The motherboard on the Dells is their own no frills brand/made for them. It does exactly what it says on the tin and not a thing more. I went for 6Gb of ram.

Jeff and Alastair, thanks for the replies. I had thought that perhaps you guys might not be running enough ram and that was why you were having issues but after hunting down your old post (below) I see you are running 12GB. Back in February, Jeff, you noted renders in half of real-time or close to "4x" as fast as your old C2Q system. Has your experience changed over the months? Are there other changes to your system or workflow that could be causing this? Thanks for any clarifications.

I was amazed with my Q6600 when I first built this system but have noticed over time that either my expectations have changed or my system is getting slower. I would imagine that it really is most likely a crossbreed of the 2. As my system can now do more, I push it harder and as I add more programs and hardware I also have more things running in the background taking available resources away from my active software. Of course upgrades could also be the culprit. Running software designed for a P4 or C2D on a C2Q system will always have pleasant results. Upgrading that software to newer versions that are made to run on C2Q or i7 will result in a plateau as the software begins to reveal limitations in the system design.

I think it would be really helpful to hear how your experiences have changed over the last 6-8 months and what may be affecting that change or perception of change and also if there are other changes to your system or workflow that might be affecting your experience.

Thanks.

Bryan, before I was talking about rendering m2t files, I am no longer shooting in HD, so I now render SD files, so an hour long project takes about 1/4 hour to render. I was also running at 3.8 gHz, but now run at 3.3. Clock speed is the variable for me. Re: ram I've never seen it affect much of anything with Vegas, but then I've always had enough of it.

I've read that Vista 64 is appreciably better than XP 64, at least as far as Avid Media Composer is concerned. I would think that also applies to other NLE's and uses as well.

Windows 7 is around the corner, as you observed. But I believe if you buy Vista 64 you get a free upgrade to W7.

Peter, thanks for the follow-up on that. Looks like it may be Dec this year or even as late as February 2010 before I upgrade so most likely it will be Win7 (64-bit) when I go that route. The client I was going to upgrade for has decided they are going to acquire a C2Qextreme or i7 64bit laptop for me to use for their projects so I will not be upgrading my system for awhile yet. This works out good because I just acquired some other equipment and was not looking forward to spending all this right now...

Jeff, Thanks for the follow-up. If I am understanding correctly, you did see a substantial benefit in rendering but are still not have a good experience with the editing preview window. Are you still shooting with the FX1000? I saw you noted AVCHD in a previous post, what format are you editing with? Are there other benefits you see in Vegas since switching to i7?

Bryan, preview is somewhat better with the i7, but when using effects it is only marginally better, not enough. That is why so many around here are still griping about there being no gpu acceleration available or hardware support such as is offered by other NLEs.

For example when I apply something such as vignette, which I use often, preview performance goes down a lot. Luckily I have used the effects I use so many times I already know most of the time they will look fine and I don't need perfect playback, but it would be nice. It's most frustrating when showing a clip on the Vegas timeline to a customer and the preview goes all stuttery during an applied effect.

I have given up using MB, I just use NewBlue, as it is so much easier to use in every way.

Rendering is dramatically better with the i7. I can actually say it is fast enough I don't need it to be faster, but then I shoot all SD as of now.

Epilogue: Studio XPS
 

I've been away from the forum for about 5 months, just catching up on the threads tonight and realized that I never posted my resolution to the funky eSATA port issue on my Dell Studio XPS 435MT box!

In short, it does work. Dell replaced my first computer which DEFINITELY had a faulty mobo. I was having issues with the second computer until I replaced the eSATA cable. There are subtle variations in the connector form factor that appear to make or break this technology. The second cable provided a snug fit (the first did not) and that did the trick.

However, I've found that the port only works when the external drive is powered on before the computer. The drive will not show up in "My Computer" otherwise. It's a less than perfect arrangement, but I've learned to work with it.

You can also try go to Device Manager. Right click on the device list to "Scan for Hardware changes". That forces to scan for the new harddrives. It works for me if my eSATA drive is not detected after plugged in.

Ya, my own experiments with eSATA proved mostly fruitless as well. We could almost tolerate that it required reboots (hardware scans didn't work), but then editors started reporting the drive would just disconnect in the middle of editing.

Anyway, with USB3 about to be released, there's no need for eSATA any more.

Dare I say this...my eSATA works as it should on my Dell XPS.....to a point.

I can swap drives and it recognises them no problem.
No need to boot first. That sounds like it has dropped back to plain old SATA for you.

The connectors are without doubt pitiful. You just have to look at them the wrong way and the connection drops out.

Also, I have my suspicions that eSATA is a resource hog as on occasion my pc can go as slow as treacle and I have to re-establish internet connections or open a fresh session as the current one will freeze.

Am hoping upgrading to 7 will smooth things out. Just need to find the time to do it!

new imac over the top?
 

I think this question is related to this thread--Apple is coming out with a new 27" iMac in November which has i7 chips (or i5, which are cheaper). I have not settled on what software to edit a big HDV documentary (30 hrs worth of tape and a script that won't be heavy on effects at all), but I'm leaning toward Sony Movie Studio 9 (platinum) or Vegas.
For either of these programs, is this overkill?
The more RAM the better?
Load it up or keep it lean?

I'm going with apple because, like I say, I'm undecided on software and like the option of going either way, even imovie or FC Express.

I'm on my SECOND i7 XPS Dell. e-sata works after "Scan for hardware". Recently however I started getting stuttery playback at all resolutions in preview. So I swapped the e-sata cable for boring 'ole USB and it played smoothely again.

It's also finicky about recognizing my Firestore and my fireWIRE HDD, restarts, scan for hardware etc.

I am happy to report however that my new Dell plays Solataire flawlessly on Vista.

Here's hoping W7 solves the HDD issues.

Question: We're out of luck with USB3 right? Or can it adapt to the older machines?

I went to the top level of Dell Tech support and never got this fix. I was talking to some big time tech guru in Mumbai, the guy gave me his direct line, personal email, and he was calling me every 5 minutes. Never got this fix. Finally Tom's Hardware clued me in and it worked...sort of.

Taking the i7 and Win7 plunge
 

Well, I have the parts on the way and am taking the i7/Win7 plunge.

System specs:
*EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR LGA1366 X58 SLI LE motherboard
*Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield processor 2.66 GHz
*12 GB Corsair DDR3 1333 SDRAM
*Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate edition
*2x Hitachi Deckstar 2 TB HDD (Asset Drives)
*1x Hitachi Deckstar 320GB HDD (system and program drive)
*ULTRA X4 Modular 850W power supply
*Ultra eXo Aluminum case with integrated powerbar

Cannibalized from my old system
*2x NVidia GT 220 1GB video cards
*2x Hitachi Deckstar 1 TB drives (Asset drives)
*Pioneer BDR-203 Blu-ray burner
*Lacie Firewire 800 PCI card
*Lacie e-Sata Card PCI-e
*I/O Gear e-Sata/Sata II interface card

I am pretty excited about this upgrade. For those of you running the 920, mine is the retail and ships with Intel's cooler. Any thoughts on the stock cooler?

I can't remember what I did with the stock cooler. I put on a bigass Vigor Monsoon Newegg.com - Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler Socket 1366 Ready - CPU Fans & Heatsinks .