Upgrade or new build - help appreciated

[immunoboy7]

This was the build one and a half years ago:
[FONT=&quot]Asus M4A785TD-M EVO [/FONT]using onboard graphics
AMD Athlon II X4 630 95W AM3 2MB 2800MHz
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 4 GB (2x2 GB DDR3)
Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU 500W V2.0 PSU
WinXP Pro SP3

The machine served well enough for general household use. However, since then, we had a kid. This means DVDs (still pictures with a soundtrack and movies) for Grandma. The PROBLEM is it takes 3 hrs to burn a DVD. The only intensive use is Premiere Elements DVD burning of media. Otherwise, its web surfing, light office use, maybe some light Adobe PS image work.

1) Is it worthwhile upgrading: Win7 with 8 or 12 GB RAM with a real graphics card? Add a SSD HD? What specific components could I add now to see a boost and possible?

2) Alternatively, should I just wait a few months and build a new system using the newer and now fixed SB boards? It would be nice to have SATA3 for a SSD and USB3.0. My current system would be given to my Mom.


Thanks for your help.

 

[fffblackmage]

You're most likely limited by the burn speed of the DVD burner/media than anything else.

I do light Photoshop work on occasion, but I rarely ever hit 4GB of ram use, so I kinda doubt more than 4GB of ram will help you. You could check Task Manager to see how much ram you use.

A discrete graphics card is kinda pointless if you're not gaming. It might help with Photoshop work, but I don't think it's worth it unless you do it often.

 

[immunoboy7]

Thanks ... it could very well be the SATA DVD. In that case, a new build makes sense. However, most of the time is spent with Elements preparing the files for burning.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Describe exactly how you burn a DVD that takes 3hrs..

for me, i rip it to my computer (maybe 5-10 minutes)

If I burn from a rip .vob file DVD it takes 7-10 minutes..

Sounds like you are doing some transcoding er something

 

[immunoboy7]

I use Adobe Elements to assemble and burn the content. The content consists of small home movies (from my FLIP) and still photos with a soundtrack background. Most of the three hours is spent on the transcoding portion. Actual burning is done pretty quickly. I have tried using Nero Vision as well, but it takes just as long.

 

[fffblackmage]

I use Adobe Elements to assemble and burn the content. The content consists of small home movies (from my FLIP) and still photos with a soundtrack background. Most of the three hours is spent on the transcoding portion. Actual burning is done pretty quickly. I have tried using Nero Vision as well, but it takes just as long.

Oooooh, I thought it was weird... 3 hours to "burn" a DVD...? I thought you were using an old and slow DVD burner or something. That new SB rig is starting to sound like a real nice solution now.

 

[mfenn]

The transcoding times are a bit odd because a quad core Athlon II X4 should not take that long to encode an MPEG2 stream (aka DVD). Is it possible that you haven't set up the software to use all 4 cores?

 

[immunoboy7]

I'll check to see if all four cores are carrying a full load during transcoding later today. Thanks.

 

[nsafreak]

It still wouldn't be a bad idea to at least upgrade to Win 7 64 bit since it's not too much longer before XP hits EOL.