P4 mainboard for video capture & NLE

[Jkun]

Have to build a machine for work, for basic NLE and vidcap function. Basically same machine as we use as amateurs here.

However, sysadmin is AMD-allergic. Must be P4.

What would be a cost effective solution? I haven't kept track of P4 tech for a long time, and I notice the 'recommended' boards on techie sites are Intel 875 chipset based (high memory bandwidth - but what about PCI bw?) and these are expensive.

What about SIS for P4? As recommendable as with Athlon? Which ones?

Oh, important: must support hyperthreading....

TIA!

J-kun

[fberger]

Abit IS7 is fast, stable and low cost. You can even overclock it if you want.
I spent about $100 for the board which includes all you need for DV capture, sound, LAN, etc... Add Crucial DDR SDRAM, SATA drives, a 3 Ghz P4 and you have a low cost very fast PC.
Asus is OK too, but their low cost 865 board does not include LAN.

Fred

[Brian Ellis]

I use an MSI P4 HT board with the 845PE chipset and 533 DDR. These are very cheap as they are not the latest technology (it's already 3 months old!!!!).

However, no matter the make, disable the integrated sound, network, IEEE-1394, RAID etc. functions. They are built down to a price and use resources inefficiently. I did comparative tests between the Realtek AC97 inbuilt system and an SB Live!, using Mark Dileo's benchmark test and MPG rendering slowed down by 11% with the Realtek. The slowdown with the inbuilt LAN, compared to a 3-Com board was only 4%, though. I have had similar experiences with other m/bs. As a result, the first thing I do with a new board is to disable systematically all the inbuilt goodies and things that I'll never use, like COM1, COM2, etc. This also has the advantage that it liberates IRQs, so there is less risk of sharing or conflicts, which also makes for a faster machine.

[Jkun]

Thanks Brian! But does this old board support Hyperthreading CPU's? I believe this required special support on the mainboard?

J-kun