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“New” graphics card
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Now I REALLY am confused!! So what exactly are the options–Just use my PC’s CPU for all video processing and put up with the jerkiness of my video playback? Purchase a Quadro video card? Purchase an AMD Radeon HD6970? Scrap the desktop and put Vegas on a laptop as Steve does? Retire for a second time (LOL!)? Is this REALLY that complicated that there is no middle-of-the-road solution? Is there not a somewhat reasonably-priced video card that will give smooth full res video while editing, yet still offer stable drivers? I am not concerned with rendering as my CPU handles that quite well, but in day-to-day editing I surely could use a simple solution for smooth video…or are we all just stuck with a hodge-podge of hit-or-miss cards and drivers?
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
Seems like upgrading my i7 930 to a i7 980 (hex) may be a better solution? Any advice?
M
Malcolm
http://www.malcolmproductions.com -
[Rich Kutnick] “Is this REALLY that complicated that there is no middle-of-the-road solution? Is there not a somewhat reasonably-priced video card that will give smooth full res video while editing, yet still offer stable drivers?”
I think the only simple solution is to buy the card that Sony used in their benchmark because at least you know that someone at Sony tested it. 😉
Here are Sony’s “official” guidelines:
Supported cards for GPU-acceleration
To take full advantage of the GPU-acceleration in Vegas Pro 12, you will need a supported card with at least 512 MB of GPU memory.NVIDIA
Requires a CUDA-enabled GPU and driver 270.xx or later.- GeForce GPUs: GeForce GTX 4xx Series or higher (or GeForce GT 2xx Series or higher with driver 285.62 or later).
- Quadro GPUs: Quadro 600 or higher (or Quadro FX 1700 or higher with driver 285.62 or later).
NVIDIA recommends NVIDIA Quadro for professional applications and recommends use of the latest boards based on the Fermi architecture.
AMD/ATI
Requires an OpenCL-enabled GPU and Catalyst driver 11.7 or later with a Radeon HD 57xx or higher GPU. If using a FirePro GPU, FirePro unified driver 8.85 or later is required.That was written before NVIDIA came out with the Kepler architecture so Sony should really update that to say Fermi cards only. The problem is that those cards are very old now and no longer being sold and the newer cards don’t seem to work as well. So I don’t see a simple solution. The older cards seem to be better than the newer ones and the workstations cards are very expensive for what they deliver.
I’ve been doing some benchmarking with an old ATI Radeon HD 5870 that I recently acquired while I’m waiting for my NVIDIA Quadro 4000 to come back from PNY. I’ll post the results when I’m done but the difference is night and day with GPU on and off. I created a little render test with a rotating smtpe bars background and composited animated noise texture and without the GPU it plays back at 0.78fps at Best/Full (that’s less than a frame per second) with the CPU’s at 50%. I turn on the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU and it plays back at 29.97 full frame rate all day long. The GPU is at 69% while the CPU’s are at 9%. That is impressive GPU performance. I can’t wait to try the same test on the Quadro 4000.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
The big improvement with i7 processors was when Intel switched from the Sandy Bridge architecture to the Ivy Bridge chips (which are the newer i7’s). If you’re not making that jump the improvement will be negligible.
Dave
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Would you please compare the two (NVidia Quadro 4000 and ATI Radeon HD 5870) side-by-side when you get your Quadro back, John, and post your results here? Perhaps this may make the choice easier, if you have found at least one card from each of the two main manufacturers that works well in Vegas. I very much look forward to your findings. Thanks for your efforts and postings, John!
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
Dave, my PC has an i7-3820 processor @3.6GHZ. I assume that this is an older chip, for the PC now is 2.5 years old (UGH!). I don’t even know if I could replace this chip on my motherboard with a newer Ivy Bridge processor. So if I read your suggestion correctly, FIRST move up to the newer processor and see how Vegas performs, and if I STILL see choppy video then upgrade the video card? Not wanting to outlay excess cash for no reason at all, I need to know the right upgrade path to take the first time! Thanks!!
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
[Rich Kutnick] ” I don’t even know if I could replace this chip on my motherboard with a newer Ivy Bridge processor. “
That will depend on the socket on your motherboard. The only socket that Sandy-Bridge and Ivy-Bridge have in common is the LGA 1155 (also called Socket H2). If it has the LGA 2011 (also called Socket R) socket like my motherboard has then you cannot upgrade.
[Rich Kutnick] “So if I read your suggestion correctly, FIRST move up to the newer processor and see how Vegas performs, and if I STILL see choppy video then upgrade the video card?”
Yes, the CPU will have the greatest impact followed by the GPU.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Unfortunately, I, too have the LGA 2011 socket. So is it worth the bucks to upgrade my video card, or better to save up for another PC in a couple of years? In other words, will solely upgrading the GPU resolve the choppy video performance?
Rich Kutnick
VIDEO IMPRESSIONS -
[Rich Kutnick] “Would you please compare the two (NVidia Quadro 4000 and ATI Radeon HD 5870) side-by-side when you get your Quadro back”
I will, but not in the same computer so I’ll have to report the results as a percent improvement of GPU vs Non-GPU for the same benchmark project in two separate computers. It should be interesting because the Quadro 4000 and Radeon HD 5870 have about the same specs so I expect them to perform very similar.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
My board is an Asus P6X58D-E LGA 1366 socket; Intel® X58/ICH10R chipset. From the Asus site the i7 980 seems to be the most powerful CPU available, will this make an appreciable difference, or should I just wait a bit and upgrade the entire computer? (running i7-930 overclocked now)
I looked up my board, it seems the i7-970 hex core is the “best” processor I can put on my board, checking e-bay $150~350 seems to be the going price. Is this enough of a performance boost over my i7 930 quad core with VP12 to be worth the price?
Thank you,
M
Malcolm
http://www.malcolmproductions.com
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