Upgrade question(s) ....

My old PIII 1g 512mb system served me faithfully for the past few years. But, now, I’m getting into digital photography (professional), DVD authoring, video capture and editing and other stuff and really need to upgrade my system. I will be using my current CD drives, HDD, etc… Budget is around $425-$450, however, of course, I want the best value and I would hate to find out later that an additional $10 or $20 would buy more power.

I am not interested in a gaming system nor will I be overclocking. My system is used for home office work (Word, Photoshop, etc..) plus the digital photography, DVD, and video mentioned above and I multitask frequently. I want to upgrade to a P4 3.0. After searching this site and others, it seems the best mobo’s (in my price range) are from Abit, Intel and ASUS. I tend to lean toward Intel because it’s the only mobo I have used in the past in my other three systems but I am open to suggestions.

Stability is a MUST for me. My system is up 24/7 and I use it in my business of photography and PC support/programming. Please review my wish list below and give me any comments or suggestions.

Current Hardware (also to be used in new system):
Pioneer 16x DVD+/- RW
Sony 52x CDRW/DVD Combo
40g 7200rpm internal HDD (will upgrade later to >100g SATA)
80g Maxtor external HDD
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150

Wish List:
Motherboard:
Intel D865PERL ($106) -or- D865GBFL ($99)
ASUS P4P800 E Delux ($117) -or- P4P800 SE ($95)
Abit AI7 ($99) -or- IS7-E ($81)

Video:
I’m at a loss here. I know nothing about video cards. Currently using mobo video. Unless it would help with video capture and editing, I don’t need anything fancy or high performance, just a basic (and again, stable) video card in the $40 - $50 range. I’ll use the on-board video if mobo offers.

I’ll be using an Antec 400w power supply in either my current case or an Antec case.

One thing that concerns me is the CPU temp of the P4. If I buy the retail box with the CPU, heatsink and fan, will I be OK? Or should I go for additional cooling? I currently have a front and rear fan in my case. What about the temp variations of the various motherboards?

Sorry to be so wordy, but I wanted to give as much info as possible.
THANKS VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP.

 

Excuse me if any of this is wrong, I hope it's not :-o

A video card is (just?) how everything appears on the screen to you - it won't have anything to do with video capturing/editing. While onboard video might be alright, if you ended up purchasing an AGP card, .. well, webpages would scroll by smoother and such.. only thing I could see related to video editing would be if you were scrolling through a video, the images would be drawn a bit faster. It mostly depends on how happy you are with your current onboard video. You can always go out later and buy an AGP card.

I've always used stock heatsink/fan for my chips. They do tend to run a bit warm, but as long as you have it seated properly, it'll be fine. I removed the thermal tape on the bottom of the heatsink, put some Arctic Silver III on the bottom, and saw a temperature drop of 15F, still running stock. Purchasing a better heatsink/fan will take more heat away from the CPU and make it possibly last a while longer. Additional fans are good as long as you have good flow inside.

 

For video capture you could use a video card that has ViVo (Video In Video Out, facility, but my experience is that a low cost TV card gives better video capture facilities. Then a basic quality AGP video card would suffice.

 

Thanks for the advice guys/gals. I'll go with the stock fan and heatsink for now then "upgrade" later if needed. Can I buy Arctic Silver at Best Buy or the like?

I am currently using a low cost TV tuner card (Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 - around $100) that I use to capture video. It's nothing fancy, but it does exactly what I need and I am very satisfied with it. Plus its pretty cool to watch TV in a small window on my PC and record TV shows to my HDD.

 

I doubt you would find it at Best Buy, but it wouldn't hurt to check. Any store with "Comp" in the name (CompUSA, CompUCare, etc) will have some. Arctic Silver III is the best stuff if you can get it. If you have a friend that has installed cpu's before, have him help you. With the stock heatsink, it has thermal tape on the bottom, which you'll have to CAREFULLY remove with an exacto knife or razor blade. You'll have to be very careful not to scratch the surface of the heatsink... Tricky stuff