Help with specs for new PC

fr0sty wrote on 4/6/2018, 6:45 AM

Unfortunately, you won't be able to get any benefit from NVENC for rendering AVC to DVD Architect, as it won't accept the file without forcing you to re-encode it. So, I'd put the bulk of money on a beefy CPU and get a mid-range GPU if discs are your primary delivery target.

OldSmoke wrote on 4/6/2018, 8:49 AM

I usually render MPEG2 for BluRay as it provides higher but rates and renders a lot faster, especially with an AMD GPU, a RX390 would be a good choice, I personally use a Fury X.

MH7 wrote on 4/6/2018, 8:58 AM

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Former user wrote on 4/6/2018, 9:38 AM

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http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_b360_gaming_pro_carbon_review,1.html

fr0sty wrote on 4/6/2018, 11:32 AM

I usually render MPEG2 for BluRay as it provides higher but rates and renders a lot faster, especially with an AMD GPU, a RX390 would be a good choice, I personally use a Fury X.

Higher bitrates won't matter when the codec you are using is far less efficient at coding video... it will need much more data rate to look AS good, you aren't gaining any quality doing it that way. You're losing it, if anything.

While AMD GPUs have always been known to be better and compute tasks, I avoid AMD GPUs these days... I bought a 6870 a while back, worst drivers ever. Nothing worked right (I often couldn't set resolutions to my projector's native res, it often wouldn't see one or more projectors, screen scaling would only work sometimes), it crashed all the time, ended up hanging in the middle of a video projection mapping gig, causing me to leave the stage dark for 30 minutes as the show went on. Went to Nvidia, rock solid stability. I'm going on 4 years with my GTX 970, not a single problem out of it.

BruceUSA wrote on 4/6/2018, 12:23 PM

For me. I do not have brand loyalty. I go with what ever brand that is works best for me. I start out with AMD 6970 and now R9 290X. I have nothing bad to report but all good about AMD cards. I ran these cards on VP12, 13,14 and all have positive experience. I don't have crash problem. I am lucky to be able finished every projects in the pass 5 yrs with AMD card. So, I can say that I am very pleased with AMD cards mention above. I currently have AMD newest card and currently vegas is not using it but I am banking on it . That the newest AMD card will work with vegas.

OldSmoke wrote on 4/6/2018, 5:12 PM

I usually render MPEG2 for BluRay as it provides higher but rates and renders a lot faster, especially with an AMD GPU, a RX390 would be a good choice, I personally use a Fury X.

Higher bitrates won't matter when the codec you are using is far less efficient at coding video... it will need much more data rate to look AS good, you aren't gaining any quality doing it that way. You're losing it, if anything.

While AMD GPUs have always been known to be better and compute tasks, I avoid AMD GPUs these days... I bought a 6870 a while back, worst drivers ever. Nothing worked right (I often couldn't set resolutions to my projector's native res, it often wouldn't see one or more projectors, screen scaling would only work sometimes), it crashed all the time, ended up hanging in the middle of a video projection mapping gig, causing me to leave the stage dark for 30 minutes as the show went on. Went to Nvidia, rock solid stability. I'm going on 4 years with my GTX 970, not a single problem out of it.

And that shows how opposite experiences can be. I am with Bruce on this and as for MPEG2, it looks as good as AVC which in my opinion is rather soft even at the max. setting.

Former user wrote on 4/6/2018, 6:53 PM

I usually render MPEG2 for BluRay as it provides higher but rates and renders a lot faster, especially with an AMD GPU, a RX390 would be a good choice, I personally use a Fury X.

Higher bitrates won't matter when the codec you are using is far less efficient at coding video... it will need much more data rate to look AS good, you aren't gaining any quality doing it that way. You're losing it, if anything.

Hardware encoding like NVENC & intel QSV are less efficient than software AVC but also lower quality in that it doesn't matter how much bitrate you throw at them, they'll always be lower quality but that's not true of MPEG2. You give it enough bandwidth it will look just as good as software AVC & encoded faster with less resources.

Although you have a point also, because in this example you are limited by bitrate with BluRay, 15mbit for max compatability?

Jep wrote on 4/7/2018, 1:14 AM

Thanks for all the replies guys.

First i'd like ask a specific question - will GPU rendering work with the latest version of Vegas Pro and modern graphics cards? Vegas website seems to imply that this is the case:

Supported GPU

NVIDIA

1 GB recommended for 4K — required for Smart Zoom/Smart Scale/Smart adaptive deinterlacing, and GPU-accelerated video processing.

For hardware rendering (NVEnc):

GeForce 600 series onwards (6xx, 7xx, 9xx, 10xx)

Quadro Kxxx, Mxxx and Pxxx

they also say:

Intel

Intel Skylake or newer processor required for QSV accelerated 8-bit HEVC/AVC decoding and encoding, Intel KabyLake or newer processor required for QSV accelerated 10-bit HEVC encoding and decoding.

I presume that statement refers to the CPU but I'd be grateful if someone could clarify.

In terms of cost I can stretch to about £2,500. I'm not sure if that's considered overkill or underkill?

OldSmoke wrote on 4/7/2018, 8:15 AM

I would keep the GTX560Ti as it still does CUDA rendering with old Mainconcept encoder, which is still available in VP15. I actually would also skip VP15 or at least trial it properly on the new hardware.

I would also recommend a high end CPU, socket 2011-3 or higher with at least 8 cores and matching 32GB of RAM.

As already mentioned, none of the GPUs, old or new, will help with your intended Sony AVC renders for DVDA, which is why I don’t use AVC for BluRay.

IAM4UK wrote on 4/7/2018, 9:31 AM

Powerful intel processor with as many cores as you can afford.
Mid-range GPU might be preferable (or keeping one you have) at this time. First, VEGAS only takes advantage of it in limited ways, with trade-offs in quality. Second, high-end GPUs are VERY expensive right now, because apparently "cryptocurrency miners" are snarfing them up for their activities.
NVMe M.2 profile drives: one for boot (make sure the motherboard supports that), and one for video file loading and rendering.

Former user wrote on 4/7/2018, 11:04 AM

@IAM4UK

I saw in a previous post that Vegas doesn’t necessarily benefit much from many cores beyond around say 6, either its reduced threading efficiency or simply not done?

The ghz tends to go down as the core count goes up, and Vegas is known to benifit from more ghz. Maybe there’s a sweet spot, 6, 8 or 10? No one seems to know exactly how many cores is ideal, but I completely agree with the theory of more cores, Intel, etc. but whether it plays out in practice I just don’t know.

fr0sty wrote on 4/7/2018, 2:49 PM

I personally am preferring the AMD CPUs over Intel... far more bang for the buck. You can get a threadripper that will stomp any sub $1000 Intel chip, especially when it comes to multi-core-intensive tasks, and save a ton of money. Single core performance might be 10-15% slower, but with more and more stuff becoming more multi-core friendly, especially in the video and media production world, I went with Ryzen/threadripper instead. My cinema 4D rendering performance is especially noteworthy, this chip chews through CG rendering like it's nothing, while similar intel chips choke.

If you are willing to spend upwards of $2000 on a CPU, then get one of those 18 core i9 chips. Just don't expect $1000 worth of additional performance out of it.

BruceUSA wrote on 4/7/2018, 3:00 PM

I personally am preferring the AMD CPUs over Intel... far more bang for the buck. You can get a threadripper that will stomp any sub $1000 Intel chip, especially when it comes to multi-core-intensive tasks, and save a ton of money. Single core performance might be 10-15% slower, but with more and more stuff becoming more multi-core friendly, especially in the video and media production world, I went with Ryzen/threadripper instead. My cinema 4D rendering performance is especially noteworthy, this chip chews through CG rendering like it's nothing, while similar intel chips choke.

If you are willing to spend upwards of $2000 on a CPU, then get one of those 18 core i9 chips. Just don't expect $1000 worth of additional performance out of it.

But why spent $2000 for i9 18 cores. TYou can get threadripper 1950X overclocked at 4ghz beat the $2000 cpu for half price. You can find many benchmarks on the net that proved that already.