I would also go for an i-GPU. I have also a desktop with a powerfull AMD CPU AMD 3960X, 24x3,8 Mhz, but also combined with an GTX 3080 Ti. Today I see how powerfull even a laptop can be, as long as he has an i-GPU implemented.

@RogerS | @Wolfgang S. | Thanks guys for your input. I do appreciate it.

One thing I have thought about, though, and perhaps this isn’t so much an issue these days, but I remember seeing a video on YouTube (at least I believe it was on there), or perhaps it was some website, that showed that, even though Intel’s iGPUs do a pretty good at playing back smoothly many CoDecs that many other GPUs can but just might not appear to do it as well, and even render out to various video formats quite well and quickly, that the video quality of videos rendered out with an Intel iGPU weren’t as good as, say, AMD or NVIDIA.

Have either of you found that to be the case?

Keep separate in your mind:

• Video Decoding
• Timeline Acceleration
• Rendering Speed
• Rendering Quality

Keep separate in your mind:

• Video Decoding
• Timeline Acceleration
• Rendering Speed
• Rendering Quality

+1

... even though Intel’s iGPUs do a pretty good at playing back smoothly many CoDecs that many other GPUs can but just might not appear to do it as well, and even render out to various video formats quite well and quickly, that the video quality of videos rendered out with an Intel iGPU weren’t as good as, say, AMD or Intel.

Have either of you found that to be the case?

Some points:

• in other NLEs like Resolve Studio you can combine more then one GPU. That delivers a really great playback behaviour
• in Vegas you can do that only with an important trick: you select the i-GPU in the I/O preferences, and select the an nvidia in the video tab
• the driver of the nvidia cards seems to be better then the driver of the AMD cards today. Even if we face some reports from troubles with the newst nvidia driver for the cards
• while the i-GPU is great in playback of long-GOP footage, you may not have a huge performance in the playback of all-I footage
• nvidia cards seems to be faster for the render processes in many cases then the i-GPU. However, that will not be true in all cases.
• I would tend to go for 12 GB ram at the minimum today in an nvidia card. If you can afford, even more. I am not sure if the sweet point between price and performance is still with an RTX 3080 Ti and 12GB today. The 40xx cards seems to bring not such an performance increase, compared to the price increase. In terms of perfomance high-end AMD GPUs seems to be really nice.

Well, given all this helpful info, it looks like the Intel/NVIDIA option is the best way forward. As far as vRAM goes, I have, personally, found 8GB to be enough for me. My RX 580 with it’s 8GB of vRAM has been sufficient. I mainly work with 4K25 H.264 and H.265 (HEVC) and I believe 8GB should be enough. But thanks for the suggestion @Wolfgang S. So, the upgrade to the RTX 3060Ti should suffice.

As of right now, this looks to be what my updated system will look like:

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/dXwHH2

I'd recommend a bit over 8GB on the GPU, personally... especially if you're a gamer, you're going to want a 3080 minimum, and you're going to want Nvidia (even though the fastest VEGAS benchmarks are on Intel+AMD GPU systems).

Please don't buy a motherboard with four M.2 slots and boot from SATA disks.

I'd recommend a bit over 8GB on the GPU, personally... especially if you're a gamer, you're going to want a 3080 minimum, and you're going to want Nvidia (even though the fastest VEGAS benchmarks are on Intel+AMD GPU systems).

Well, alright, so an Intel i5-13600K + an RTX 3080 would be a better combo, you think?

I have personally chosen the i5-13600K because it’s AU$84 cheaper than the Intel Core i7-12700K that I was going to go with and decently faster. I also wanted to still go with an air cooler, as you can see in my PCPP list, it’s what I’ve chosen. This is because I don’t want to risk AIO liquid cooling and the maintenance that they seem to require.

Yes, that should hold you over for the next several years, until we're all editing 8K HDR... lol.

Please don't buy a motherboard with four M.2 slots and boot from SATA disks.

Well, mate, I kind of have to do that because I’m not planning to buy any M.2 SSD’s at this stage and the two SSD’s that I do have connect via SATA. Also, if I were to use one M.2 slot on the chosen motherboard then I’d loose a SATA port that I actually need. As you see, my PC case is the NZXT H440 and it comes with a lot of drive storage space and I plan to eventually use them all the best that I can.

I had the same reasoning with the i5-13600K (better than 12th gen i7 and power efficient), works well with air cooling with thermal headroom left over, and am very happy with it.

I wasn't willing to pay for a 3070 or better card and the 2080 Super seemed to outperform 3060s in benchmarks for about $300 US. It works well in VP 20 and 8GB is enough for everything I've thrown at it so far.

It's your system but I'd use one m.2 slot for a boot drive with your OS and cache My MB has 4 and doesn't block any of the PCI slots or anything else (MSI z690 Tomahawk). It has another 6 SATAIII slots. Prices are quite reasonable for 1 or even 2GB m.2 drives if you get a sale.

M.2 (Hynix p41 2tb) vs SATA (Crucial m500 1tb)

The m.2's never going to be a bottleneck with anything I do whereas the SATA drive can get saturated doing a few things at once.

Also, if I were to use one M.2 slot on the chosen motherboard then I’d loose a SATA port that I actually need.

The only way that could possibly be true is if you have a dual SATA/NVME M.2 socket and you used a SATA drive in that port which you wouldn't be doing, because it sounds like you don't have M.2 drives currently and if you bought one it would be NVME. Also that seems doubtful for a Z790 board, more likely on a lower spec chipset.

Download the manual to your prospective motherboard, check details about drive ports, look for any information about m.2 drives disabling sata ports, or look for asterisks, if there are any check what it says

I had the same reasoning with the i5-13600K (better than 12th gen i7 and power efficient), works well with air cooling with thermal headroom left over, and am very happy with it.

Yeah, I agree with all of that and I’m glad that you are.

I wasn't willing to pay for a 3070 or better card and the 2080 Super seemed to outperform 3060s in benchmarks for about $300 US. It works well in VP 20 and 8GB is enough for everything I've thrown at it so far.

Yeah, I do find it hard to justify paying over AU$1,300 for a graphics card, if I’m to be honest. Compared to my current RX 580, the RTX 3060 Ti is quite a significant upgrade for me. And, like you, I have found 8GB of vRAM to be sufficient for what I edit.

It's your system but I'd use one m.2 slot for a boot drive with your OS and cache My MB has 4 and doesn't block any of the PCI slots or anything else (MSI z690 Tomahawk). It has another 6 SATAIII slots. Prices are quite reasonable for 1 or even 2GB m.2 drives if you get a sale.

Well, I’ll certainly look into. This may be a silly question, but can you actually feel the speed of an M.2 PCIe drive vs that of a normal 500MB/s+ SATA SSD? I remember, on an old HP pre-built system that I had, upgrading the boot drive to a Samsung 850 EVO vs that of the HDD and it, quite literally, shaved a whole minute of the HP PC’s 1 minute and 20 second boot up time and I was amazed. So, would I see that kind of performance difference with an M.2 PCIe SSD?

Also, if I were to get one, what ones would be recommended?

M.2 (Hynix p41 2tb) vs SATA (Crucial m500 1tb)

The m.2's never going to be a bottleneck with anything I do whereas the SATA drive can get saturated doing a few things at once.

That is some food for thought.

"Also, if I were to use one M.2 slot on the chosen motherboard then I’d loose a SATA port that I actually need."

I've read your manual and there is no reference to losing a SATA port with the installation of M.2 drives.

On boards with more than four SATA ports, one of the M.2 slots shares resources with SATA 5-8.

I have three M.2 drives and six SATA devices installed in my machine. I'm unlikely to install a fourth M.2 drive.

My Storage System:

Look at my signature for drives that I spend my money on.

Yeah, I do find it hard to justify paying over AU$1,300 for a graphics card, if I’m to be honest. Compared to my current RX 580, the RTX 3060 Ti is quite a significant upgrade for me. And, like you, I have found 8GB of vRAM to be sufficient for what I edit.

Prolific leaker and Vegas insider Frosty says you'll want 12GB Vram, you should consider that, especially if his post goes missing. The RTX 4070(12GB) should come in a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than that 3080 price and most likely have 3080 performance and the same dual hardware encoder for HEVC/AV1 as 4080/4090. Release expected in a month.

@john_dennis | Okay, I have obviously misunderstood something. Thanks for taking the time to look that up for me. I will look at getting a PCIe M.2 SSD drive.

This may be a silly question, but can you actually feel the speed of an M.2 PCIe drive vs that of a normal 500MB/s+ SATA SSD?

It's not a silly question and it depends. The big jump from HDDs is the near-instant seek times as well as the massive transfer speeds. For m.2 you won't notice a difference for normal use but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

Raw or high bitrate video (or a few streams at once) could exceed what a SATA SSD can do let alone additional disk access needed for Windows and program cache. With an M.2 NVMe it's just not an issue.

For brands I did research and went with a Hynix p41 which I recommend- esp. when there are sales (got a good price from Amazon).

For vram I think the amounts reflect what Frosty does- complex multicam setups for projections with Fx. The rest of his hardware is similarly high end. As someone who shoots more documentary-type projects I haven't seen the need. But if you can afford it...

This may be a silly question, but can you actually feel the speed of an M.2 PCIe drive vs that of a normal 500MB/s+ SATA SSD?

It's not a silly question and it depends. The big jump from HDDs is the near-instant seek times as well as the massive transfer speeds. For m.2 you won't notice a difference for normal use but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

Well, that’s good food for thought. The instant seek times coming from a HDD we’re definitely noticeable.

Raw or high bitrate video (or a few streams at once) could exceed what a SATA SSD can do let alone additional disk access needed for Windows and program cache. With an M.2 NVMe it's just not an issue.

Well, what I do mustn’t be all too demanding on PC hardware because I’ve never really notice any real issues with what you mentioned here. But that may change with a particular family related project that I’m planning to do.

For brands I did research and went with a Hynix p41 which I recommend- esp. when there are sales (got a good price from Amazon).

I have heard of that brand. I have Samsung SATA SSD’s myself. I might take a look but I want to keep within budget. I think that something that has to be understood, and I hope it is, is that we pay more for things here in Australia.

For vram I think the amounts reflect what Frosty does- complex multicam setups for projections with Fx. The rest of his hardware is similarly high end. As someone who shoots more documentary-type projects I haven't seen the need. But if you can afford it...

Yes, I think 8GB is plenty, myself.

I'd recommend a bit over 8GB on the GPU, personally... especially if you're a gamer, you're going to want a 3080 minimum, and you're going to want Nvidia (even though the fastest VEGAS benchmarks are on Intel+AMD GPU systems).

That is why I have recommended 12 GB ram for the GPU.

M.2 (Hynix p41 2tb) vs SATA (Crucial m500 1tb)

The m.2's never going to be a bottleneck with anything I do whereas the SATA drive can get saturated doing a few things at once.

This is the reason why I enjoy the M.2 components in my laptop. The M.2 are so terrible fast that it is a joy to work with the laptop. In my desktop i have SSDs only, still quite fast, but not so fast as M.2.

Prolific leaker and Vegas insider Frosty says you'll want 12GB Vram, you should consider that, especially if his post goes missing. The RTX 4070(12GB) should come in a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than that 3080 price and most likely have 3080 performance and the same dual hardware encoder for HEVC/AV1 as 4080/4090. Release expected in a month.

Up to now, the 40xx seems to make troubles in Vegas. At least some users have reported that, I think.

Vegas Insider Wolfgang recommends 12GB too. The new decoder/render engine(?) may be here by the end of the year, and if you upgraded infrequently such as you're doing now, it won't be for another 6 years you upgrade, you want to get things right the first time, we don't know what the requirements will be . Nothing more soul destroying then trading your very expensive GPU for 1/2 of what you paid, to buy and even more expensive GPU.

But you ask your questions, you get varied opinions, it's then up to you