Vegas/PC Upgrade reality check

[Brad Leigh]

I use 12 with no issues. Editing hdv, mixed with avchd and quicktime animation codec. Many tracks compositing. I believe 11 had issues but I have none with 12. I just don’t use gpu. I believe that is where most problems occur.
Brad

i7 2600 3.4 Ghz 8Gig Ram , Win 7 Pro, Vegas Pro 12

[David Norman]

The more CPU cores the better. It is the only thing that is really expensive still. 32gb of RAM is fairly inexpensive, good and fast 256gb SSDs are inexpensive and you dont need an expensive GPU because Sony sucks at GPU acceleration and it doesnt really change much

There is that new Ivy Bridge E 6 core 12 thread CPU that just came out that would be nice and there is a slightly slower GHZ version for like $500

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Ivy-Bridge-E-Intel-Core-i7-4960X-Processor-Review

So 6 Core Intel CPU
32gb of RAM
2x 256gb SSDs
a current mid range GPU
Solid 600+ Watt PSU
Solid Motherboard with USB 3, Intel NICs, SATA 6gbps

Sony Vegas Movie Studio
Intel i7 3770, AMD 7970, 32gb, 2xRAID0 Intel 240gb SSD, 2x2TB WD Green, 3×23″ Samsung LCDs
http://www.SelmaBearsSoccer.com

[Stephen Mann]

I have never had any major problems running Vegas 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, or 12. Vegas thrives on fast processors, lots of cores. and RAM – in that order. You won’t see much improvement with GPU because the latest i7 processors are fast enough that the time they take to handle the data to the GPU is longer than it would take to just do the processing in the processor.

I build almost all of my PC’s. Come to think of it, my worst performing PC’s were name-brand units from HP, Dell and e-Machines.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[John Rofrano]

[Joe Mantaratz] “I want a powerhouse workstation (self build) for no more than 3-4K. I’ve done lots of research and am waiting for the Video Guys to come out with their latest and greatest DIY.”

I built the VideoGuys DIY 9 Hex Core and I’m very happy with it. Having said that, I would have built a 12 core (dual 6 cores) had I not moved from PC to Mac last year. So I didn’t want to invest a lot in a PC since everything else I do is on a Mac and I’m waiting for the new Mac Pro to come out later this year.

[Joe Mantaratz] “I want to edit and not spend my time finding new ways to work around problems related to hardware/software.”

Well… that’s why I switched to a Mac. I spend most of my time being extremely productive now instead of playing “system administrator” to Windows. But that’s a whole other discussion we won’t get into. 😉

[Joe Mantaratz] “I plan on also installing Boris Red, After Effects, Win 7 64 bit Pro, VASST products.”

You’re going to want a solid graphics card for those other applications. I would highly recommend spending the extra money for an NVDIA Quadro K4000. I’ve had no problems with my Quadro 4000 while others are constantly having problems with their GeForce “gaming” cards. Boris uses OpenGL and After Effects uses CUDA which is why I recommend NVIDIA.

[Joe Mantaratz] “If you have a rock solid system I’d love to see the detailed list specs on it.”

My complete specs are on the PC Equipment page of my web site. Here is the link:

Intel Hex Core Video Editing Workstation

[Joe Mantaratz] “Believe it or not I am still running Vegas 8 and have had no issues at all with it and have held off on all the rushed upgrades. However I realize the need to move on.”

Vegas Pro 12.0 seems to be stable but I don’t edit as much video as I use to so I really haven’t been working with it as much as I did with earlier versions. Vegas Pro 10.0 was very solid for me and I used it for the bulk of my work until 12.0 came out. A big advantage of upgrading is that they switched to OFX effects architecture now that allows you to run plug-ins like Boris Continuum Complete right from the timeline. I use this a lot. I can really recommend the Vegas Pro 12.0 / Boris Continuum Complete combination. I rarely use After Effects anymore because I get all of my special FX work done with Boris Continuum Complete right inside of Vegas Pro. You can view my BCC tutorials on Boris TV and see for yourself.

~jr

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

[Joe Mantaratz]

Thanks for all the replies I appreciate the suggestions.

Video Guys stated they would be coming out with another build shortly. I own a Mac and have been on the edge of deciding which way to go. I’m not doing much work on the Mac side anymore although I do love the stability.

Thanks for the alternate Boris Red option I will look into it and I’ll take a look at your build. Dual hex cores is attractive so that may be the direction I go. A detailed list of a build with no hiccups is exactly what I was looking for. I wish Sony would list thoroughly tested systems approved for their software as do other companies.

Questions John..
If you were doing a build today what would you select?

thanks again

[Dave Osbun]

With your quoted budget, absolutely no reason not to go with dual Xeon processors. Another important factor for absolute performance is making sure your motherboard of choice has AT LEAST 4 6gb/s SATAIII connections. That way each of your high-speed hard drives is being utilized at its maximum available performance.

Dave

[Stephen Mann]

Dave, what motherboard do you recommend?
Also, I seem to recall that the MS Windows license is one per CPU, so that a dual-cpu board would require two licenses for Windows. Since I’ve never built a dual-processor rig before, I never looked into this.

A couple of years ago we hosted a rendertest database, and the dual xeons literally blew everything else away in the fastest render times.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Mann] “Also, I seem to recall that the MS Windows license is one per CPU, so that a dual-cpu board would require two licenses for Windows.”

I’ve never heard of this. What you may have read is that it requires a “different” license as in, Windows Home only supports 1 CPU and you need at least Windows Professional for 2 CPU support. So it’s not a second license but a higher level license that cost more.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

[Joe Mantaratz] “If you were doing a build today what would you select?”

I really don’t know. That’s the problem I have with Intel. They don’t usually make dual CPU motherboards for their desktop processors. You have to move to their Xeon server processor line which is usually considerable more money so I guess I’d have to pick a new motherboard and processors at that point. I didn’t want to spend that much money for a platform I’ve abandoned.

~jr

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

[Dave Haynie]

[Joe Mantaratz] “However I would gladly like to hear what the experts are using and more importantly perhaps, not using. LIke you I want to edit and not spend my time finding new ways to work around problems related to hardware/software.”

I built out a new system last month:
Intel i7-3930K processor (Socket 2011, 6 cores)
64GB DDR3-1866 DRAM
Gigabyte main board, Intel X79 chipset
Crucial 960GB SSD main drive
Western Digital 3TB x 6 RAID10
AMD Radeon HD6970 GPU

Very happy with the result. The 64GB is for photo editing; I’ve rarely come close to the limits on my old 16GB system doing video editing. On the other hand, the Intel Socket 2011 chipset runs a four-lane memory bus, so if you’re going to buy four DIMMs anyway, might as well go for the 32GB total. It’s not that expensive.

I use my PC for video, music/audio, photography, and electronics CAD. So even with the data drive, I have more than 300GB in application installs… and I’m not done yet restoring old software to the new system. You can get a faster SSD in some of the smaller form factors, but I’m very happy with the speed. The RAID10 is using Intel’s C600 chipset RAID, which is “software” RAID with some hardware acceleration in the driver. I tried it RAID5 mode and it was unacceptable… the main reason for RAID in-the-box is speed. But RAID0 actually drops your reliability versus a single drive, and I have an external Drobo anyway. This is a good solution, the RAID10, fast and reliable, though of course, you’re halving your effective storage as the price for that reliability.

[Joe Mantaratz] “With great dismay I have been reading the plethora of issues with Vegas Pro 12 and can hear the exasperations of the many waiting on the next build to address the woes. Which versions after 8.0 have been found to be the least troublesome?”

I have actually found Vegas 12 to be better than Vegas 11, at least as good as Vegas 10. And I even use the GPU… which really does help, even with the new system, on some kind of work (for example, the Vegas GPU benchmark project… it’s at least 3x faster with GPU enabled).

[Joe Mantaratz] “I plan on also installing Boris Red, After Effects, Win 7 64 bit Pro, VASST products.”

You’ll also want a good GPU for most video effects. Even when they’re not using the GPU for compositing (OpenCL/CUDA stuff), there’s still a lot of OpenGL/3D stuff you’ll find within the packages. I don’t recommend “pro” series GPUs… I think they’re a waste of money. They’re no faster than the consumer/gaming sort, sometimes actually a generation behind. If you’re doing some really heavy duty 3D stuff, like electronics CAD, you’ll find they’re faster… but at least in some cases, that’s because the consumer cards are intentionally made slower. Seriously, there are some articles that prove this conclusively. Not that you can go wrong with a “pro” series GPU, just that you’re not likely to actually get any benefits, other than perhaps a little more driver stability (consumer cards get frequent tweaks to fix gaming issues, pro series drivers pretty much ignore the gaming issues and concentrate on OpenGL).

[Joe Mantaratz] “I currently own Sony EX cams and have had ZERO issues with MXF format. So no AVCHD on this end.
I dont film with DSLRS at all….”

If you’re doing AVC editing and compositing, you NEED a pretty high-end system to be happy. For MPEG-2, not so much. But some of that is because just decoding an HD AVC stream can take up the better part of a slower 4-core machine, since AVC decode itself is rarely GPU-accelerated or even well multithreaded in Vegas. Once you move to multiple layers, of course, you’re multithreading. But if you can afford it, if you’re doing lots of compositing or FX, you want the extra performance.

-Dave