GPU recommendations for a machine with Vegas, Premiere, and AE

[John Rofrano]

[Robert Jefferson] “Secondly, unless you use one of the OpenGL filters in RED, a GPU will not affect timeline playback while using RED as a plugin for Sony Vegas Pro. “Once you go back into Sony Vegas’ timeline, RED will preview and render purely via the CPU, rather than the GPU.””

Wow, I didn’t know that. I mostly use BCC with Vegas Pro and I’m pretty sure that still uses OpenGL when previewing the timeline. I wonder why RED doesn’t still use the GPU for preview. Thanks for letting us know.

~jr

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

[Robert Jefferson]

John,

I think I’ve spec’ed out a good machine that will deliver good timeline playback performance for Sony Vegas Pro while using Boris RED 5 as a plugin (keeping in mind that timeline playback w/RED is CPU-dependent), but I want to run it by you to check my thinking, if you don’t mind:

CPU: Dual Hex-core Xeon processors, 2.4GHz
RAM: 32GB DDR4
Boot Drive: 256GB PCIe SSD
Project/Rendering Drive: 256GB PCIe SSD
Storage Drive: 4TB SATA (5,400 RPM)
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 295×2

The plan is to only store the media files needed for rendering on the project drive for the duration of the project. Once the final video is rendered, I would move all files from the project drive to the storage drive.

Good plan? Good specs?

[John Rofrano]

[Robert Jefferson] “The plan is to only store the media files needed for rendering on the project drive for the duration of the project. Once the final video is rendered, I would move all files from the project drive to the storage drive.”

This is what I do. It’s a plan that’s been working for me.

[Robert Jefferson] “CPU: Dual Hex-core Xeon processors, 2.4GHz”

You’re going to find a surprising amount of things that are not multi-threaded and in those cases your 12-core computer will behave like a 2.4 Ghz single core. For this reason I opted for 2.93Ghz (I really wanted the 3.06 Ghz but I could find any at the price I was willing to pay). Just pointing this out but if it’s not a lot more money, get the fastest clock speed CPU that you can afford.

Overall a great system that should perform extremely well with Vegas Pro. Make sure that your motherboard has the ports that you need. Is still have my Firewire based Sony HVR-Z1U camera so I had to buy a firewire card because very few motherboards come with firewire. If you can get a motherboard that supports Thunderbolt, that’s the I/O port to have for video work. This is what all the new Macs have. Blazing fast I/O.

Good luck with the new system! 😀

~jr

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

[Welland Man]

i have a ASUS AMD Radeon R9 280 would i be better off using a nvidea card as cant seem to set up the 280 for dual screen

[John Rofrano]

[Welland Man] “i have a ASUS AMD Radeon R9 280 would i be better off using a nvidea card as cant seem to set up the 280 for dual screen”

What is your problem with setting up dual screen? I have no problems with my AMD Radeon HD 7950 and Vegas Pro using the secondary monitor. Both of my monitors use DisplayPort connections.

~jr

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