k6-2/500 questions

[trueblue]

I have a friend of mine who has a computer with a k6-2/500 CPU installed.

He is looking at installing a graphics card that he can download his digital handy cam recordings onto his card drive.

Firstly what would be the biggest AGP video card he could fit that wold not be inhibited by the CPU speed?

Also to download his video shots from his video camera onto his computer does he need a special video card and what else will he need??

Finally what is the largest size CPU he can fit onto the motherboard the 500mz is currently fitted to?

Regards

trueblue.

 

[Markfw]

Radeon 9000 or GEforce FX something (not familiar with Nvidia cards) would be faster than a 500 could handle. (almost anything you can buy today). The only thing he would need for most cameras would be a USB port, which his motherboard may not have, but you can get an add-in card for that. You need to be running Win98/me or better to have USB support. Any motherboard that has a 500 could handle the fastest K6 there is, which is a 550.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: trueblue
I have a friend of mine who has a computer with a k6-2/500 CPU installed.

He is looking at installing a graphics card that he can download his digital handy cam recordings onto his card drive.

Firstly what would be the biggest AGP video card he could fit that wold not be inhibited by the CPU speed?

Also to download his video shots from his video camera onto his computer does he need a special video card and what else will he need??

Finally what is the largest size CPU he can fit onto the motherboard the 500mz is currently fitted to?

Regards

trueblue.

His Handy Cam likely uses USB or Firewire(I assume), in which case a video card won't help. If it only has a Video Out kinda port then an original Radeon or so with a Video In is likely his best bet. A lot of SS7 motherboards can't handle video cards with over 32mb of memory, so the latest and greatest likely(dunno for sure, been awhile) won't work at all.

He shouldn't bother upgrading the cpu, the extra 50mhz won't make any difference, he could likely overclock it to 550mhz and if he uses a FSB overclock would end up faster than a new cpu. Time for him to upgrade.

More info on his HandyCam would help narrow down what he might need, especially concerning what kind of Outputs it has.

 

[thraxes]

Digital Handycam is video!

He needs a Firewire card to capture the video. Cards alone aren't expensive, but get a set with video editing software which will cost slightly more, depending on what software is bundled. If he want's to output the finished product to a VHS tape, then he needs a graphics card with TV out. IMO the TV out on any current ATI card beats NVidias solution. The Radeon 9000 with TV-Out and DVI is a good choice when on a budget.

There is a risk that the harddrive can't keep up with the datastream on such an old system. In that case either upgrade the whole PC or buy a 7200RPM harddrive (60-80GB should be enough) and ATA133 PCI controller.