Curious as to whether we have any Intel Core I7 users yet?

If we do, how are you finding your preview is compared to your old system.

I am a little confusedf. Does core I7 come in both dual and quad configurations?

I am a little confusedf. Does core I7 come in both dual and quad configurations?The current Intel® Core™ i7 (http://compare.intel.com/pcc/default.aspx?familyID=1) chips are quad core only.

I just built a Core i7 system with 3gb RAM and the 2.6 ghz processor. I had a 945D Dual Core with 4gb previously.

I am encoding VBR 2 pass SD DVD using TMPGenc frameserved from Vegas and Premier Pro CS3 with the Video Noise Reduction filter in TMPGenc enabled. Source is 1440x1080 HDV.

On my old system it would take around 11 hrs to encode 90 Mins of video.

Core i7 did it in under 2hrs with same settings. Not too shabby!!!

/billw

Thats pretty darn impressive!

Just built an i7 machine. Motherboard is the Asus P6T deluxe with the 920 (2.66ghz) entry level chip. 6GB of Patriot 1333 memory. Using stock cooling. Overclocked the processor to 3.8Ghz and runs perfectly stable at 100% load for hours.

Machine is very very fast. I'll let you know how renders compare to my Q6600 Quad core chip as soon as I have time.

Just built an i7 machine. Motherboard is the Asus P6T deluxe with the 920 (2.66ghz) entry level chip. 6GB of Patriot 1333 memory. Using stock cooling. Overclocked the processor to 3.8Ghz and runs perfectly stable at 100% load for hours.

Machine is very very fast. I'll let you know how renders compare to my Q6600 Quad core chip as soon as I have time.

VERY interested to see how it compares. Your spec is what I am considering, and you current setup is what I have.

That is unbelievable. Now I REALLY regret my recent "upgrade"!

That is unbelievable. Now I REALLY regret my recent "upgrade"!

The upgrades can go on and on Jeff... I remember your system build and I think you're probably doing pretty well. If memory serves correctly, despite you buying a new Fx1000 aren't you still doing most of your editing work in DV? I can't imagine that lasting very long... I7 is pretty expensive right now.. not so much the chips, but the mobo and memory... another year will probably bring in a new set of enhanced i7 chips at faster speeds with mobo's and memory coming far down... when it matures to that point, it'll probably make sense to upgrade once again... but it will probably be a fairly cheap upgrade for a large performance benefit..

Jon

My regret is about having made a less-than-intelligent and ill-informed purchase.

My new setup does run great, but I only do major upgrade every 1-2 years so this was a blunder on my part.

It is not just a matter of wanting "faster", etc. The i7 chips seem to be almost custom designed for Vegas and for video in general. As you know, these processors chew up video and spit it out. The i7 processor is a huge leap forward, and I believe $500 for the entry level chip is a phenomenal price.

Spent $300 on a motherboard and $200 on DDR2 RAM for a total of $500, all to support Socket 775 platform which is now outdated. This all came within two weeks of purchase of my MOBO.

Had thought the i7 was much farther off than it was; I just didn't see anything about the imminent release of these chips...really caught me off-guard.

While there is something to be said for waiting, in this case I'm not so sure. The new Gigabyte boards are great, and so far the reviews for this chip are nothing but glowing.

I just built a Core i7 system with 3gb RAM and the 2.6 ghz processor. I had a 945D Dual Core with 4gb previously.

I am encoding VBR 2 pass SD DVD using TMPGenc frameserved from Vegas and Premier Pro CS3 with the Video Noise Reduction filter in TMPGenc enabled. Source is 1440x1080 HDV.

On my old system it would take around 11 hrs to encode 90 Mins of video.

Core i7 did it in under 2hrs with same settings. Not too shabby!!!

/billw

Bill,

How is your playback. What I am hoping you will say is that you have several HD clips on the timeline with effects added and you are getting a steady 25 fps playback (in red at bottom of preview screen) in BEST fULL.

Following is a TYPICAL quote from a newegg customer regarding the $298 version of the i7 processor:

"This thing is a beast. The jump from my Q6600 to the i7 was huge. I have this thing running at 3.5Ghz on the first try and on the stock cooler with temps 33 degrees idle and 58 load. I'm not sure how far this chip will overclock but 3.5Ghz with a small voltage jump (may not have even needed the extra voltage) on the Intel stock cooler is awesome. The Q6600 at 3.5Ghz on the stock cooler would have caused global warming!"

This chip has hyperthreading. It does it all. It overclocks better than the Q6600. This is the chip to buy whether you overclock or not.

The Q6600 and the rest of that series are finished; they just don't know it yet. The phrase "dead man walking" comes to mind at this point.

The only issue is not if you should buy an i7, but when. The prices for these are insane. I would be pefectly content with the base model; it tears the Q6600 to shreds.

Out of 36 reviews for this chip, 35 of the reviewers gave it 5 eggs (for those that don't shop at Newegg that is the same as 5 stars or perfect). One reviewer took off points because they didn't like the heatsink.

Aside from many complaints regarding the heatsink there is nothing to be found but huge praise for this chip, particularly gamers and video editors. This chip was made for us.

Regarding the hyperthreading one reviewer says his shows up as 8 cores. With overclocking I can't even imagine the performance.

Congratulations to all who have made this move...

As Alastair said, can't wait to hear how it affects previewing.

Thanks for that post Jeff... I can picture you now crying in your milk over your recent upgrade all the way out here in California.... Your post is now making me rethink if I want to invest in a new system.. I think I'll probably do it sometime in late January... I'd be happy just to get an i7 at 3Ghz...

And I will second the request to find out how this chip is effecting Vegas playback performance because, as I've mentioned in the past, I can live with rendering times, let's face it I have to eat and sleep at some point so while not render during those times? But playback performance while I'm working is a legitimate concern for me and I've not been very happy with Vegas in this regard while manipulating HDV even at half the frame size..

Jon

Did I hear that if you bought the Dell system with the lower (2.6?) 7i chip that you could not overclock it?

Bill,

How is your playback. What I am hoping you will say is that you have several HD clips on the timeline with effects added and you are getting a steady 25 fps playback (in red at bottom of preview screen) in BEST fULL.

I'll check this out tonight and report back to you. My playback of a single 23.976 HDV clip was rock solid at 23.976, using PREVIEW/FULL. I will try again with BEST/FULL. What kinda of effect would you like me to thow on the clip?

/BILLW

Thanks for that post Jeff... I can picture you now crying in your milk over your recent upgrade all the way out here in California.... Your post is now making me rethink if I want to invest in a new system.. I think I'll probably do it sometime in late January... I'd be happy just to get an i7 at 3Ghz...

And I will second the request to find out how this chip is effecting Vegas playback performance because, as I've mentioned in the past, I can live with rendering times, let's face it I have to eat and sleep at some point so while not render during those times? But playback performance while I'm working is a legitimate concern for me and I've not been very happy with Vegas in this regard while manipulating HDV even at half the frame size..

Jon


Jon,

If you'd like to send me a small (30 second?) 8.0c project, I'll load it up and tell you how it looks. If you don't have a yousendit account (or something similar), they offer a 14 day trial.

/BILLW

I'll check this out tonight and report back to you. My playback of a single 23.976 HDV clip was rock solid at 23.976, using PREVIEW/FULL. I will try again with BEST/FULL. What kinda of effect would you like me to thow on the clip?

/BILLW

I think there is a render test clip somewhere that was used as the benchmark for us Vegas guys. Somebody care to point it out.

Dell have indeed launched systems with these cpu's and I doubt you could build one for less. REALLY tempting.

Corei7 920 2.66Ghz
MS Vista 64bit!
Free Creative VADO Camera (likely to be junk)
6GB Tri Channel Memory
2 x 320Gb 7200 SATA Hard Drives setup in RAID0
256Mb ATI Radeon HD3650 (anybody know how this rates for MB?)
6 x Blu Ray Burner Drive
Keyboard and Mouse

Comes in at £765 delivered. Prior to this, best I have seen for just a MOBO, cpu and 3Gb of memory was £613, so thats a heck of a lot extra for not a lot.

I'll check this out tonight and report back to you. My playback of a single 23.976 HDV clip was rock solid at 23.976, using PREVIEW/FULL. I will try again with BEST/FULL. What kinda of effect would you like me to thow on the clip?

/BILLW

Awomse.. color correction! Also, what resolution are you previewing the image at?

Thanks Bill,

Jon

Creative Vado Pocket Video Cam Video, Camcorder Reviews on CNET.co.uk (http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/camcorders/0,39029968,49297366-1,00.htm?autoplay=yes)

Review of the Creative Vado mentioned above. As expected....don't get too excited!

I think there is a render test clip somewhere that was used as the benchmark for us Vegas guys. Somebody care to point it out.

NEW Rendertest-HDV.veg (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=526098&Replies=270)

Quad core render times initially were around the 2 min. mark.
Latest results are as follows.
Win Vista 64 Intel core i7 940 @ 2.93 GHz 6G ram Vegas 8.0c - 1:42
Win Vista 64 Intel core i7 940 @ 2.93 GHz 6G ram Vegas 8.1 - 1:08

Can you say WOW!!.
I know what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas :-)
If my wife sees this, it'll be over my dead body :-(

I think there is a render test clip somewhere that was used as the benchmark for us Vegas guys. Somebody care to point it out.

Dell have indeed launched systems with these cpu's and I doubt you could build one for less. REALLY tempting.

Corei7 920 2.66Ghz
MS Vista 64bit!
Free Creative VADO Camera (likely to be junk)
6GB Tri Channel Memory
2 x 320Gb 7200 SATA Hard Drives setup in RAID0
256Mb ATI Radeon HD3650 (anybody know how this rates for MB?)
6 x Blu Ray Burner Drive
Keyboard and Mouse

Comes in at £765 delivered. Prior to this, best I have seen for just a MOBO, cpu and 3Gb of memory was £613, so thats a heck of a lot extra for not a lot.

Hmm.. I've hunted around the Dell site and was unable to locate such a cheap beast... That's an incredible price though considering it includes a blu Ray burner...

Jon

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System (http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/print_summary_details_popup.aspx?~lt=print&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&fb=1&kc=DRSSX004&l=en&oc=D12SX08&rbc=D12SX08&s=dhs&leadtime=&showleadtime=False)

Not the exact spec I quoted. Do a search on their site for i7

The Dell Online Store: Build Your System (http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/print_summary_details_popup.aspx?~lt=print&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&fb=1&kc=DRSSX004&l=en&oc=D12SX08&rbc=D12SX08&s=dhs&leadtime=&showleadtime=False)

Not the exact spec I quoted. Do a search on their site for i7

Yeah, here in the States the "Studio" series systems are only shipping with Core 2 Quads still.. When I try to price a Sudio XPS, the prices jump dramatically into the $1500 range..

Awomse.. color correction! Also, what resolution are you previewing the image at?

Thanks Bill,

Jon

Here you go - Color Correction PLUS Levels Adjust on the source clip, which was 1080i 29.97fps. Rock solid on preview. See attached screenshot.

Could the i7 be the Holy Grail that Vegas users have been looking for. Your rock solid frame rate looks very promising.

Could the i7 be the Holy Grail that Vegas users have been looking for. Your rock solid frame rate looks very promising.

Nah Alistair, you want one of these!!!!!! :-)

At "250 times the speed of a normal PC" and ONLY £4000 - £8000 (read £400 to £800 within 3 years?) it's all getting within reach.

World's first personal supercomputer unveiled - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/3564435/Worlds-first-personal-supercomputer-unveiled.html)

OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

It's all very strange. CPU's went up in stages for ages then it seemed to hit a ceiling. They then started going dual core then quad.

Now the i7 has completely smashed and surpassed anything that is out there by a mile, and now stuff like this is coming.

Exciting times we live in!

You can actually buy one here.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/personal_supercomputing.html

960 Parallel cores!

NEW Rendertest-HDV.veg (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=526098&Replies=270)

Quad core render times initially were around the 2 min. mark.
Latest results are as follows.
Win Vista 64 Intel core i7 940 @ 2.93 GHz 6G ram Vegas 8.0c - 1:42
Win Vista 64 Intel core i7 940 @ 2.93 GHz 6G ram Vegas 8.1 - 1:08

Can you say WOW!!.
I know what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas :-)
If my wife sees this, it'll be over my dead body :-(

hi Mike

Amazing difference in render speed! What spec was your Quad core build?

Keith

Keith, I have a QX6700 and it came in at 01:59.

Have caved in. All this info was too much to resist.

Talked them down to £720 inc vat and deliv and an uprated dual DVI graphics card, 2 x 320Gb in RAID0 and 6Gb of RAM. And YES, that price does include a Blu Ray Burner and a 64 bit O/S, and a free Creative Video Camera(go for around £70 on Ebay). Going to run 1Tb storage drives via eSATA.

Review

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16444&page=1

Have caved in. All this info was too much to resist.

Talked them down to £720 inc vat and deliv and an uprated dual DVI graphics card, 2 x 320Gb in RAID0 and 6Gb of RAM. And YES, that price does include a Blu Ray Burner and a 64 bit O/S, and a free Creative Video Camera(go for around £70 on Ebay). Going to run 1Tb storage drives via eSATA.

Review

HEXUS.net - Review :: Dell Studio XPS: Intel's Core i7 system for £699 : Page - 1/10 (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16444&page=1)

That's fantastic... Do tell when you receive it how it performs for you...

Just ordered a water cooled Boxx i7 system with the 3.2 Ghz chip and 6 GB of memory. The water cooling should permit the chip to overclock significantly - I hope. I got it primarily for 3D rendering (Cinema 4D, Vray, Fry Render) but am confident it will also be a huge improvement for video.

I'll find out for sure about two weeks hence when the machine arrives for Xmas.

The thing that impressed me most about the chip was that it seems to offer (via overclocking) a big performance boost for single/double threaded apps that don't take advantage of high levels of multi threading.

In particular, I run the RealFlow fluid simulator and they only support two threads unless you pay a bunch extra for a license that opens up higher levels of multithreading.

I hope I can say goodbye to 24 hour renders of a single image. But in reality I'll probably just crank up the resolution or add more lighting effects and get better results for the same 24 hours.

The boys at Boxx do not play around. Their configurations seem to be as good as it gets.

Yes, they seem to know what they're doing. Pretty familiar with most of the 3D apps. I've talked with them at SIGGRAPH a couple of times and was favorably impressed. This will be my first Boxx system.

Hello,

I too have just ordered the Dell Studio XPS Core i7 - the base spec (2.66GHz chip, 6GB RAM, 640GB hard drive, Vista 64), £683 including VAT and delivery. Also ordered their 2904W monitor for £183 - 1920x1080 24" monitor, seemed too good a bargain to miss, will use Vegas' preview to second monitor for full-HD preview on that.

Alas, delivery date is only given as "by or before Jan 6th" and customer support tell me that they've been rather overwhelmed by the demand.

Upgrading from a single-core Pentium 4 2.5GHz, this is going to be one heck of a difference!

Regards
David Johns

Going from a Pentium 4? Be careful, your head might explode after you see it in action. At the least you will have to pinch yourself.

Hello,

I too have just ordered the Dell Studio XPS Core i7 - the base spec (2.66GHz chip, 6GB RAM, 640GB hard drive, Vista 64), £683 including VAT and delivery. Also ordered their 2904W monitor for £183 - 1920x1080 24" monitor, seemed too good a bargain to miss, will use Vegas' preview to second monitor for full-HD preview on that.

Alas, delivery date is only given as "by or before Jan 6th" and customer support tell me that they've been rather overwhelmed by the demand.

Upgrading from a single-core Pentium 4 2.5GHz, this is going to be one heck of a difference!

Regards
David Johns

Hi David,

Hopefully we can compare happy notes!

Guys

I'm not knocking the Dell. It will work great for you but building the system or buying a system with the Asus motherboard really is the way to go. You are leaving alot on the table if you don't overclock this chip. I'm at 3.6Ghz (3.8 ran fine but I backed it down just for good measure) on a 2.66 chip at only the cost of figuring how to overclock it in the bios. The machine will run at 100% utilization for as long as I like with no issues on the stock intel fan.

You may think this is going to blow things up but I've been running the Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0Ghz for a long long time with no adverse effects. This i7 chip is much better at overclocking than even the q6600.

Just wanted to throw that point out there.

Guys

I'm not knocking the Dell. It will work great for you but building the system or buying a system with the Asus motherboard really is the way to go. You are leaving alot on the table if you don't overclock this chip. I'm at 3.6Ghz (3.8 ran fine but I backed it down just for good measure) on a 2.66 chip at only the cost of figuring how to overclock it in the bios. The machine will run at 100% utilization for as long as I like with no issues on the stock intel fan.

You may think this is going to blow things up but I've been running the Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0Ghz for a long long time with no adverse effects. This i7 chip is much better at overclocking than even the q6600.

Just wanted to throw that point out there.

Absolutely agree, however, you can't argue with the Dell price. With what you save, you could buy a clockable mobo and still have a LOT of change.

Does it cost hat much more to have one built?

Does it cost hat much more to have one built?

I priced up the same spec as I am paying £720 for, and hit £1200 and thats without all the grief and time of building/configuring and installing drivers (once you find the 64 bit versions). The Dell deal was a no brainer in my book,

I'm not knocking the Dell. It will work great for you but building the system or buying a system with the Asus motherboard really is the way to go. You are leaving alot on the table if you don't overclock this chip.

You may think this is going to blow things up but I've been running the Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0Ghz for a long long time with no adverse effects. This i7 chip is much better at overclocking than even the q6600.

Of course, that's absolutely fine if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't have the first idea how to overclock anything and I'm not into building PCs from scratch. I'm sure I could do so but it would take so much of my time researching what to do as to make it an illogical decision when I can buy the Dell pre-built and tested in a matter of seconds.

Speaking of which - great excitement this evening as I note these magic words on the Dell order tracking page:

"Your order has been sent for delivery."

Woohoo! Roll on Monday!

Regards
Dave

Again, corrrect me if I am wrong, you would have to buy another MoBo and trade it out in the Dell system if you wanted to overclock it? Probably have to change the power supply and cooling also?? I am a total neophyte at computer building, although I've upgraded a few.

Again, corrrect me if I am wrong, you would have to buy another MoBo and trade it out in the Dell system if you wanted to overclock it? Probably have to change the power supply and cooling also?? I am a total neophyte at computer building, although I've upgraded a few.

Yes, I wouldn't try to overclock a dell system and I certainly wouldn't try to swap out critical components such as motherboard, etc, etc. Their systems are pretty well built and once you pull off the case, I think you'll agree that system modifications such as a mobo swap are risky and difficult. Why the need to overclock? You may be able to eek out a 5-15% speed improvement but at the potential cost of system stability and longevity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing so, but if you are not exactly experienced with doing it, I think you are definately best leaving it alone. This frankly is analogus to modifying your car with new headers, exhaust, computer chips, etc, etc, etc.. Yes, it can work out, but in most cases, leaving the complete system alone the way the designer originally intended it has merit....

Jon

Oh, and let me add one more thing here.... And I'm speaking as somebody who HAS overclocked my systems in the past and have *always* built my pc's...

System overclockers mainly do so for sport... The time system overclockers GAIN with the performance increase will rarely ever make up for the time SPENT going through all the benchmarking, stability testing (burn-in), system configuration, cost of equipment upgrades such as better coolers, fans, etc, etc... People typically overclock as a hobby with the benefit of having a faster computer.....

To get 15% more speed in your Vegas renders you may spend countless hours and money to reach it. Heck, you might as well just buy the next fastest processor.

There have been times I've applied a very mild overclock to my system by way of a few BIOS settings that I knew were extremely conservative and my existing hardware would easily handle it. You may not yield the highest performance gains of overclocking, but you will get a small speed benefit while most likely not sacrificing reliability with the least amount of time involved with doing it.

Jon

Terry, the answer to your question is no, you cannot swap out Dell MOBO or power supply. They are not standard sizes, and are made deliberately so they cannot be swapped out.

Dell connectors used are also proprietary and non-standard.

Though I build my own, I don't recommend building your own unless you have time for a new hobby. The research is lengthy, the potential pitfalls are many. In general it can be very trying.

The potential for increase in performance is huge with the i7 chip. I personally wouldn't consider a non-clockable i7 system at this point.

Another way to put it is that Dell components are purposely non-standard to keep people from buying components on the open market instead of buying through Dell.

I don't think Dell tries to scr-w people on price, or they wouldn't have been able to build their business to its current level, but they definitely want all possible sales revenue to flow through them for options/upgrades etc.

Another way to put it is that Dell components are purposely non-standard to keep people from buying components on the open market instead of buying through Dell.

I don't think Dell tries to scr-w people on price, or they wouldn't have been able to build their business to its current level, but they definitely want all possible sales revenue to flow through them for options/upgrades etc.

Well, I'd say this is about half true..

With virtually any Dell system you can add the following:

CPU Upgrade
Hard Drive
Video Card
CD/DVD Rom Drive
Memory
Any other Add-on Card, etc..

So that pretty much covers about 90% of what somebody might want to add to their computer. What you probably would have a very difficult time doing would be to replace a mainboard... So let's not give Dell too hard a time and throw them to the wolves as protecting their investments with proprietary hardware... It's not like they are Apple!!! :)

Jon

Mine arrived today. Wont get a chance to set it up for a week or so as I need to clear off some projects.

Anybody got a clue what the centre port on my graphics card is?

LHS-DVI
RHS-HDMI
Centre-Who Knows?

That's Dells Display Port in the middle. I have one on my Dell 2408WFP Monitor. It's a bit like (yet) another variant of HDMI I think and the cables look quite similar (BUT are not interchangeable). The port on the right is HDMI. Maybe someone makes a conversion lead or plug as it's basically a digital display connection.

I just use the DVI plugs so can't help further. Why do manufactures keep changing these things! (Apple are just as bad with their latest itteration of their own display plugs).