The i7 are generally overclockable HOWEVER the Dell units are not. They apparently use some procedure that prevents overclocking. It would be interesting to know if others do also.

I'm trying to configure an i7 system right now. I'm looking at both the Polywell and the Falcon Northwest sites. While I know quite a bit about computers generally, I have never stayed current with PC development, so I need as much input as the next guy as to what is the best computer for Vegas. However, the i7 sure seems like the way to go at this particular moment.

This might help:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=737971

There's a link there to the Gigabyte PDF on how to o'clock to 4GHz.
You might have to signup to get access but then again that forum has quite a few members from the USA and there's some genuine experts including beta testers on there, even for DSCs.

Bob.

John, keep us posted on this project. Maximum PC recently did a benchmark on the I7 against the fastest AMD and the next faster class of Intel CPU. The I7 blew them all in the dust.. Even in their Photoshop and Premiere benchmarks.

How about ddr3 memory. Do you think 3gigs is better than say 6 gigs of ddr2?

johnmeyer,
I am glad to see you are going to retire your 6 year old Pentium machine and spring for the new i7.
Now does this mean you will be installing Vista as well?
Don't tell me you are staying with Windows 3.1 lol

Ted

I am glad to see you are going to retire your 6 year old Pentium machine and spring for the new i7.
Windows 3.1? To me, that's new stuff. I still have a latptop (Toshiba T2400), running 24/7 (logging phone calls from my PBX), that runs DOS 3.1, so Windows 3.1 is absolutely. (Actually I use Windows for Workgroups, nee Windows 3.11, on the one computer left that goes back that far.)

As to Vista, that piece of $#** is truly evil. However, the Vegas 8.1 render times reported here cannot be ignored. So, since this is a no-holds-barred excercise, the obvious solution is dual boot, with Win XP Pro being the main boot, and Vista 64 there just so I can run Vegas 8.1. My plan is to install Vegas 7.0d and 8.0c and continue doing all my editing on XP, but then reboot and render in 8.1. Near as I can tell, for me, 8.1 has absolutely no advantages other than rendering. The other thing I'll do, before rendering, is to always immediately save the project under a different name so I don't disturb the 8.0c version, since many people are reporting big problems going back and forth. Thus, I'm just going to treat 8.1 and Vista 64 as my rendering engine. Expensive, but for a 2x improvement (I'm hoping), definitely worth it.

While I could build this myself, I'm not sure it would result in a computer that would operate any faster or more reliably (my two criteria) than if I buy it from Polywell (still my preferred vendor). I've looked at Boxx and Falcon Northwest, but their prices are quite high and they don't offer the flexibility I get with Polywell. As for Dell and HP, they are fine for corporate computers, but not for this. Also, they deliver their computers with so much flotsam already installed that I have to spend days hacking it out.

The other thing I'm going to need to do is either figure out how to transfer my Office licenses from the old computer, or else find something on eBay I can install. The newest Microsoft Office is an absolutely horrible exercise in pointless UI re-design. I have not found one person who finds that it makes life easier, and everyone finds they have to re-learn everything.

So, yes, I'm going to take the plunge, and my goal is to get close to the render times reported in the rendertest thread. Since Polywell doesn't offer water cooling, I won't be overclocking (and that violates my reliability goals), so I don't think I'll be anywhere at the top of that list, but hopefully close enough that I won't turn too green.

Thanks for asking, though.

I am actually running a dual boot Vista 32 and Vista 64 bit, and am doing somewhat the same thing you are doing. I have various plug-ins and software installed on the 32 bit vista, which do not fly on 64 bit. But I use the 64 bit for the rendering. Also I am finding that 8.0c on 32 bit is still quite buggy, on one of my last projects I had over 30 tracks with various effects and HDV on the timeline, and poor ol' 8.0c just could not complete the render without crapping out somewhere in the middle.
8.1 seems pretty stable to me and has yet to crash!

I know your feelings about Vista, but I think you may even like it once you try it.

I am currently running the Q6600, but will most likely upgrade to one of the i7 CPU and boards next summer.
I am very interested in the various posts and render times that will be posted regarding these new i7 processors, as I nhear nothing but great things about them. Sure looks like Intel is giving AMD a run for their money lately.

Good luck with the new machine.

Ted

I know your feelings about Vista, but I think you may even like it once you try it.Don't tell me that; I won't have anything left to complain about!