buying new computer for Vegas — RAM, CPU, etc.

[John Rofrano]

> -Best Buy wants to sell me more computer than I think I need ($600-$700 for quad core, 4gb RAM, 500 gb HD); looked online (HP, I think), and they did too.

If you want to edit video, nobody can ever sell you more computer than you need because video editing will demand all the computer that you have to give. I realize that you are not using HD now but what if someone sees how good you are getting with this and buys you an inexpensive HD camera for your birthday? What do you do then? Buy another new computer? Dual Core is 4 year old technology which is a lifetime in computer years. I wouldn’t but anything less than a Quad Core. When it comes time to render your SD project you will be glad you did.

The most important thing is to get a second hard drive for your projects. You do not want to be capturing and rendering to your C: drive. Buy a 1TB 2nd hard drive after the fact for all of your video and things will perform better. 4GB of memory is fine. Windows 7 64-bit is the preferred OS to make use of all that memory.

As for Best Buy vs on-line HP… Best Buy seems to sell things at list price (despite their name they are rarely the “best” place to buy). They are usually the most expensive dealer in town but the trade-off is that you get to touch the product before you buy and you get to speak to real people. Buying on-line will usually get you more PC for your money but you are on your own to make a selection. Your choice.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jerry Norman]

jr, I recently read an After Effects post making the argument that if you have 8 cores, you should consider getting 32GB ram. The point was that when editing HD and spreading it across multiple cores, each core will want to use 2GB just for the video, and the other processes that are distributed across the core should be provided with 2GB headroom. While this is certainly way beyond what the OP needs, I would appreciate your insights regarding how much ram an I7 hyperthreaded quad (8 render threads) should have. The reason I ask is we frequently see recommendations to cut Vegas 9 back to one render thread because of stability issues. Could the stability issue be because we might typically only have about .75GB ram per thread (eg, 6GB total ram)?

Jerry

[John Rofrano]

Jerry, I have my workstation set up with 4 cores and 8GB of memory because I too have used the rule that you should have 2GB for each core. I agree this is clearly more than what the OP needs. The i7 is a different story because it uses 3 channel memory so you need to add memory in multiples of 3 not 2 which is why the next size after 6GB is 12GB. I couldn’t say if this is the cause of any instability issues because I have 8GB for 4 cores and have no issues but that doesn’t prove anything. I have an extremely stable motherboard, memory, cpu combination which is another reason why I haven’t upgraded to an i7 yet (why tempt fate). 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Steve Oder]

Good afternoon, Rebecca…

Hopefully we can help you figure out the best PC for your needs and budget.

Without answers to certain questions like the ones below, I can only make some general suggestions. The more you let us know about what you plan to use this system for, the more specific we can be.

– is this a Single-purpose system used ONLY for editing, or a ‘daily Driver’ that is also used for editing?

– which flavor of Vegas will you use: Video Studio or Vegas Pro?,

– Is this system for Home video editing, or for professional video business output?

But for now, I’ll give you my two cents worth, based on assumptions that the PC is for all-around daily use that includes editing home/family videos using Vegas Video Studio.
You have already eliminated the self-built category, which narrows things down, and leaves us with 3 major possibilities:

1. Mass-Market retail PCs (HP/CompaQ, Gateway/e-Machines, etc.)

2. Build-to-order systems (Dell/Alienware, HP/CompaQ, Gateway/e-
Machines, and a thousand smaller companies.)

3. Buy the parts and have someone else assemble them.

1. MASS-Market PCs
When looking at mass-market PC’s, you should be wary of a few things.

A. “Bundling” schemes that try to sell you 1-3 old technology at last week’s prices. Most retail PCs ship from the manufacturer with at least a mouse and keyboard. Some include the monitor, and some even ‘throw in’ speakers. But when you see a PC included in a “package deal” with a printer, speakers, monitor, lots of software, etc., what you are probably getting is a PC that is discontinued or near the end of its production life. The store puts together a bundle of peripherals and support items with the PC to offset the age or lower performance of the PC to make the deal better. For your situation, it probably isn’t.

B. “Upgrade Optimism” on the part of salespeople at retail stores, who may tell you that you can upgrade later to better graphics, more RAM, additional storage drives or add-in cards without any fact checking.
As with anything else, this is your hard-earned at stake, so DO NOT TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT. Ask to see the inside of the case to check for the required Video card slot, Power supply Output Power rating, Number of RAM slots (and how many are available), number of available drive connectors, available drive mounting space, and add-in card slots on the mobo.

C. Upgrade difficulty due to proprietary OEM (original Equipment Manufacturer) parts: Most makers of mass-market PCs (HP/CompaQ (all one company now) and Gateway/e-Machines) do this to allow them to offer higher-power CPU/RAM/Storage at a lower price. It is part of reality of the mass-retail PC market and it’s razor-thin profit margins. Usually the problem revolves around “special edition” Motherboards and “*just* enough Power” power supplies.
In my experience, HP/Compaq and e-Machines/Gateway systems bought off-the-shelf at retail stores generally offer limited upgrade potential – This isn’t a defect, it just isn’t what they are designed for.

The motherboards are often scaled-down versions of a decent board from a reputable maker. The PC maker orders them with reduced capabilities for less $$/board. Typical things I have seen ‘left out’, are slots for high-performance graphics cards, fewer connectors for additional drives, fewer RAM slots, etc.

PC makers also routinely include power supplies that produce *just* enough output power for the original components, making add-ons like Graphics cards tricky or impossible without a PSU upgrade.

I guess the lesson here is that if you plan to buy a pre-built PC and add to it, MAKE SURE the motherboard and Power Supply will allow for those additions.

D. CRUDWARE: Almost every mass-market PC I have seen over the past several years has come with software pre-installed that you may or may not want. This too is done to reduce the manufacturer’s cost, since they are paid by the software companies to include these apps. Yes, antivirus & security software is a must, but the pre-installed time-limited trials will require an extra cash layout in a few months to keep them running. The same is true of the MS Office Trial-ware. So be ready to uninstall stuff you already know you don’t want. If you uninstall it before you ever even open the program, it will uninstall much more completely and cleanly.

2. Build-to-Order: These systems can be more expensive than the Mass-Market types, but they generally offer more choice in the PC you get initially (giving you more of what you do want and less of what you don’t), and they tend to be more upgrade-friendly. Dell/Alienware, HP/CompaQ, and Gateway/e-Machines are popular vvendors. And Systemax PCs from TigerDirect.com/Circuit City/Comp-USA have worked well for friends of mine.

3. Buy parts and have them assembled:
If you can find someone you would trust to assemble the parts and load the O/S and software for you, I can tell you that you can have a *MUCH* better PC for your needs at the end of the process,
usually for less money too.
I mentioned that I just built my son a Core i5 system, and that is because I looked at what was available in the usual retail stores before Christmas, and it didn’t take long to realize that I could do a buy & build for less. Many online parts suppliers like NewEgg.com, TigerDirect.com, and even Amazon.com have various Combo deals and kits with all or most of the parts needed. Some even include the operating system. An experienced builder should be able to help you choose what to buy, and assemble it in a day. Their fee of course would offset your savings, and, you are then subject to the warranties on the individual parts vs a warranty on the system as a whole. Also, support for the system after it is built will depend on your agreement with whomever assembles it.

Now on to the specifics of your post:

“1. processor: I don’t have HD, just digital camcorder; so do I really need quad core? or will DCP suffice? (this is my biggest question)”
– No, you do not need a quad-core processor. Most Dual-core CPUs are fine for editing Standard definition video in terms of horsepower, and I don’t know of any editing packages at the home-user to pro-sumer level that require a multi-core processor. In fact, many of the Home/Pro-sumer level editing packages cannot yet take full advantage of multiple cores, but this is changing.

“If I get DCP, then I can upgrade later, right?”
– Yes, you can upgrade later, but that may require more than just swapping CPU chips. The CPU upgrade path for any PC depends on its Motherboard. If the newer processor you want requires a different ‘socket’, you will have to change out the mobo as well, and possibly the RAM. In this respect, AMD has a better track record in recent years than Intel – AMD seems to support any given CPU socket with new CPUs for longer periods of time into the future.

“2. RAM: 4gb+”
– Yes, definitely, especially if you plan on using a 64-bit version of XP, Vista or Windows 7 O/S.
If you plan on using a 32-bit operating system, like XP Home or the (x86) version of or XP Pro or Vista, you may see forum posts about 4GB RAM on 32-bit operating systems being a waste depending on the – it is NOT a waste. Some 32-bit O/S’s may not make RAM above 3GB available to applications, but the OS might still be able to use it.

“3. HD: 640-700gb”
– This is a decent starting range for disk space, but realize that you will probably want to move Video source files off to a permanent backup media like DVD as soon as you finish a project, to make sure there is room for the next capture.
Look for drives labeled with SATA 2, SATA 3Gb/s, or SATA 300MB/s. SATA-drives are faster that the older IDE drives, and SATA technology makes it easier to add drives later. For fast backups or archiving, E-SATA is nice to have, and can be added easily to an existing PC if needed.

“4. Motherboard — folks liked Aces, i5 or i7”
– I believe you are referring to ASUS, one of the top-tier motherboard makers, along with MSI and Gigabyte. All 3 make boards for AMD CPUs as well as the Intel core 2, Core i5, and Core i7 CPUs. I just built my son a Core i5-750 PC with a Gigabyte mobo about 3 weeks ago, and it was one of the most trouble-free builds I have ever completed.

“5. videocard — integrated ok? or separate? specs for this?”
– I would suggest against using only integrated video, as the performance hit is rarely worth the $$ saved. If it came down to the wire budget-wise, you could always try the on-board video, and then decide whether to spend the $$ to upggrade. Most of the GPUs you will find are geared towards PC Gaming, so any benefit to your editing from a video upgrade will depend on the editing software’s ability to use the GPUs resources. Currently, nVidia is ahead of ATI in this respect. nVidia’s CUDA hardware/software technology platform allows applications to use the GPU for video transcoding. ATI is working on a similar product.

6. DVD burner
– I don’t think I have seen a mass-market PC that didn’t include a DVD Burner in a few years. DVD burners are now what floppy disk drives used to be. Chances are, your system will have one, probably a 12x to 16x +/- R/RW drive. If you plan to add a second drive, or if you go the build-to-order route, my current favorite is the Samsung SH-S223. It is a fast, reliable burner that uses one of the SATA connections mentioned above.

7. firewire
– YES, this is important if your DV camera has fireWire (also called I.E.E.E. 1394a/b) output – some older Sony equipment calls this i.link. Many mobos have at least one firewire connector, but if yours doesn’t, there are add-on cards available. Having this connector available on the front panel along with USB, headphone and Mic jacks is very handy.

Sorry this is so lengthy, but I hope it helps you get started.

Peace,
– Steve

[Rebecca Kushner]

Hi Steve,

Great reply! Thanks so much for all the details, and tips on what to watch out for, and brand/style suggestions for each component–exact type of info I needed.

To answer your questions:
1) is this a Single-purpose system used ONLY for editing, or a ‘daily Driver’ that is also used for editing?
This will be my regular computer, that will have PhotoShop, ImageReady, and all my other programs, e-mail, etc.

2) which flavor of Vegas will you use: Video Studio or Vegas Pro?
Wow, I assumed Pro; never even looked at Studio until now (bit of a NLE snob)–but it’s so much cheaper, maybe I should get it! Will need to investigate what it won’t do. So let’s assume Pro for now.

3)Is this system for Home video editing, or for professional video business output?
In between. Videos right now are for me, but I have high standards since I’m used to Final Cut. Could potentially sell skills at some point. But right now, for home videos.

I do know two guys who could probably buy and assemble a computer for me–to go with your Option 3. I’ll think about that vs. buying online…
But now at least I have more to go on!

Appreciate all this info, Steve.

[Steve Oder]

Rebecca,

Here’s an example of what you can get for the $$ going the buy/build route. Here’s a link to the parts I bought at NewEgg after pricing things out pretty thoroughly across several vendors. I also bought this Samsung DVD burner, since I have had excellent results with this model.

That’s a quad-core processor, 4GB of fast dual-channel RAM, 1GB of Hard drive space, decent integrated audio, plenty of power supply, a DVD burner, and a high-airflow case for a parts-only cost right around $600, a hundred dollars cheaper than purchasing the same parts separately. Your costs for a video card and O/S will depend on what you choose.

Since the motherboard in this combo doesn’t include integrated video, you will need to add a video card. I recommend a PCI express-based GPU, which range in price from about $50 to “way more than is reasonable”. I haven’t checked the forums here for info on any specific cards that are compatible with Vegas, but that would be a good first step. I am currently running on an ATI Radeon HD 4870 card, and Vegas is working great.

And of course you need an operating system. If you shop around, you can find deals on the “OEM” versions of XP, Vista, and even Windows 7. The OEM versions of windows do NOT include the support from MS that comes with the retail versions, but they are identical in all other respects, and you can get Win 7 Home premium OEM (32 or 64-bit) for around $100 vs $180 for the full retail. Again, checking forum postings for compatibility or known issues is suggested. I’m currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and I have noticed no problems with Vegas Movie Studio 9.