Ready to put down, maybe, up to $300-ish on a new GPU to take advantage of, especially, h.264 preview acceleration. I'm starting to work with multiple layers of GoPro footage, stitching panoramas, as well as the more usual run of various dSLR & AVCHD codecs. I'm more concerned about preview than render, since my projects tend to be under 10 minutes...

Trying to wade through 100+ posts on various issues and successes, I'm wondering if someone who has been more involved can provide some guidance.

My takeaway is that the nVidia GTX460, 470, 560, 560ti, 560sc, and 570 are all in the ballpark, but Magnus warns elsewhere to avoid ASUS' GTX460.

Where's the best bang for the buck?

Primary editing system is Win7-64, i7-920, 12GB ram, Vegas Pro 11-64, 2-drive RAID-0 for media.

Thanks,
Seth

I'm also curious to see what input people have on this.

i bought zotac gtx550ti multiview. - 3 monitor connections!!!

speeds up everything (no measurements other than drumming fingers / playing best full ok now - not before).

as posted over @ scs:

connected 2 monitors via hdmi, and one by dvi (or display port if you want).

the two connected by hdmi give me ONE desktop spanning two monitors at 3840 x 1080 (all my monitors are hd res), and the third becomes an independent second monitor at hd res.

so, i have vegas over the spanned monitors and preview on the third.

the card certainly helps out with playback (full / best as opposed to prior preveiw best), and rendering is faster too. no measurements as yet.

my only caveat so far is i can happily spyder my 'second' monitor to calibrate it, but am at a lost to know how to 'spyder' spanned monitors?

over all a very happy vegemite.....

i got the GTX560Ti.. looking good!

Sean, save your money and get a new processor. You have a relatively slow processor. Unless you've got the 920 overclocked to 3.8 or something like that, it's my opinion your money would be better spent on CPU, not GPU. Again, if you're overclocking at 3.4 or greater, then keep what you've got.

You can get a faster Sandy Bridge processor, or wait till the new ones come out. After you've squeezed what you can from your processor, then you should look at the graphics.

The results are mixed with the GPU feature and you and I know that the CPU is critical. GPU acceleration is meant, IMO, to be an enhancement, not a replacement for the fastest CPU possible. Just food for thought.

I grabbed an Asus GTX Ti to support Vegas 11, Ive now put back in my trusty GT 240 (which is now supported after the update ),
The 560 was a power pig and with all the instability that seems to be centered around the GPU acceleration, it will sit on the shelf until the 2nd (3rd,4th ?) update when it all settles down and becomes stable.

Thanks for the comments so far - I appreciate people summarizing their experiences to-date.

Food for thought on a processor upgrade; thanks Jeff. I've been wondering about that. For my work I have to run a primary and a backup, and every couple of years the backup gets upgraded and becomes the primary. Maybe it's time to build a new one.

My current primary does have a 1200w power supply, lots of case cooling, but I take Gerald's point too. Of course, it might not be buggy for everyone, and I don't have a Fermi card on the shelf like he does. It does seem like Sony might do a second update sooner rather than later, continuing GPU bugfixes, but that's speculation of course.

However, even with a fine group of regular contributors writing on this thread (thanks!), it's apparent that there really hasn't been enough time to reach any consensus on where the most bang for the buck lies. I guess I"m thinking we're still in an early-adopter phase with GPU timeline acceleration, maybe I should wait until things become clearer... which is probably behind what Gerald is saying, too.

The thing is Seth, it's risky to invest $300 into a video card, as your results cannot be guaranteed to be any better than before. They might be, but if you're like some of us you will find you'll need to turn off the GPU accelation anyway. Or not. You won't know till you buy the card and try it out.

On the other hand, a faster CPU, like the fast Sandy Bridge chips, will without question give you much better rendering speed and preview performance, as the primary thing that affects those things is CPU speed, not GPU. Unless you're overclocking to 3.8 or whatever already, than maybe the card is worth a try.

If you've got $300 to throw around, and it won't hurt you too bad if it doesn't work out, then it would be cool to try. On the other hand, the i7 2600k 3.4ghz costs barely over $300. But to complicate things further the newer processors are about to come out. I personally would wait and see what is coming. I am also the idiot who just spent many $$$ on a new 980 processor and installed it the day before learning about the new upcoming processors, so I'm probably not a good one to advise anyone.

If you do get a new card, please report how it works out for you. For me, I've had to turn off the GPU feature, and still can't determine if the issue is my card or Vegas.

...On the other hand, the i7 2600k 3.4ghz costs barely over $300. But to complicate things further the newer processors are about to come out. I personally would wait and see what is coming...
Well, there always is something new coming down the pike. But, in this case, I can hold on a bit. Nothing is actually broken, I'm just not totally happy with preview when I get 5 AVC layers going, and it seems likely I might be going to 10 layers (panorama stitching).
...If you do get a new card, please report how it works out for you. For me, I've had to turn off the GPU feature, and still can't determine if the issue is my card or Vegas.
Ack. I didn't realize you too had to turn off GPU. Ouch.

You are right about something new is always coming, but the upcoming chips are next generation, I believe, which is the most significant type of CPU upgrade. That's why I was frustrated with my recent purchase.

always the problem - when to jump....

the new chips might be a new generation, but so will all the peripherals, such as m/b, etc.,

i think a great many people seem more concerned with the technology rather that mission - which is to either, amuse, entertain, sell, teach, or simply get your message across.

with all this new technology what i'm seeing is more and more ever spectacular eye-candy while the 'message / product' is lost beneath the twenty or so layers of video, text, etc., (not to mention a mushy, inaudible 'designer' sound track).

still, i'm hanging in here reading everyone elses experiences and happy enough having spent $180 on a video card that has increased both rendering / playback speed enough to make me think i can hang out for a couple more years ;-)

Leslie, the technology and speed many of us are seeking is often a business decision. In my case I have twenty eight 4 camera weddings that await editing. I convert each one to Cineform intermediates and go from there. Well I don't convert all of them, but virtually all of them.

For me it comes down to speed and the ability to multitask. I have only one PC, and that's the way I like it. Therefore, it needs to be fast and multicore. I routinely burn, and print DVDS and Bluray discs while I edit in Vegas and keep tabs on this forum, all at the same time. One burns, one prints, and as I wait for the burns to complete I am editing the next project. I attempt to do conversions while editing but Cineform doesn't like it. A dual processor setup might handle that, but I can't afford the cost of the motherboard.

You are correct that some of us, particularly the hobbyists, focus on minutiae and details that others don't. I don't much care about the ability to use GPU acceleration, never had high hopes for it. I have the fastest processor I could afford, and it handles everything fine. Time difference with or without GPU acceleration is so minimal it doesn't mean anything to me.

The real performance increase comes from the processor, not the GPU. But I am impressed with the results some are getting from their cards. Didn't work out for me, but hey, what can you do.

not a lot jeff, that's the problem, other than, of course, throw oodles of money at intel, gigabyte, et al ;-(

i can fully understand the pressure you're under (thankfully working mostly short form doco's isn't anywhere near as stressful as weddings).

however, i think i'd be approaching your dilemma from another angle (or two). i've ditched cineform in favour of mxf - much more reliable and robust - perhaps not for heavy duty compositing, but on the few 3 camera shoots i've edited it worked superbly (using cc / genarts fx / stabilizing / etc). i'd also be using a second networked pc (maybe a laptop) for running everything not connected with editing, incl. conversions and rendering, things that aren't THAT time critical etc.,

i'm of a mind (not scientific mind you!) that i prefer all possible power behind my timeline, and, having found for myself the advantages of gpu, using whatever speeds up that side of the production.

i'm quite aware that a number of people are still 'out' regarding the benefits of gpu, and others having endless problems incorporating it properly (NOT helped by scs's rather oblique and obtuse references to it), but i really believe that once we're over the initial 'teething' and bugs, it could prove of real benefit - certainly in my case it's been a clear winner in terms of playback....

anyway, wont keep you from your backlog - good luck and happy cutting ;-)

Leslie, I started using Cineform for purposes of resizing as much as anything, since I put most all my projects on DVD. Now, particularly for 1080i footage. As for my current batch of 720p projects, I'm not going to be converting any longer, as Vegas resizes 720 to 480 very well. I was also using it for better performance on the timeline, but with my new processor it seems fine as is now.

Anway, it's not the Cineform that holds me up, as I convert 6 hours of footage very quickly, just a few hours, and I usually do it when I'm go to bed or go out to lunch. Where I need power is in mulititasking and rendering and speed.

that makes sense....

what cameras are you using?

Two GH2s, a GH1 and a Canon XA10. Going to bed, see you tomorrow!

sleep, or hoped you slept, well....

now i understand the conversion factor.

I did. I just ran a test using GPU accleration on a Bluray project using Sony AVC vs Mainconcept mpeg 2.

Sony AVC was stupid slow with GPU on, Main Concept was about 15% faster without GPU. MainConcept was actually at a higher bit rate too and was still faster! Go figure.

I've been reading this tread to see if it will help me make the decision to upgrade my Vegas Pro 10e to VP11. Is it worth the upgrade? I ask because I currently run Win Vista 64bit on a quad core machine and for the most part can do everything i need fairly quick. I like Jeff can run multiple sessions of Vegas while burning dvd's, printing, etc. I also do all of this with graphics on the mother board. However, I was reading about the GPU and how VP11 utilizes it and was considering the upgrade for $139 (through the end of the month). I was also looking at buying the GTX550 ti ($80 bucks) or GTX560 ti ($240 bucks) card. I just wanted to get the experts take on:

1. whether the upgrade is a wise move given my current setup?
2. whether to invest in one of the above mentioned GPU cards. If so, which one?

Thanks,
Troy

Troy, just remember the GPU thing isn't working out for everyone. I'm having trouble with it and keep it turned off. But I just installed a Beta driver, and might try using the GPU feature again.

I wonder about which cards are best also, so I can't help with recommendation, but my GTX 460 SE is troublesome at this point, but some use cheaper cards than mine and are getting really good results.

Point is it can be a gamble, so just remember that before and after you spend your money. If your money is tight, just be careful. Personally from my experience I wouldn't but you might have really good luck.

I agree Jeff. I've heard great things about the gtx560 card, and even wondered if it would help my Adobe After Effects renders. However, I think I will spend the money somewhere else like sd cards, etc. lol

560 is certainly working out well for some people, and I agree with you it would probably be a very good choice.

I was just about to post my friend's benchmark results with Vegas 11 and a new eVGA 560ti nVidia GFX card in his six core Intel i7. However, despite the eVGA GPU monitor showing 36% GPU usage in Vegas11 and 10% in Vegas10, the rendering times are the same with or without GPU-only selection. Even overclocking the GPU by 20% didn't change the result. Vegas 11 seems to do the same AVC encoding to mp4 file job (same project file) nearly 3x as fast as Vegas10. Is anyone else seeing this improvement ? I'm upgrading to V11 !