Interesting post, but lack some critical information. As a heads up, the lack of information makes it tough to suggest a solution. A few things left out are your video solution (hardware and software), intended operating system and drive configurations and just how much REALLY you will be using this for video processing.
The hardest part of specifying the right motherboard is having an idea of what your video solution (hardware and software) will be and what operating system you will be running under.
Windows 2000 has some definite problems with SOME video editing solutions. Some are related to direct Windows 2000 software/driver compatibility (MICROSOFT BUGS) and others to disk I/O and video (PCI to AGP) interface conflicts (more of the same). This extends to SOME motherboards having OS compatibility issues with Dual video cards and other devices.
If you are going to be serious about video editing you should consider the following:
1) SCSI is the best solution for data storage and should be considered a MUST for anyone doing video processing for more than anything besides a hobby. Disk data I/O is EXTREMELY important to video editing and processing! The best possible solution is multiple SCSI drives (up to 30 drives on most motherboards) in a striped/mirrored RAID configuration. There are also some real nice hardware RAID controllers out there (reasonably priced) that you could of course add instead, but I wouldn't do it to any motherboard with less than 64-bit PCI slots.
2) If not using SCSI, AT LEAST TWO ATA-100 drives are a MUST! One drive for booting and application software and any other drives used for data. The bitch of this is that the A7V133 has great drive capabilities supporting up to 8 IDE drives with 4 drives being capable of running ATA-100 or in a RAID configuration. The downside is the PC133 RAM, especially now with Over-clocked 150MHz DDR "PC2400" in the CAS2 flavor (NOT 2.5) is coming out from some of the select manufacturers like Mushkin and Corsair.
3) This leads us to the obvious choice for high speed DDR, the AMD760 chipset. Put simply, it's the best available solution for Video Processing, not counting the as yet illusive Dual CPU running AMD 762 chipset which, WILL BE truly the best (after the video editing software companies all setup for Dual CPU operations under Linux).
Due to the problems with Windows 2000 SP2 you may (UNLESS YOU ARE USING ALL SCSI, in which case Windows 2000 SP2 MAY be okay depending on what you are using for video and disk) quite possibly still have problems. Windows 2000 SP1 will run without some of the crashing problems, but you'll have to deal with the fact that there is no ATA-100 support under this revision, so it's either all SCSI or “Crashville” USA.
4) If you are going with a SCSI solution, you should seriously consider a board other than what you have listed below. Specifically, I would look for a motherboard with an Adaptec ASIC to give you onboard 64-bit Ultra160 support.
Remember, you need 3 times the disk space of the file you want to edit, so don't under buy drives. Sure, once your data is mastered you can move it off, but in the meantime, you'll need 1/3 of the space for the original, 1/3 of the space for editing and 1/3 of the space for creating the output master.
I would look at having 4-18GB, 15,000RPM Drives to give you a starting point of 36GB striped and mirrored RAID space for data. I would boot up and run my applications on an ATA-100, IBM 60GXP unless you wanted to go SCSI there too. Again, hardware RAID is better, in that in theory it is supposed to remove a substantial CPU burden while increasing the BUS throughput, but that could be an article in itself.
5) If you buy a boxed CPU, you'll not only get a factory warranty of three years on the CPU, but you'll get a factory fan with a 3-year warranty too and it will fit on any motherboard. Not only do OEM CPU's carry NO WARRANTY AT ALL from AMD, but also some of the coolers you listed don't fit well on some of those motherboards. Add the prices together and you'll find you're much better off with "Boxed".
6) If you insist on going OEM, you should check out GlacialTech's Igloo 2x00 series. They recently got good write-ups for both the Abit and Asus platform at 1.733GHz.
See http://www.glacialtech.com.tw/ for details.
7) With DDR RAM prices so low, I would kiss PC133 goodbye unless I were running a Pentium III, the only place left where it is crazy to run DDR or RDRAM.
Summary.
NOTE: When you read this, THINK OF 'TOM'S POWERBOX' MOTHERBOARD.
AMD762 based if you can find it, AMD760 if you can't.
512MB - 1GB of PC2400 (150MHz) CAS2 ECC RAM (ECC is a must!)
TWO Boxed Athlon MP CPU's @ 1.2GHz (If 762 Chipset) or ONE Boxed Athlon 1.4GHz if AMD 760 Chipset.
Onboard Adaptec AIC-7899 or the better (but more rare) AIC-7899A ASIC for SCSI Drives.
If SCSI, Think 15,000+RPM, Ultra160 Drives (4x18GB Drives = 36GB usable)
Enermax EG-465P-VE(FC) Power Supply
Dell Case will be too small for you if you add drives, I'd go with an In-Win Q500 Case (get the one with the smallest Power supply since you'll yank it anyway and replace it with the MUCH better, long corded Enermax.
Linux
BOOT & Applications run from an IBM 60GXP.
If Data space is IDE instead of SCSI, be sure to get a motherboard with IDE RAID support (so you can stripe and mirror) your data drives. Use IBM 60GXP's here too.
8) New quote of the week candidate: I am glad you didn’t ask about a P4, 100MHz bus just plain bites!
Steve
Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'
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