[ni-cad]

Hi, I was hoping to upgrade to a new mobo, 16 gig of ram and two i7 quad core processors, now it looks like I can't afford the mobo so I have to work with the one I have which is an Asus P5k premium. As I can only use one processor with this board and (I think) there is also a limit on the ram it can hold, 8 gig? What would be a good choice of Ram and Processor?

I use this machine for working with video in Adobe After Effects and despite currently having 8 gig installed and a 3ghz intel core2 duo I constantly get "windows virtual memory low" warnings and my PC frequently chokes, even short video compositions around as little as ten minuets can take up to 6 hours to render out, previewing video is all but impossible it's so slow, this machine just doesn't pack the processing power to work well with After Effects. It's obvious I need more Ram as video files I work with are fairly large, the more Ram I have the more video I can work with in After Effects, also a fast multi core processor would help a lot as After Effects supports multi threaded processing, but I'm confused as to what would be the best quad core processor to use and secondly it appears that the P5k has a maximum ram limitation of only 8 gig, is this true? if so is there a work around? or. . how can I optimism what I have ie what would be the best ram to install to get absolutely everything I can in terms of memory out of this system?

My biggest worry is compatibility with the P5K.

My specs.

Ati Radeon HD 4870 X-fire.
XP Pro 64.
Intel core 2 duo
P5K Premium mobo.
8-gig of cheep ram


Regards

ni-cad.

Edited by ni-cad, 29 October 2009 - 11:24 AM.

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If you wanted to use two processors you would have to pay big bucks for a Skulltrail or a server motherboard... those really don't come cheap. Upgrading to a quad core would really benefit you are you are using apps that support multi-threading, and a Core i7 would be even better (I would suggest saving up for a Socket 1156 mobo and a i7 860)
If you need the upgrade now, I suggest a Q9550, and the mobo will not work with 16GB of memory... you will have to settle for 8.
4870 Xfire should be really nice, but watch your temps as those cards get very hot.

[edge2022]

If you wanted to use two processors you would have to pay big bucks for a Skulltrail or a server motherboard... those really don't come cheap. Upgrading to a quad core would really benefit you are you are using apps that support multi-threading, and a Core i7 would be even better (I would suggest saving up for a Socket 1156 mobo and a i7 860)
If you need the upgrade now, I suggest a Q9550, and the mobo will not work with 16GB of memory... you will have to settle for 8.
4870 Xfire should be really nice, but watch your temps as those cards get very hot.