updating system Qs

[JonH]

Hello,
I received some good advice about 6 months ago on here when my plans were stalled due to poor economy and being self-employed. Right now, I want to upgrade my system and go digital with all of my video. I need to keep win 98 se because my statistical software would cost about $2500 to upgrade if I go with XP (which I need for my business). I hope to get a P4 with hyperthreading (probably 2.4 Ghz) and am thinking about getting the AOpen MB becasue it supposedly runs quieter than others. Also will need digital bridge. Also, recently bought MSP 7 upgrade, which doesn't work very well right now (which I assume is because I'm still using mjpeg compression with a P3 800 mhz processor).
We currently make videos for various athletic teams and other events. Want to move to DVDs for this type of work and would also like to turn VHS tapes into DVDs.
Anyway, I'm feeling real unsure with my choices thus far and would appreciate any input here.
Thanks.
Jon

[K6-III]

What exactly do you mean by a motherboard running quiter than other motherboards???

[JonH]

The AOpen board has temperture sensitive fan speed controls from what I understand that keeps fan noise to a min. Don't know anyone who has one though. That's one reason for my post. I read stuff about this and that but I'd like some other opinions.

[Brian Ellis]

Very few m/bs have any fans on them. The fans are for the CPUs and one or two other devices such as graphics cards. They all have modulated speed according to temperature.

Anyway, I suggest that you choose a P4, as you state, as the video software seems to be going in that direction.

I use a Canopus ADVC-100 for analogue capture and am very satisfied.

[JonH]

Hi Brian,
You are the one who gave the good advice 6 months ago. I was all set and then ran into $ concerns. Here is the slient tech stuff from AOpen.

http://www.aopen.com/tech/techinside/SilentTek.htm

Do you think this works? I sit in front of the computer all day and noise is an issue for me.
Also, how much speed will I lose if I don't use Win XP? Will MSP 7 do real time rendering with win 98 SE?
Thanks.
Jon

[Sciascia]

The bad news is that Win98 does not support HT'ing so unless you are willing to upgrade or run a dual boot system you are not going to see any advantage in that regard. Good news is that even w/out HT'ing that much memory BW and CPU speed is going to be a huge gain. HT'ing is nice for running several apps, but if you are just rendering a file in one app you won't really miss it.

My IC7 is completely silent thanks to a Zalman fanless NB cooler that cost me only $6. I also threw a Zalman CPU HSF on there and went with a nice cheap Fortron PSU that is almost completely silent. I also opted for 5400 RPM Samsung HDs because of....noise. I hate PC noise and I finally got a very powerful system that is almost completely silent. The IC7 also has Firewire and USB2.0 so that is an added bonus.

[JonH]

Thanks, Sciascia. Will definitely be checking out the products you mentioned. Is the 800 FSB with 400 DDR ram worth the investment in a HTing P4 or should I go cheaper on this?