Hope I have the right fourm for this as I use Vegas.
I will be upgrading my PC and would like some advice on what others are using?
This might help me in the selection upgrade procces.

I use a Sony PD 170 soon to get the Sony Z1.
Vegas 6.0d soon to upgrade.

My PC has has taken it's last render and is now only good for surfing the net.

I guess I would need to be up and running for HDV.

Cheers
Simon

Hope I have the right fourm for this as I use Vegas.
I will be upgrading my PC and would like some advice on what others are using?
This might help me in the selection upgrade procces.

I use a Sony PD 170 soon to get the Sony Z1.
Vegas 6.0d soon to upgrade.

My PC has has taken it's last render and is now only good for surfing the net.

I guess I would need to be up and running for HDV.

Cheers
Simon

Unless things have changed in the last two months, I advise avoiding Vista.

Simon, I upgraded to a quad core this spring and remain VERY happy with it.
I based my machine's specs on John Rofrano's (http://johnrofrano.com/pcequipment.htm) who based his on John Cline's (http://www.johncline.com/quad.htm).
I didn't bother with a RAID array. Instead, I went with a 250 GB Seagate SATA for drive C and 2 x 500 GB. Seagate SATAs for drives D & E.
OS was XP Pro.

Thanks guys.
I was going to go with XP Pro also.

I have looked at the list of equipment in John's computer and havesearched around looking for a system that gets good performance. I really don't to live in Hardware He!! and would like to find a reasonably priced Quad core system. Of those I can get information on, I don't find any with the motherboard used in John's system. So my question is - What is lost by not using that motherboard? I have a limited budget, but want to maximize my performance. Are there other motherboards that are recommended?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Chris

Simon Get a Mac. After being a windows nerd for 10 years I went with a Mac 6 months ago and could not be happier. Less problems. I run 2x30inch plus a crt monitor at the same time and love the work flow. no crashes and faster editing. only took about 1 month of using it to get used to the differences. give it a try

ken

Ken, Vegas won't run on a Mac unless he runs Windows on it too. So he'll still be using Windows even if it's on Mac hardware.

I stand corrected. But IMO, after having spent all the years on a pc I am loving the mac. might be worth him looking at FCP. If going to invest in a new system Simon, it might be worth the trip to the mall and visit the apple store before spending money on a new pc. most of the programs that I used on windows are available on a mac. Have not installed windows on the mac yet and most likely will not at this point. FCP was very easy to learn. I also shoot with a pd170, canon xl2 and jvc 5100. all connect by firewire to the mac and I do lots of live capture that way. pd170 is a great camera


Now if I could figure out a way to capture all three cameras at once to the mac I would be in sitting pretty

ken

Ken, I use FCP and Vegas and respect your point of view. I've chosen Vegas as my primary editor, but I can certainly see why many other people would choose FCP.

In my experience this forum is not anti-mac or anti-fcp (there have been some interesting and fair discussions on the subject), but a suggestion to "switch to mac and fcp" is not IMO particularly helpful to someone who uses vegas and wants advice on upgrading their system.

Glad the mac/fcp is working out for you - it's a good system.

... Are there other motherboards that are recommended?
I'm a big fan of genuine Intel motherboards. A lot of people went to ASUS & such when they introduced SLI tech (a good way to get 4 monitors), but now the Intel mobos have it too. And you get all that compatibility...

I've built two this way, the current one is a D965WH. It's been totally stable and crashless with Vegas and many other apps. Although I only put it together in January for a Core2 Duo, these things change fast.

It looks like there's a whole series of 965 chipset boards for about $100. Also look into a 775 series board to support a quad core processor, especially if you're editing HD.

Ken,

I'm sure there are thousands of people out there who'd love to have a mac running FCP. However, for the price of a basic, decent mac running FCP you could just about buy the fastest most powerful pc out there!

I'm running a Pentium dual core 2.67 processor with two 500gb raid 0 structure drives for video and 2g of memory. I have an additional 80g drive for software and xp. I added one of the best graphics cards around to run two dvi widescreen monitors.

Apart from a series of crashes caused by bad video format on a rushes tape some time ago I've had absolutely NO problems whatsoever. Everything that's cut on this edit only system is HDV and I find render times more than satisfactory and performance perfectly adequate. The edit machine cost me less than 1200 pounds 12 months ago (about 2000 dollars). You can get a better spec machine for less now!

I've always been a mac user and I love them, and I'll be honest, some mac users never really admit to the crashes, and I had a few! I find PC's equally reliable. I'd rather have an all singing and dancing mac suite running FCP, but my company budget just won't allow it right now! In the mean time, the PC edit station works just fine and I see no reason to change! Furthermore, I find Vegas is actually better to work with than FCP!!

Stuart
Thanks for the reply. I have never worked with vegas and only know premiere pro and fcp. I am curious how much your system cost you. I did look at a good editing pc but decided to try the mac. i am very happy with it,, might also be just the change from windows. I have found it more stable than windows but at this point I only edit photos and video on it. Maybe in another year I will start to have problems as I have heard other mac users have had but for now it is a clean machine. I did put an investment into it over 4k plus monitor but just wanted to purchase one machine for the next several years and it seems to be reliable at this point. what editing machine did you finaly purchase and how is it set up??

thanks ken

12 months ago I had a 'build to order' pc company build me a;

Intel Pentium Dual Core (or Core 2) E6700 (2x2.67Ghz)
ASUS p5wdeluxehd motherboard
2 Gig RAM
80Gig Sata Drive for data (XP, Vegas, Cinescore, Photoshop etc)
2 x 500Gig Sata Drives for video storage RAID 0 configured
NVidia GeForce 7950 GT (dual DVI and HD) 512 Mb
Decent Audio card (can't remember)!!
4 port Firewire Card
Some extra nice cooling (can't remember what it is sorry)
Top spec DVD writer (can't remember what that is either, I'm useless)!

I then purchased 2 x Dell 2007wfp 20" monitors

I already had a sony 9" CRT field monitor which I use for reference and preview and an analogue to dv converter box to wire up all the vtrs (HDV, BetaCamSP, DVCpro and svhs all switched using a patch bay jack field). I wired in a Spirit Folio audio desk for monitoring and plugged in the speakers and I was away!

Sadly, the CRT has given up the ghost since (it's had a hard life with me over the past 10 years) and the Spirit is showing signs of age too. So those two things are to be replaced!

The PC only cost me 1100 UK pounds (less than 2000 dollars then) which is (or was) excellent value. As I said, I wanted to build a mac suite, but was looking at over 4000 pounds (7500 dollars) including the monitors, there was no decision to make really.

As I keep the machine as an edit only terminal, I have a hassle free life with it, which is great. The only issues arise with bad rushes (had a big problem once which turned out to be hdv format changes on the tape).

For the price and it's reliability so far it was the right choice.

The mac would have definitely looked better!, and may probably even have performed better, but I'm still able to feed my family...which is the most important factor for me!!

I'm sure you can now get a Quad Core and more fancy bits for the same price, or even less! If you are interested in the UK company its

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk

They were excellent, and knew exactly what I needed once I specified it as an edit machine! Build quality superb, quick delivery and excellent support to solve a couple of minor issues on first start ups.

Thanks guys for your input. I'm staying with Vegas as I have invested all my time and effort into this software and what I cant do with it I will use After Effects etc....
I have looked at going down the Mac route but it's very expensive here in OZ and I can do the same on PC as what a Mac will do. Who knows one day I might have to go Mac.

I have sourced all my new components and this is what I'm doing.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHZ 1066mhz
ASUS S775 Quad core P35 motherboard
2 Gig RAM Corsair 800Mhz
160Gig Sata Drive for data
I have other Sata drives for storage
XP Pro
NVidia GeForce 7950 GT DVI and HD 512 Mb
Audio card, just a cheap one.

This should see me through for a while and it has'nt cost an arm & leg.

Cheers
Simon

About a month ago I got a new machine with the following:

Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, Socket 775, 32/64-Bit, Retail pack with fan

GA-P35-DS3P, Socket 775, Intel P35 Express Chipset, 1333MHz FSB, 4xDIMM DDR2, 2xPCIe-16, 2xPCI, 3xPCIe-1, 8xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, ATA, RAID, ATX

2x (4 altogether = 2mb) Kingston HyperX 1GB DDR2-1066 Non-ECC Kit CL5 1066MHz CL5 (5-5-5-15) Kit - two 512MB Modules

Sapphire HD 2400 XT Video Card, Radeon HD 2400 XT, 256MB, DDR3, PCIe-16, TV out, DVI, HDTV, CrossFire, Dual head

Raidmax X1 ATX Mid Tower Case, 520W PSU, Side Window, 3 fans, Silver/White

I already had an internal 400gb drive but decided to get another one - a Sata 2 as my primary one so as not to slow anything up. I also have a 500gb and a 150gb drive.

It goes like a rocket. Cut rendering on one project from 16.5 hours to 2hrs 10 mins.

Hi Renton,
Nice render times, how much did this cost to put together?

I will have a look at the Core 2 Duo E6850, 3.00GHz seems to be a bit quicker.

Cheers
Simon

All up I paid $NZ1560 assembled.

I didn't choose the bits. My son in law who is a techo just went to the www.ascent.co.nz site (a brilliant online supplier here) and went through and picked out the bits that looked the best for the price. We analysed the options as he did so. We didn't go for the absolute latest/fastest because of them being over priced at the mo.

The case has three case fans + the power supply fan and the best bit is they have blue lights on the fans!!! :-)

My old machine was a 1.7gb job.

Quad core is the way to go for me...check out the Dell outlet and HP. Quad core is twice as fast rendering as duo core.

I also agree that to suggest to someone to switch to MAC when they are asking about Vegas and windows based hardware is not quite appropriate, but I certainly understand it.

There are legions of FCP fans out there, virtually all my competitors use Macs.

Hey Renton,
that's a good looking machine.

Based on this article at Tom's Hardware [http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/12/pentium_dual_core/page3.html] I'm looking at a similar setup using a reliably overclocked E2160 running at 3.2GHz. Accomodating the 45nm processors allows a full upgrade path to the QX6800 quad's running at 3GHz (currently around US$1000 !).

I discovered the hard way the major role processor speed plays in Preview. The ol' P4 3.2GHz provided nearly 30fps preview, while an E24xx C2D with two processors at 1.8GHz was running 10-18fps preview rates, even though the FSB and memory speeds were 25% higher. Rendering and Preview are definitely two different processes.

Was hoping to get away with just upgrading the board, CPU and Ram, but it looks like I'll need a new vidcard supporting 16x PCIe. Then there's the question of power supply.

How quiet is the Raidmax 3 fan box?

I also recommend visiting the Dell Outlet store, particularly if you just want to plug it in, install your apps, and get to work. The XPS I had for a couple weeks was virtually silent. One drawback to them is the rarity of XP boxes.

While the XPS systems ARE nice, I found I got lots for my money with Dell when purchasing a Precision buisness class machine. The warranty alone on Precsions is fantastic, and tech support is much better than with most of their other machines (I don't know about support for the XPS but the precision techs know Raid, etc. and you get through so much faster. Even though I know hardware pretty well, sometimes I had questions about my system and they are just a phone call away.

I am running vegas 7e on a Quad Core(8cores) Mac with no issues booted in Windows XP. I love that I can use it with FCP Studio 2 or PC for Vegas.

Jon

wow, great setup Jon. By the way, I was wrong, and I'm sorry. I don't expect you to accept it, but at least it's been said. BTW, nice website.

I am running vegas 7e on a Quad Core(8cores) Mac with no issues booted in Windows XP. I love that I can use it with FCP Studio 2 or PC for Vegas.

Jon

Jon, watz yr setup on the mac pro? So u have FCPS2 together with Vegas8? I was considering that too but the mac pro is one expensive machine..

"How quiet is the Raidmax 3 fan box?" Scott Brickert.

It doesn't seem to be very noisy - at least I can live with it quite ok.

I can't record audio (something I've done a lot of in the past with my old set up) satisfactorily to the new computer though because of the noise.

Here's an $800 quad-core that has been offered with a $150 rebate three times already this fall - bringing the total price to $650!

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=592945

You might want to add some RAM, an external HDD or two, and a video card, but this is a very affordable PC to get your system started. I got it, and even before any of my planned upgrades, saw 6x (!) faster render times compared to my old dinosaur of a system.

For Vegas, quad-core is the way to go, and this PC shows that you don't need to break the bank to go quad-core.

I have a Quad core I paid $2K for it....while I agree on a video card, I don't even know if I'd bother to add RAM, what a great system for the money...I'd buy it in a heart beat. No it's not "perfect", but it will render quickly and preview great! What else do you need?

I am running vegas 7e on a Quad Core(8cores) Mac with no issues booted in Windows XP. I love that I can use it with FCP Studio 2 or PC for Vegas.

Jon

I thought Vegas only could use four cores ??
Like in Preferences - Video - maximum rendering threads = 4...

The $150 rebate ended Nov 21st:>(

I thought Vegas only could use four cores ??
Like in Preferences - Video - maximum rendering threads = 4...

But keep in mind that all that disc IO has its own Operating System thread. The OS will still have hefty overhead just to feed those cores the necessary data. An 8 core system might indeed be overkill though.... not like it hurts to have an extra quad core Xeon in the mobo. :-)

The $150 rebate ended Nov 21st:>(

Yes, but I was shopping around for awhile before pulling the trigger. The $150 rebate was offered at least 2 (and I believe 3) separate times over the past 2 months, so there's a decent chance the rebate will be back sometime in the coming weeks.

Quad-core processors are inexpensive now, and I suspect will only drop further after Christmas. I have nothing to back that up but it seems logical to me.

just found this http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?&langId=-1&storeId=10001&splCatType=1&catalogId=10051&productId=189498&cmArea=SC3:CG71:CL161746

Stuart
Thanks for the reply. I have never worked with vegas and only know premiere pro and fcp. I am curious how much your system cost you. I did look at a good editing pc but decided to try the mac. i am very happy with it,, might also be just the change from windows. I have found it more stable than windows but at this point I only edit photos and video on it. Maybe in another year I will start to have problems as I have heard other mac users have had but for now it is a clean machine. I did put an investment into it over 4k plus monitor but just wanted to purchase one machine for the next several years and it seems to be reliable at this point.

thanks ken

Hi Ken.

Not to turn this into a Mac/PC debate, but I use Vegas at home on a PC
and Premier on a Mac at work. I HATE the Mac and Premier !

I have more crashes and glitches on that Mac than on any PC, ever.
I am also not a fan of Premier. I can work much faster and easier in Vegas.

I never worked in FCP, but next week my primary worlplace will be installing
a new top of the line Mac with the full FCP suite. ( I didn't have a say in it )
Once I get my feet wet with that system, I'll chime back in and let you know how it compares to Vegas.

But with that being said.... I just upgraded to Vegas 8, and I'm also looking for a new PC. IMHO, you can't match the performance, price, and ease of use of Vegas running on a good PC.

JMHO,
Mike.

Please do get back with us. I would be extremely interested to know an experienced Vegas user's opinion of the new FCP.

I'm not much of a builder, and was recently in the market for a new system, so after reading a bit on the videoguys.com website, I decided to purchase an HP workstation. I didn't have the budget to invest in a new system so I went to the outlet and purchased a refurbished unit... it came out to be shy of $1,400usd incluiding tax, shipping and a free 19" lcd HP monitor...

It has 2 Dual Xeon Processors @ 2.00GHz, 2 gigs of memory, XP Pro... (dont get vista!!!) and 80gigs Hard drive... no raid, I just use externals... the video card, from what I read at Videoguys.com, does not have to be super powerful is a simple nvidia Quadro NVS 285 with 128mb of memory... so that's my setup... it's a really fast computer and it cut my render times dramatically. My previous setup was a dell dimension 5100 Pentium 4, 3ghz, 1.5 gigs of memory.. so yes, it was a big upgrade, and I think I got a good deal.

Glad your happy with your purchase. I looked at the Xeon's, but went with Q6600. I'm sure your system is MUCH faster than your old one.

Hi Mike,
I would love to see a comparision between the two NLE.

Things I would be interested are.
Time line, work flow approach,
Is it better having an extra preview screen to edit,cut.
Adding color,efx's
The audio time line, compressing,repairs,noise reduction.
How easy is it to do things that Vegas does?
Rendering.

Anything else I have forgot please add.

Cheers
Simon

HP Pavilion PC system A6150 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2GB 320GB +80GB pocket media drive GF 8400 DVD RW card reader Vista Home Premium

For anyone thats in the UK, the above system can be had for £448 at the mo which is an INCREDIBLE deal. The full spec of this PC is really good for the money. YES, you could upgrade it even further but, as a base, it's a corker.

If you just Google the detials above, the deal I'm talking about comes up at the top.

Looks good Alastair,
Wish they had something in Australia that cheap... oh well.

Cheers
Simon

Hi,
I am currently using a Compaq Presario with Vegas 6 and Particle Illusion 3. Needless to say it is really slow -particularly using PI3 in Vegas. I was recently offered a used Alienware Aurora 7500 computer with a dual core AMD processer. I looked on the Alienware site and that particular computer seems very fast and powerful but they mostly talk about using those computers for gaming. Would a computer for gaming work well for video? Does anyone use or have any info on them? Thanks for any help.

That was a fine computer in 2005, and still isn't bad, but you can purchase a Quad processor system for less than $1000, which would likely be twice as fast.

Yes it would work fine, but be sure to not overpay for a dated processor. The seller is likely selling it to upgrade to a faster processor, and since the primary tasks of Vegas depend upon your processor, I would just be careful. You can (as you may or may not know) purchase external HDs (500Gb for $100) so if the Alienware has nice hard drive that needn't be a reason to buy it either.

You also do not benefit much from a killer video card, as I just replaced a fairly high end card with a cheap one (not TOO cheap mind you) and see NO difference. Vegas just can't benefit from high end graphics.

I would like to add a hardware suggestion for those building a new workstation or who would like to lower the number of drives their data is spread across.

Samsung has come out with their new 1TB Spinpoint internal HD. Tom's Hardware tests show it to run extremely cool and while access times are average, transfer rates smoke and are close to a raptor. Excellent purchase for those of us needing lots of storage space. I have ordered one and if I like it will order another for backup for my backup. Two of these babies will replace four 500MB drives and will certainly simplify life, even if only temporarily.

If you need faster access times, the Barracuda equivalent of this drive would be a better choice.

I just noticed that the quad-core I bought for $650 after mail-in-rebate is now being offered for $600 after mail-in-rebate from Office Depot! I've been using it for a month now, and it seems to be a very capable system - particularly the Q6600 for quick renders on Vegas.

I paid under $2k for mine only months ago and thought I was getting a great deal!

Hey all

I just did alot of research for a new system. Value/performance being the object. here is what I came up with...

Run the Q6600 ($275) with Corsair XMS 800 memory.
Get a GA-P35C-DS3R gigabyte motherboard and overclock the processor from 2.4 to 3.0 ghz. Very easy and no heat issues even with the stock processor fan. Perfectly stable (see tomshardware.com for more info.)

Get an inexpensive nvidia card like 8800GT (if i recall.)

Use a good power supply. 650W

Once you get everything snapped together run the torture test in a program called prime95 but download the new beta version that will test all 4 processors on a quad core at the same time. Run it overnight. Temps of the processor should max at 65 celcius.

-Jonathan

Overclocking is nice, but not always reliable for rendering in my limited experience with overclocking, heat issues aside.

I'm NOT knocking overclocking or saying it wont work for rendering, just be careful not to invest in a Build Your Own and to expect overclocking to make it worth the extra work only to find out it doesn't work out. I must admit I was not an experienced overclocker when I overclocked my Pentium D, and while it worked at lower settings, I couldn't finish a render at the highest speeds, and the overclocked speeds that did work made so little difference it didn't matter.

I have found V8 buggy, and can't even imagine running it overclocked though if I had the ability I sure would try! My MOBO won't do it (Dell OEM).

I'm with you which is why I suggested a very conservative overclock. The same type of overclock that I've been running on my AMD dual core X2 for the last year and a half. Tomshardware overclocked the Q6600 to 3.3Ghz from 2.4. I'm suggesting 3.0Ghz as it requires almost no voltage increase to the chip and keeps heat issues well under control. The speed however is night and day. Of course you could spend twice as much for the next chip up and still run at lower speeds.

The article is here and I'm running the same setup as they do in the article: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/08/dual_vs_quad/

Other thing of note is that they recommend the quad over the dual for the money.

Last point is this. If you run the Prime95 torture test against your computer it will max out all the cores at 100% for the time period you specify. Vegas will most likely not run all 4 cores at 100% for 24 hours and will certainly not put the pressure that Prime95 does on your system memory and cpu. The program will fail if you have the least problem and you will know to throttle back. Whe overclocking is done right it's really nothing to be scared of.

I'm not a gamer but I can think of no more valid reason to overclock than video editing. The article above shows how the Intel Q6600 does when run at 2.4ghz vs 3.0ghz vs 3.2ghz vs. 3.3ghz when running video rendering applications. Not vegas but you will get a feel for the increases. For example in one of their video encoding test it took 2min9sec to encode a short piece of video at the standard 2.4ghz. Overclocked to 3ghz (from 2.4) it took 1min49sec. That's a difference of 20 seconds and over the corse of a long encode that will make a huge difference.

Overclocking is nice, but not always reliable for rendering in my limited experience with overclocking, heat issues aside.

I'm NOT knocking overclocking or saying it wont work for rendering, just be careful not to invest in a Build Your Own and to expect overclocking to make it worth the extra work only to find out it doesn't work out. I must admit I was not an experienced overclocker when I overclocked my Pentium D, and while it worked at lower settings, I couldn't finish a render at the highest speeds, and the overclocked speeds that did work made so little difference it didn't matter.

I have found V8 buggy, and can't even imagine running it overclocked though if I had the ability I sure would try! My MOBO won't do it (Dell OEM).