as a volunteer for competitive youth teams ) and it seems you just can't have enough of any of it- especially when mixing large segments. A fast system bus just rocks so 400 over 266 is well - YES! Of course, burner speed is important when you're on a schedule.

Processing power is nice and if it were in my wallet right now, I'd go dual core. Sigh.

Hope you get something great together.

TheHeartSmasher

Try this
from circuit city

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=127700&c=1&cm_re=main%20marquee-_-Store%20more%20with%20320GB-_-Western%20Digital%20320GB%20external%20hard%20drive

Be warned the desription for the harddrive says 320Mb because of an idiot's disregard to detail.

This is what I have bought from Newegg for 230 +SH

It's a good deal.

Usually for high end digital video the recommened is

Pentium 4, Xeon processor 2.8ghz and above (800mhz FSB or more)
Dual P4 or Xeon processor 2.8ghz and above (800mhz FSB or more)
1GB of RAM or more (DDR or DDR2)
at least an 80GB harddirve seperate (deticated HD) 7200rpms, 8MB cache
USB2.0 and Firewire
A graphics card with at least 128MB of Memory. ATI or NVIDIA 400mhz clock speed and above OpenGL 2.0 support, Direct X9 support


I know because I also deal with Digital Editing (NLE) and mastering.

DO not use low end video editing software ever.

Mid range is good Like Pinnacle, Microsoft own movie creater, etc.

I use High end Avid, Adobe Premire, Affter Affects, Encore, Vegas Video and DVD, etc.

For burning your movies/video to disc use dvd or cdr. Use Nero or any of the mid to high end software mentioned above.

Use reliable disc from Sony, etc.

for dvd try and get 8x DVD-R not DVD+R since DVD-R is the most compatible format.

Sledgehammer70

To throw my 2 cents at the Intel scene..... I have 2 Quad Xeon setups and surrounded by 100+ IBM dual Xeon 3.6Ghx stations. I am very disappointed with their performance. The machines bog down and well in my opinion pretty much suck! If I had control on what company bought I would have gotten Opterons....they just seem to run much smoother with allot less hikups. Sure they might be a bit slower, but you will be happy with how they run, or get a dual core X2 AMD all the way ..... I just can't say I like my Intel system

TheHeartSmasher

mmm what are the systems running and if they are doing alot of processes they need to be cooled. And the processor priorities need to be set.

Sledgehammer70

These systems run very cool for being Intel chips; they are in a nicely air-conditioned room I think the Quad systems are running at about 42C under heavy load. And the dual Xeons around 40C these are very nice and expensive workstations. I use 1 quad setup for my personal use at work, Photoshop, 3ds Max7.5 AutoCAD etc.... and the tower sucks, HT is enabled so in reality I have 8 CPU's and is stocked with 2 gigs ram per CPU, Has a dual PSU's pushing 1200Watts..... These things are power hogs!

I just don’t like the way they are running. I have 4 CPU's constantly rendering something and the other 4 to play with for on screen stuff. Everything is tasked and setup how any other tech guy would set it. It just runs glitchy and not all the great , It has been serviced and tested 2 times, we even switch out to high grade ram and switch out 2 CPU's, they even switched MOBO’s...the system just isn't all it is cracked up to be. When you spend the cash for a Quad Xeon system “$10,000+”...you think uber performance... Ya not in this case! It even has Dual Quadro 4400's on SLI and the graphics run great, no on screen lag for large scenes in Max and video editing is a breeze....but when it comes to all out performance, I would throw this crap away, my AMD Athlon 64 4000+ runs smoother than this thing.

Tim

A low end Opteron system, huh? Is that Socket 939? I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to 64 bit ANYTHING, but from what little I've read, it sounded like Socket 939 had the best future. I could be wrong, I'd have to research it a lot more.

Any thoughts on some good motherboards if I got into this Opteron thing? I'd prefer Abit for overclockability, because I'd push it as hard as I could until the CPU temp at 100% load started getting around 50-53 degrees C, plus it'd do folding and all the digital video editing for my weekly (biweekly sometimes) webshow.

lemonlime

Tim wrote:

A low end Opteron system, huh? Is that Socket 939? I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to 64 bit ANYTHING, but from what little I've read, it sounded like Socket 939 had the best future. I could be wrong, I'd have to research it a lot more.

Any thoughts on some good motherboards if I got into this Opteron thing? I'd prefer Abit for overclockability, because I'd push it as hard as I could until the CPU temp at 100% load started getting around 50-53 degrees C, plus it'd do folding and all the digital video editing for my weekly (biweekly sometimes) webshow.

Opterons use the 940-pin platform, which is also a dual channel platform, similar to 939. 940 however, usually required 'registered' or 'buffered' memory. Are you sure a dual-CPU setup is right for you? many applications out there do not take advange of multiple CPUs. There is a pretty large cost premium on most multi-cpu platforms, and you can usually get a much faster (for most purposes) single CPU machine for less money.

Tex

s940 is for dual cpu rigs. s939 is single cpu. But really that soundfs like plenty for you especially now that you can go dual core.

Tex

Leonardo

Lately, most, if not all of the tech sites that have been comparing dual and quad Opteron versus dual/quad xeon give the nod to AMD. Intel is playing catch up right now, except for "mobile" CPUs.

TheHeartSmasher

For your quad setup the only thing that should be slowing anything down is the software then. Check for compatibility issues and labtest it before loading it on the machines.

I have sources in the Pentagon they have no problems because only certain machines run certain things and that's it. If you have a bunch of highend software like 3dstudio max, NLEs and such it will slow your system down regardless of what processor you use and make it fill glitchy when the only problem is the software.

There is nothing wrong with your hardware even if you did use an AMD you would still have the same problem. It would just be slower...