I managed to pick up an EVGA GTX580 rebuilt card at Newegg this past summer for my latest build. Since, i have seen them at Microcenter as well. Mine has been working well (i need to update my system info and include this latest build.) and it smokes the GTX680 on my previous build.

I got an Nvidia 570 card from ebay a while back and have been happy with the results. And now, even with the latest Nvidia drivers I get excellent results under Windows 8.1.

Here's a link:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/425171/015-P3-1580-RB_NVIDIA_GeForce_GTX_580_1536MB_PCIe_20_x16_Video_Card_-_Refurbished

Excellent find Mike! Getting a refurbished GTX580 from a store Microcenter at the same price as eBay is fantastic.

For those in the UK, same thing here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221364869934?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

"The only newer one that seems to work ok is the R9 280 series"

After much agonising on which GPU to go with on my new system, I went with a 280X. First impressions were great. Nice smooth preview, even with multi-cam AVCHD. System felt stable. Rendering was almost identical to my CPU (Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-4930K (3.4GHz) 12MB Cache). The problem I had with it was random 'flashing' of the monitors. Switching on/off external preview would make all 3 monitors flash, as would clicking anywhere outside the Vegas interface. (libraries for instance). NBFX titler was unusable - as soon as I dragged it onto my 'toolbox' monitor, it AND Vegas would collapse into what I can only describe as a MESS. As an experiment, I swapped it over with my old GTX 460. Instant stability. Though preview understandably not as good.

After chatting with the techie from the system builder, I swapped the 280X for an Nvidia GTX770. I've now got all of the good points above from both the 280X and the GTX460, and none of the bad ones. I'm running Vegas 11 and my usual programmes on Win 7, and Vegas 12 (with nothing else) on a separate Win 8.1 partition. It's the first time I've had a stable V12 installation.

Arthur:
A bit off topic. I checked your profile and noticed you have a Canon XA-20? I was wondering how you like it? I bought HF G30 which basically is the same camera without the XLR and IR capability.

It looks like my local store has these in stock as well, may head over there. Thanks for the link. And trust what OldSmoke says on this matter, he's done more hands-on research than anyone I've seen.

I love 'em Oldsmoke. :-) A bit of a learning curve compared to my Ol' XH-A1s - a different way of working. But they are the most configurable cams I've ever used. You sure need to read the manual though!! The OLED touch screen is a joy. 5 assignable hard buttons make things very accessible too. So small and light, which at my age is a definite plus. :-)
Only thing I'm not sure of yet is the auto ND filters. Haven't really tested yet in super bright sunshine. This IS England after all. LOL :-)

AMD R9 280X Part II.

Should have added: I replaced the first 280X with another one, as to try and cure the 'flashing' I went back to older drivers (from 2012) then gradually loaded newer ones. Somewhere along the line Vegas started to randomly crash, then the card died on me. The replacement used the latest drivers from the start, but the 'flashing' problem remained. I've been working with the GTX 770 for about a week now - with not a single crash. :-)

Arthur.
I played around with the ND filters with the camera in the fully manual mode. I don't see any other way to have control over it and there is no indication when the ND filter is applied. But from what I see in manual mode, the ND comes in at F4 and once you down to 1/8ND the iris starts to close further. I am tempted to buy additional ND filters for my upcoming skiing trip. I feel the camera's sweet spot is around F4 and I was thinking an additional ND filter with the camera left at F4 I could get better results.
I love the camera a lot, especially the 20x zoom is important to me but I am tempted to change it to the latest Sony 4K FDR-AX100 handycam which seems to have better controls and the "clear zoom" feature would make up for the shorter zoom. But I would miss the two shoes, one hot one cold on my current HF-G30. One big issue I have is the manual zoom with the zoom ring. It isn't responsive enough and almost impossible to use for my kind of sport event recording where I need fast, controllable zoom in/out. I sold my Z5U already I am fully depending on this camera now but I might get a HXR-NX3 too. I am not interested in 4K distribution but the option of having a bigger canvas and crop out what I need for HD is very intriguing.

Apologies if we're hi-jacking this post.

I'm guessing you've already seen it, but there's a setting for the zoom ring in the menus. I found the default setting had a 'clumsy' feel to it. From memory, also a setting for the zoom rocker?

Hi,

@ Arthus. S:

I can confirm your findings. I had before an very old nVidia GT8800 GPU, and since a year the GTX660Ti. Both caused constant and numerous crashes when trying to use GPU assisted preview or rendering...

Got tired of this $hit and purchased an Radeon R9 280X GPU one week ago. I'm now able to run with GPU enabled, all projects that crashed Vesag runs now smoothly and faster than ever.

I'm not using the NB titler so that is not a problem for me. Strange if it does not play well (or at all) with this GPU...

I'm running on three monitors. Indeed, switching to preview on one monitor (and back) flashes all three monitors (didn't happen with nVidia). I is very annoying but I can live with it for now.

Crossing my fingers and hope for a happy ride from here on. I sincerely urge SCS to put ALL their eggs in the rendering stability basket before they lose what is left of their credibility. Can I send my invoice to SCS for the new GPU that I was forced to purchase to enable the advertised feature of GPU rendering?

Sigh...

Christian

I am not sure if that applies to the R9 280X as well but maybe. The GTX580 and probably other Nvidia cards can switch their core clock/power to adjust to different GPU loads. However, as soon as more then one monitor is connected to the same card, the card will always run at full power. I was surprised to see my two cards not running at the same clock speed with my two monitors on one and another on the other card. It took me a bit of time to research this on the internet but I found a Nvidia Utility that enables power saving again even with more then one monitor per card. But I have to select now for which application the card should run at full power. http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39278380/nvidia_mdps.jpg When I don't have any other application open and I start Vegas, all monitors will flicker once because the cards are switching over to full power. Maybe the R9 280X has a similar feature and changes power modes causing the monitors to flicker and maybe there is a similar utility that will help with the problem.

My apologies too.

Arthur: All the various speed settings are only for the rocker zoom and wireless zoom. There is none that would affect the zoom ring sensitivity. Maybe the XA-20 is different?

Yes, I found that flashing immensely annoying Christian. I can see why you would put up with it though if you've had so many problems before. As I said though, the GTX770 is just as good - and no flashing.

OS, don't ask me where it is in the manual, but the zoom/focus ring sensitivity is definitely customisable. I would have thought a 'harder' setting would more likely give you the faster manual zoom that you want?