So I bought a Quad Core 2nd hand. Q9300 for R1000. Like any of you care Thanks for the carbonite forums link people.
The CPU has taken encoding times from avi > DVD from about 1hr30min to on average about 30min or so. Sometimes 35min with ConvertXtoDVD.
Gave DVDFab a quick try with a DVD to avi / mkv file. Takes hours... any quicker suggestions? Going to try handbrake when I get a free second. And DVDFab also says CUDA enabled with me.
Adrenalin, your 8600GT is old & quite poor when it comes to CUDA performance, which is probably why yours took so long with ripping the DVD.
Just note that there are various quality settings/presets for the x264 codec, and that would impact the time that it'll take to rip the DVD!
I've ripped a DVD that was 720x480 @ 29.97fps and I used the medium quality settings IIRC.