motherboard chipset for NLE system

[lovepeace]

i don't want to plunk down the cash
for fast p3 so the thunderbird looks
real nice except the VIA's are out
and the AMD760 is expensive and only
takes ddr i guess the amd750 for
the older althons would be an option..

if going for intel i guess the BX is
still the best but I want to run
at 133bus with my marvel200
any opinions on the i815?

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah. Don't let yourself get into the upgradeitis trap. The 440BX is still better for video editing than the currently available alternatives.

For editing a stable system with a combination of speed and stability is more important than raw speed alone. To this end the 440BX is still the choice among those who really understand the issues involved.

What we are in right now is a transition period akin to when the Hx/Lx boards were going out and the Tx boards coming in some years ago. The Hx/Lx boards were very superior to the new Tx for graphics, but the Tx was the commercial focus for Intel. Graphics users held firm with their older boards until a truely viable replacement came along: the 440BX. It's been on top of the single CPU heap ever since.

The modern version of this would be the 440BX as the incumbent and the VIA/Apollo/i8xx chipsets as the not-so-hot interlopers.

These new boards are fine for business, games and surfing but are NOT as stable or consistant as the 440BX when it comes to moving bits from the bus to memory and back in a fast and smooth manner. Those are the features you need for capture/editing/playback.

Now that it's time for the 440BX to be replaced we again face the same situation, waiting for a replacement worthy of its predecessor.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 14 March 2001).]

[wkulecz]

The BX chipset is probably still the best choice for dual CPU and windows 2000 too.

My ASUS BX based P2B-D does very nicely for video editing, although its not my main use for it. I did capture the 2 hr movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" with Vegas Video Capture 2.0b as DV through my TRV-120 D8 camcorder A/Vin -> Dout passthru while reading Email, usenet news, and surfing the net. No drops, 25GB file. Its "only" UDMA33 but its low latency and thruput that count for NLE. I suspect to make ATA66, ATA100, and the newer chip sets look better than the BX, they are doing things that give better scores on the popular albeit worthless "benchmarks" but introduce latencies that lead to dropped frames in NLE.

Benchmarks that count are things like Matlab, Photoshop, Premiere, Media Studio Pro, Visual C++, etc. These happen to be applications as well, but then that's why you buy the damn things -- not to run snadra or winmark.

--wally.

[dchip]

Nine months later

I'm reviving lovepeace' old post in order to ask if after 9 months there is anything yet that is a worthy successor to the 440BX chipset for video editing. I guess I do have a touch of "upgradeitis," but there is also a need. I am ready to retire or strip down the old ASUS P3B-F (now over 3 years old) and start fresh with a new fast system. I work mostly with DV now and hopefully the new system will become a DVD production box with all new software and everything. For capture, I may end up going with an OHCI IEEE-1394 card and a new editing package from the current crop of full-featured ones.

I want to stick with Pentium class CPU (unless there's a compelling reason not to) and preferably with a new ASUS motherboard, but, I'm open to suggestions. An upgrade of my current CPU is not desirable. My P3B-F is one of the first releases of that board and has some voltage limitations that constrain the upgrade possibilities. It's upgradeable, but not by very much.

So, nine months later, what's out there that measures up to and surpasses the functionality and realiability of the 440BX boards? Appreciate any comments.

Here's my current specs:


Asus P3B-F
PIII 450
Win98SE
512MB PC-100 ECC SDRAM
Matrox G200TV AGP
Canopus EZDV Firewire (non OHCI)
Western Digital 18GB 7200 ATA-66 (Boot)
Maxtor DiamondMax 40+ 40GB ATA-66 7200rpm (Video)
Promise Ultra 66 HDD Controller
Soundblaster Live! (using Win 98SE drivers)
Acer CDRW & CDROM
Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.5c
NERO 5.5.6.4
Panasonic software MPEG encoder
TMPGEnc beta 12
Canon Elura Mini DV

[Graham Meredith]

What 440BX boards are currently available for the P3 1GHz chip? I'm thinking of building a new system and are considering going 2 ways: single P3 1Ghz, or dual P3 1Ghz. So what 440BX boards would be currently suitable for both of these options, considering I have a Marvel G400TV, and am processing with TMPEnc? I realise I'll have to run Win2K for the dual processor, and the problems associated with the G400TV, but I thought I'd run a dual boot Win2K/Win98SE setup and choose when I want to do capture or render. What sort of RAM can the boards that might be suggested run?

Graham

[dchip]

A decent quality "new retail" Slot 1 would be hard to find right now because the industry has moved on. It's P4's and the dual Athlon stuff that's out there now. If you definately want to put the 1Ghz on a 440BX you might try to find a late revision ASUS P3B-F, used. Ebay might be a good source. They are good boards. Very stable and unless somebody has been messing with the DIP's or fouled up the BIOS, they are about as easy to configure as a motherboard could be.

Compared to what's out there now, though, the BUS speed on those is rather slow. I wouldn't pay much for the board, processor and memory. I say that because there will be limited, if any, upgradability. That's another reason I am going ahead and looking P4.

[Frank Marshall]

P3B-F?

Hi Graham,

I spotted a new P3B-F, still boxed, about a month ago in a store nearby at Paradise Point up here on the Gold Coast. If you're really interested I can get their phone number for you...

Cheers,

Frank.

[Flying dutchman]

I would definitely recommend the i815. If you can live with the maximum RAM size of 512 mb, that is.

My recommendation: ASUS TUSL2-C with a Celeron 1200.

I have an ASUS CUSL-2C with 900 MHz Celeron now (which is identical to the ASUS TUSL2-C, but the latter has a newer version of the chipset, and supports the 1200 MHz+ Tualatin P-3's).


This board is rock-stable, I have it running Windows 2000 in ACPI mode (everything on the same IRQ) with a Marvel G200.
I can capture both MJPG and uncompressed YUY2 video for hours and hours and hours without a single dropped frame. This board is absolutely magnificent. I've had Gigabyte boards in the past, both with BX and Via chipsets, and regretted quite a few of them. But this one is really a class of its own. The available PCI bus bandwidth seems to be endless! I won't settle for anything less in the future. This board really has me spoilt.


Hardware specs:

Asus CUSL-2 C
256 MB SDRAM (2-2-2)
900 MHz Celeron
IBM 8 GB 5400 rpm drive (boot)
Maxtor 40 GB 7200 rpm drive (video)
Windows 2000 SR1
Marvel G200 using "release" drivers + yuy2 patch
Creative SB64 PCI
Realtek 100 Mbps network adapter
Epson perfection 610 USB scanner