I'd suggest a version of VEGAS newer than 17 as they have worthwhile bug fixes and added GPU support to get the most out of your hardware.

Hello Howard, TY for your reply. I sent it over to the tech and he asked the following:
The thing we need to determine is, does Vegas benefit from more CPU threads/newer hardware. So is 56 cores at 3ghz better than 24 at 5ghz? Is it doing GPU assisted renders etc. Do the new versions of Vegas utilize newer GPU's efficiently?

, does Vegas benefit from more CPU threads/newer hardware. So is 56 cores at 3ghz better than 24 at 5ghz? Is it doing GPU assisted renders etc.

25 cores at 5GHZ. The reason for this is because at it's heart it's still old software. When people were using 2 and 4 cores, single threaded work loads didn't stand out too much, especially considering there was no hardware encoding, so a encode would saturate the CPU. Any bottlenecks were hidden.

Now that we have hardware encoding, hardware decoding and CPU's with a huge amount of cores Vegas's limitations show. The only thing you can do is have faster single threads. 56cores won't help much when you're bottlenecked due to a single threaded workload somewhere in the processing chain.

Personally, I also doubt all the extra cores would help most folks that much. But it depends on how they work. If you do allot of project nesting or are in the habit of running multiple instances of Vegas, more cores probably will help allot. And they're all p-cores, btw.

I also agree that clock speed is pretty important. But it goes hand in hand with memory access performance. The better Sapphire 3000's will turbo boost to 4.8ghz with 8-channel memory i/o... you want one of those. The memory will be faster and less expensive in smaller sticks and it should at least hold its own with a faster i9 with half the sticks.

The thing I think that'll help the most are all the pcie lanes. That's where the i9 and i7 cores are up against the wall. Can't have more than a couple m.2's or more than 1 video card without giving up performance. Like x16 slots, satas and nics. Sapphire architecture also brings back avx512 and I expect the Intel OpenVino lib in Vegas vp20 will be able to use extra cores for cpu-serviced Deep Learning AI-FX with the new avx512/dlm opcode that only Sapphire has got.

Hard to say more as nobody's tested such a system but you can see performance of a variety of CPUs and GPUs in the 2 benchmarks in my signature. When you get your new system, consider running them- you may well be in top place!

Hello Howard, TY for your reply. I sent it over to the tech and he asked the following:
The thing we need to determine is, does Vegas benefit from more CPU threads/newer hardware. So is 56 cores at 3ghz better than 24 at 5ghz? Is it doing GPU assisted renders etc. Do the new versions of Vegas utilize newer GPU's efficiently?

I would also go for the 24 cores at 5 Ghz - since Vegas works with 5 Ghz better then wie 3 Ghz.

But in addition, I would choose an (Intel) Processor with an i-GPU. The i-GPU supports the playback behaviour, and in combination with an RTX 3070Ti/3080 with at least 8-12 GB RAM you will end up with a total utiliziaton of the GPUs of 50-60% (depending on then footage and the project type, ACES transformation with long-GOP footage brings you higher).

Where you still will not see full playback speed are footages like XAVC-i with 50/60 fps, using an ACES transformation from slog to HDR PQ. That is where we are today.

Maximum Sapphire Rapids turbo boost is 4.8 ghz unless overclocked... the WS ones with the X suffix are supposed to have unlocked multipliers. But none have an igpu. You can't go wrong with the 3000 WS-X series if you plan on 2 gpus to make up for no igpu. Specs on the whole line are here.

Hard to say more as nobody's tested such a system

@RogerS There have been AMD thread-ripper users who are have been disappointed with their vegas performance. They are high core count, but lower frequencies. I remember GID was unhappy about his benchmark performance with the Vegas benchmark. Did not keep abreast of that, to see if his results ever got better.

I second Howard's recommendations for VEGAS or adding an Intel ARC card if you go for a CPU with no iGPU.

In response to Todd, I'm not familiar with recent Intel workstation CPUs but all have clock speeds above 4GHz it looks like: https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-launches-sapphire-rapids-xeon-w-3400-workstation-cpus

These are the two benchmarking results I have access to:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b3ggVifKsuT-cp2kQHjum_KnQ4-2jBmUIvzmu7BQZ34/

and

For the first one, the top slots for UHD are 16 core CPU systems (though some users disabled half the cores...) the second one, fast clock, high core (24) Intel CPUs are in the top slot.

 

Thank you everyone for the excellent knowledge. My only dilemma I downloaded the free trial but can't do render test without a code. Is there a way to get one just for a day for testing purposes?

I thought the trial could render up to 2 minutes. If you need full functionality consider a 1 mo. subscription.

My only dilemma I downloaded the free trial but can't do render test without a code.

Taking this to mean that the render codec requires a code, from point 10 in https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/vegas-pro-faqs-and-troubleshooting-guides--104787/

The following codecs require online additional activation the first time they are used in each version.

• Intel HEVC/MAGIX ProRes
• Magix AVC/AAC MP4
• MainConcept MPEG-2
• MP3 Audio
• AAC Audio
• Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio
• Sony XAVC-L/XAVC Intra MXF

I believe that the reason for this is that MAGIX has to pay a licensing fee for these codecand, with a purchased version of Vegas Pro, registration is straightforward only requiring a click on a pop-up window confirming that you want to use that codec. Perhaps those codecs are not available with the trial version because their use will create a cost to MAGIX which would not be recovered if the person doesn't go ahead and purchase Vegas Pro. An alternative is to use a render codec in the trial version that doesn't require licensing.

I thought the trial could render up to 2 minutes.

My understanding from previous discussions about this on the forum is that the project itself must be under 2 minutes in length in total; i.e. 1 frame less than 2 minutes - nothing else after that point must be on the timeline such as a random marker because that will make the project 2 minutes or over in length. From those previous discussions, the advice at the time was that it is not possible in the trial version to render a less than 2 minutes render loop from, say, a 10 minutes long project.