I have a 750 W and even that went bad in less than a year. But the replacement I ordered is also a 750 W (Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply). The one thing that tends to consume a lot of power is a gamer's video card. That is why I bought a low-power video card (Newegg.com - ZOTAC ZT-40602-10L GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card). It is an nVidia card, which is important because Vegas 10 supports CUDA, i.e., it will use the GPU for parallel processing, which speeds everything up by a factor of anywhere between 6-100 times (that is why I am surprised you opted for the 1600 memory which is only 1.20 times faster than 1333 and sacrificed the amount of memory, while you are talking about an ATI video card, which offers no speedup as opposed to an nVidia card which would make Vegas fly regardless of what memory speed you use).

The nVidia GPU (CUDA) offers parallel processing. That means that instead of doing the math on one pixel at a time, Vegas can work on a large number of pixels simultaneously (how large depends on which nVidia chip the video card has). So the difference in speed should be considerable. I am saying "should" because, as mentioned, I am still waiting for a new power supply, so I can only speak in theory when it comes to CUDA. But I have been computing since 1965, long before the personal computer made computing an everyday thing, so I do have some experience when it comes to computers. ;)

I repeat, it is better to have more memory than to have slightly faster memory. I would go with at least 750 W in the power supply. If you plan on having two video cards in the future, I would get a 1000 W power supply. And I would forget the ATI video card and get an nVidia card with CUDA. It does not have to be an expensive card (unless you are a gamer), just an inexpensive nVidia card with CUDA.

Also note that there are now two types of CUDA cards, version 1.xx (Tesla) and the new 2.xx (Fermi). Fermi can do 64-bit processing, while Tesla is a 32-bit family of chips. That is not the only difference, as Fermi can do other things that the old Tesla cards cannot. I do not know if Vegas is taking advantage of Fermi right now, but I certainly expect them to in the future. Of course, Fermi can also do everything Tesla can. ATI cards can do neither.

Spiro should select his power supply based on the amount required to run what will be in his case (plus external HDs of course) .........I have 1500 watts, I'm not going to tell him that is what he needs.

I agree 750 is better but I suspect he can get by with 600. He should use a PSU calculator to be sure. It is better to have too much than too little. I recommend Spiro should use a PSU calculator and base his decision on those results, and then get an extra 50-100 watts over that.

If this is a carry-over card, then it should be fine. If you were buying new though, I wouldn't look at an ATI lower than the 5XXX series (Evergreen chipset or better, not the RV710). The Evergreen chipset supports things like sub-32bit memory access, that really are needed

Or, if you want CUDA now, you can look at the nVidia cards. It has reasonable support right now, but it is specific to that one hardware vendor. However, Vegas support is minimal at best, only encoded AVCHD.

ATI, Intel and nVidia all have a decent level of OpenCL support now, and it's getting wider and tuned all the time. It offers many advantages over CUDA (support for SSE/SSE2/SSE3 and Multi-Procs), as well as a few disadvantages. Eventually though, OpenCL will surpass CUDA as a GPGPU standard.

Adam,

I'll definitely take a look at the Nvidia cards. I'll also look into getting an extra 12GB of RAM to max out the system. I thought I read somewhere that 12GB was more than enough to run video editing on Vegas, so I went ahead and picked up 12GB of the 1600 RAM. More is always better, so I'll see about getting that extra 12GB.

Jeff,

I definitely use the watt calculator to see what power supply I'll need and overshoot it by a couple hundred watts.

Thanks!

My current video card has two DVI ports, so will I need two of the ZOTAC ZT-40602-10L GeForce GT 430 (Fermi) cards to get dual monitor capability? I only have one monitor now (HP W2408 24" ), and I never really got into using Vegas at all with my first system, so I'm not sure how important it will be to have two monitors for basic editing. I've heard those who have used it cannot go back to a single monitor. I also don't have anymore room on my workstation for another monitor. Should I do whatever needs to be done to get a second monitor?

Thanks.

You do not need a second monitor. I've been editing full time for years now with a single monitor. Keep it simple. Your 24 inch is more than sufficient. I've had a 30" and used it with a second monitor...it was too much. I downsized to a single 24 and it is perfect.

I've got a 22 and a 24. The 22 is normally the full screen srgb external monitor.
I really cant go back to one now, especially when color correcting and pushing levels, if its a small preview (like on my laptop or imac) I miss things, then after rendering you see it and end up going backwards.
but thats just me, if your eyes are good enough to use a small preview, you're lucky, but i cant.
cheers guys.

I don't know Gerald. A small preview window is only necessary if you don't know how to resize your preview window, which I'm sure Spiro does. Two monitors is nice, but please let's remember Sprio has specifically said he is doing basic editing. I don't see the need to push bigger and better when he clearly doesn't need it. He also says he doesn't have room for a second monitor.

I edit full time 5 days a week with a single monitor with no issues. I personally like to keep the focus on what is in front of me, rather than having to turn my head all day long, but that is just me.

Two monitors are nice if you have room and the extra money, but certainly not necessary.

Below is a screen shot of my entire desktop, and I always keep my preview window at that size, even with a four camera edit.

No! The GT 430 supports two monitors at the same time (according to the specs). One is DVI, the other HDMI. Most DVI monitors also accept HDMI, or you could get a simple HDMI to DVI cable or adapter (e.g., http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/572493-REG/Iogear_GHDMIFDVIMW6_HDMI_Female_to_DVI.html).

If you have a good CPU (such as the 950), most folks find little benefit by using the GPU option in Vegas 10, as noted it this thread which appeared yesterday:

Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages

Also please note that Vegas 10 is slower than V9. However, preview is better for certain types of .MP4 clips - a moot point for me, as I always use Cineform intermediates.

Regarding 2 monitors: I used 2 for several years in my editing office where I stood up all day to do my work. A couple of years ago, I got tired of standing up all day and set up 2 terminals so that I could sit down some of the time. Doing so meant giving up one of my monitors - and I miss it.

For the final pass on a project, I still watch it full screen - I simply catch more flaws that way than I can with using less than full 1920x1080, especially such things as deinterlace artifacts . . .

Which video card? Even my cheap, low-power consumption GT-240 provides dual output. It's plenty fast for video editing, and for rendering, the GPU feature in V10 offers no advantage as I'm almost always rendering to Cineform, including the final. From there I can degrade the 60p down to DVD with TMPGenc, or to 24p .MP4 in Vegas (still pretty fast just with the nearly 4-ghz CPU and no FX at all)

Do you mean to tell me I can change the default layout? (O_O) LOL.
Im just playing Jeff :)
Im not saying you "need" a second monitor, just that before long I suspect most people would want one once they begin playing around with a few FX, layers, blend modes etc.
It just seems easier to me to be able to see my whole project all the time, with preview on a second monitor, rather than having to expand and reduce windows while previewing.

Another thing that is prob relevant, you are a professional, and no doubt your camera work is probably a lot better than mine and a lot of other beginners, I have a lot of white balance, levels, stabilization etc to fix up on my timeline, which I need to see, close up, if your footage is nearly perfect, straight out of the cam, I guess you may not need to preview as large or carefully.

This is a sample of the mess that i normally end up with, lol.

Still, to each their own. whatever works.
cheers Jeff

I've seen your videos, young man. They are extraordinary...I couldn't begin to touch them. On the other hand, as I said, he's doing basic stuff, that's all.

I rarely have to resize my windows, so it's not a lot of bother...but I do have to shift around a bit here and there. I use minimal effects and transitions...very little color correction.

I do weddings and corporate...if my settings are right I need to do very little fixing up. Not that I'm such a "pro", but I am getting to where I can do what I do in my sleep any more. Probably a bad thing...but it pays the bills.

I have another slight conflict I'm going to be dealing with once the components arrive to build the system. I regularly mix music in Cakewalk's Sonar mixing program, and I also make heavy use of Tascam's Gigastudio sampling program (horns, strings, percussion, etc.). Tascam has since stopped making the program and supporting it, so it will not run in Windows 7 (64bit). It does run in Win XP Pro, so I wanted to see if there would be any issues on the Video editing side of things if I were to have a dual boot system like this (Win7 64-bit for video, and win XP Pro 32-bit for mixing/mastering music).

I found the following link about how to make a dual boot system (apparently there is a free software called Gparted for creating the partition): Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP/Vista in three easy steps > Step 3: Install Windows 7 + Tips - TechSpot.

I guess once I build the new system I'll format the hard drive and install Win XP Pro 32-bit first, then use G-Parted to create the partition for Win 7 and then install Win 7 64-bit in that partition. I would assume that each OS would simply work fine within its limits, I'm just not sure if this would create any conflicts.

Thanks.

Well, my old AMD 6400+ is well worn and can't keep up with the 7D files very well. So I decided to join the buying party and bought a system yesterday:

Intel 950 on Asus Sabertooth MB,
GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) Superclocked,
Corsair Dominator 6 x 2GB 1600,
Corsair 750W supply,
OCZ RevoDrive SSD 120GB for OS;
2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black 6Gb Sata's for source data and render drives, and
housed in a Coolmaster HAF X RC 942 full sized tower case.

I'm really interested to see how the SSD works for the main drive and also hope 6 sticks of 2GB 1600 will work, although one of the posts earlier said no. A poster on Newegg said otherwise, so we'll see what happens. I only build a new system about every 4 years, so I hope it works well through 2015!

The only pain you will have is if you install 7 first, then XP. XP wont see 7, so it destroys your bootloader and you need to rebuild it manually or use Easy BCD or Vista Boot pro.
If Xp go's on first, when you install 7, 7 will make a 100MB partition at the front of your drive for the bootloader and other stuff.
As for conflicts, there are none. I always used to put XP at the back end of the drive and 64 bit 7 at the front since I wanted 7 to be at the fastest spin point. Of course this is only relevant on a platter drive, if you go SSD it doesnt matter, but if you go SSD, XP doesent support TRIM so you have other issues to fix up there.