Need to upgrade old system for vid edit - clueless

[Cyberella]

Bless the web! I did a google search and found Saphalline's post about the $200-$600 upgrade challenge.
I use computers. They are generally beige in color. Actually, I can identify RAM, HD etc but in general I don't gut them.
I am a quick learn and am not afraid to roll up my sleeves.

I have two freebies:
Dell Dimension XPS T450
Here are the specs:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dkub/specs.htm

Dell Optiplex GX 100
Specs:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx110/en/ug/specs.htm

1. Which one is better to upgrade?
2. With $200-$300 investment should I get a HD and video card? And whats good? I assume the higher the number x4, x16 the better?

I've got RAM. Also, this "Power Leap" thing (PL-iP3/T V2.0) claims to upgrade without a new motherboard. (I am not up to the challenge of replacing the motherboard.)
www.powerleap.com/PL-iP3T.jsp

What thinks you?
Thanks so much!
Cy
(Cyberella was a Halloween Costume - An Action Gaming Lara Croft type in combat patten leather and fiber optics threaded through the costume. Like anyone asked... It was cool and I obviously haven't gotten over myself:)

[capequahog]

Pics please in costume, hopefully you are female :D Strictly for artistic merit :rolleyes:

[Cyberella]

Actually, I am a 55 year old hermaphrodite....
Lara Croft eat your heart out.
I guess you have no recommendations for a video system then?

[hockey man]

Wait for Saphalline. I'm not familiar with old technology that I could advise you.

[saphalline]

Oooh... that doesn't look good...

What sort of video editing are you trying to do?

The problem is that video editing requires a TON of processing horsepower, in addition to 1GB of RAM, if you want a smooth experience. I generally suggest a Pentium 4 2GHz or AthlonXP 2000+ for a minimum CPU. Even something like a Celeron Tualatin at 1.2GHz would be dog-slow in comparison. I know because I've got that same Celeron in my Linux machine, along with 768MB of PC100 SDRAM, and I can tell you right now that video editing is pretty painful on such older hardware. And it's not just a speed issue, either. Most people that I've talked to who have tried such endeavors generally find that their video editing software crashes every half hour or so. 2GHz seems to be the minimum CPU speed necessary to keep the software itself from crashing all the time. You might be able to dip down to 1.6GHz in an extreme situation, but that's as far as I would push it.

[Cyberella]

I think the XPS system maxes at 768MB. So what about this Power leap thing? Should I get it (I think it is the slower 1.6 Ghz)?
If I really want a system to be smooth, I know I need something new. For now I need some kind of short term cheap solution until I can get a functioning system.
Honestly, I have a new baby and video footage that I fear will never be edited or even worse, lost if it is not digitized and burn to DVDs.
(I am working only part time now)
I have experience editing on professional Avid systems. What I will use is Adobe Premiere and just "make do."
Should I try to upgrade the Dimensions XPS or the Optiplex?
Thanks so much for your time.
Cy.
Also,
I could get a 250G HD with 16x cache
or 300G HD with 8x. whats better?

[saphalline]

Ok, which version of Adobe Premier do you have? The system requirements (and the capabilities) vary greatly among the different versions. If you have an older version like 6.x, it will probably be doable...

Unless you buy a PCI IDE controller card, I doubt that either of those systems would handle a hard drive larger than 120GB. 48-bit LBA limitation. And what sort of hard drives are you looking at? The only hard drives with a 16MB cache that I've seen are SATA, and it would be quite expensive to add SATA support to either of those, not to mention it wouldn't be worth it.

Right now, I'm looking at upgrading the XPS T450. The PowerLeap PL-iP3/T 1.2GHz Celeron Tualatin would be a nice addition. But since it doesn't meet the CPU requirements of the latest Adobe Premier 2.0 (not SSE2 capable), I hope you have an ealier version on hand.

[Cyberella]

So I put this together:
PROMISE ULTRA100TX2 PCI IDE Controller Card - OEM $21
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16816102002

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822144701

POWERCOLOR R96H-HC3 Radeon 9600PRO 128MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail $55http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814131257

(or SAPPHIRE 100143L Radeon X1300PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $110 would this one make a big enough difference to spend the extra $50 bucks?? )

There is the $200.

So I should add the Power Leap PL-iP3/T Tualatin CPU Upgrade Adapter? Will it work with the system? Is there another brand of upgrade adapter to chose from that may be cheaper?

I didn't know about the software limitations. I've got Premiere Pro 7.0. Will that work?
thx
BTW
Is the DVD burn time effected by the processor spead? And the DVD burner speed? It can take all night to burn a disk.

[Cyberella]

Sorry. Just to be clear.
More Gigs in HD or more cache is better?
250 GB 16x
or
300 GB 8x
Which would you go for with video in mind?

[jlreich]

If you have to choose then more gigs are better. But the HDD you have listed is a SATA HDD, you need an IDE HDD. SATA will not work with either system.

[saphalline]

This vid card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127128) will be more than enough for your purposes, and it's a lot easier on your PSU. I figure we need to pull back on this, because with all the extras you're adding, overtaxing the PSU is a concern.

This HighPoint card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816115009) has 48-bit LBA support for larger hard drives. The Promise card you listed only supports up to 127GB.

As for the hard drive, you need to stick to IDE/ATA. SATA won't work, and like I said it wouldn't be worth it to add to those old machines. Their platforms simply won't take advatage of the extra speed, especially through a PCI slot. Here's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144129) a good 200GB hard drive, or 250GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144309), or you could go all the way to 300GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822140166). Just keep in mind that 1 extra hard drive would be all I would recommend. That 200W PSU in the XPS is going to take a beating here.

Actually that Powerleap CPU + adapter is probably going to be your cheapest option. Fortunately, it will be more than enough at 1.2GHz because Premier 7.0 only requires a 600MHz CPU. The Powerleap solution will also be relatively painless and easy to install. And of course moving up to 512-768MB of RAM will make it run fairly smoothly. This won't be as fast as a new system for video editing, but it sounds like it will be fine.

DVD burning speed is mostly dependent on the DVD burner and the media both supporting a fast speed, but the computer itself also needs to be able to keep up. Having a fast enough CPU, enough RAM, and a speedy hard drive are all paramount to this. I think adding a hard drive and storing the video on it will be the best choice. If you need to save money, 200GB should be plenty as long as you keep burning DVD's and deleting the video. Uncompressed video takes up a lot of space, but you still should be able to store at least 80-90 hours on a 200GB hard drive. The longest part will probably be the "mastering" stage, where Adobe Premier will have to take the final project and format it for burning onto a DVD. That will probably take a few hours. Actually burning the final project onto a DVD, once you get those upgrades, should only take 10-20 minutes at 8x burning speed.

In addition to all the hardware confusion involved, you should do some research on whether you want to use DVD-R or DVD+R. They're competing standards, and they both work differently on various devices. Do a Google search on any DVD player devices that you have to see which format, if any, they work best with. It won't do you any good to burn a bunch of DVD-R's if the only thing that will play them is your computer!

[Cyberella]

Thanks so much. I haven't money to burn and I knew better than to just pick a hard drive, some extras and buy them.
I'll keep in the loop.
Maybe I'll advance to novice geek, or novice wannabe geek.
Thanks so much.
Saphalline. Your advice came up as the second listing on a google search Can't remember it exactly, but it was very general like "XPS upgrades" + "Dell" or something. Alot of people (non-members) must be reading your posts for it to go up the heirarchy of searches like that, right?
Saphalline: The Next Morpheus.
;)

[saphalline]

The PC Guide in general has been showing up more in Google searches. Must be the reason for all the new members. I wonder how charles managed that one...

[jlreich]

Alot of people (non-members) must be reading your posts for it to go up the heirarchy of searches like that, right?
Hehe, I did a search for "saphalline" and it came up with 70 some odd pages with nothing but links to these forums. :p

[saphalline]

As far as I know, the word "saphalline" is only used here. Or is there another place on the 'net that has this word? I'm gonna go look now...

[hockey man]

That is all that Googled showed too. . .how did you come up with that?