New Asus Motherboard & cpu
 

I'm starting to think about upgrading my 5 year old PC's Asus mobo to a new motherboard and cpu. I want to stick with Asus and Intel for the cpu. What Asus mobo and cpu would you recommend? Does Vegas take full advantage of quad core processors?

Thanks.

Steady on there, it's only been five years... don't you think you're being a bit hasty? :)
I've got an Intel Q6600 overclocked to 2.90GHz and an Asus P5Q mobo.
It's probably the most stable system I've had thus far.

Bang for buck, the new i7 is tearing up the Vegas reviews. And since it has 4 cores WITH hyperthreading, it should appear as 8 cores to a render system. So get the Asus P6T Delux v2 with a i7 920 chip, 6 GB of DDR3 ram, and you have possibly cut your render times to 10% of what you are used to.

Thanks Jason, I'll take a look at your suggestions. I'm used to rendering overnight but it would be great to finally bring it down to something reasonable.

This article might give you some idea's...

Videoguys Blog - Videoguys' DIY7: Intel Core i7 with Vista 64

Looks like an excellent article, thanks Ray!

I should point out that I'm still editing on an AMD 64 X2 system, so I do not have the P6T Delux v2..... but that is the board I have heard about here in DVi, and the board I would buy if I upgrade.

If you can live with 6 internal sata connectors instead of 8, the Asus P6T deluxe version 2 MOBO is newer and has wider cababilities for RAM then the version 1, and is on sale for $200.

Newegg.com - Open Box: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

Open box? hummmmmmm I'm not a fan of getting critical electronics at bargain prices because it is an open box. I've never bought a newegg open box deal. Are they any good? Missing manuals, accessories? etc?

Actually, I wouldn't buy a MB open box either. They didn't have a non-open box of that model that I could find, which is weird. But I love the board, the most stable I've ever had.

I hate only having 6 ports, but I added a Adaptec 4 port sata controller so I have 10, which works out fine.

What on earth are you doing that takes all 6 ports? DVD/BR burner for one, system drive for 2, video drive for 3, second video drive for 4, render drive for 5...... ? Second optical drive for 6?

I need lots of space to accomodate my workflow.

I have a rather idiosyncratic/compulsive way of dealing with my footage. I download footage all night/next morning as soon as I get home from wedding so it is safe, then copy it to a backup drive and I put tapes away.

Here's how I use my drives:

1. system drive
2. scratch drive
3. alternate OS drive (I stopped using raid a few days ago)
4. 1tb storage drive
5. 1tb storage drive back up for #4
6 1tb storage drive
7. 1tb storage drive backup for #6
8. 1tb storage drive
9. 1TB storage drive backup for #8
10. 1TB storage for archived projects.
+ 2 TB external e-sata drives

I have at any given point 5-10 weddings waiting to be edited, particularly now.

I use an external USB DVD burner, I have a second, internal IDE burner but its not connected, don't really need it.