Sandy Bridge is here

Hulk wrote on 1/3/2011, 8:58 PM
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested

While I haven't come across Vegas specific benchmarks in every bench out there, from Photoshop to video encoding the $317 i7-2600 is faster than the $999 980 Nehalem based cpu. And better yet the $217 2500 is just a tick off the 2600. Pretty amazing that this 4 core Sandy Bridge cpu is slapping around a 6 core $1000 cpu from just a few months ago. Perhaps Vegas utilizes all 6 cores better than the tested apps but Sandybridge looks to be quite extraordinary for power users at a great price.

And hex cores will be coming soon. Oh yeah, these things come in unlocked versions for just a few dollars more and seem to go to 4.5GHz (32nm process) quite easily and with much less power under load than the 45nm Nehalem based parts.

And finally QuckSync built into the GPU does hardward accelerated video compression at higher quality and much faster than CUDA. Perhaps we'll see the next version of Vegas incorporate this new hardware. After all Intel is still the 800lb gorilla.

Just thought I'd post this in case anyone is looking to buy/build a system I'd wait a week and pick up one of these new Sandybridge based systems. Cheaper, faster, and more power efficient with hardware based video encoding than previous generation Nehalem cpus. As I said we'll see if the 2600 is faster in Vegas than the 980 at 1/3 the cost. Either way these things are a huge benefit to the world of video editors if you're looking for a lot of speed for little $.

- Mark

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 1/3/2011, 9:16 PM
I am planning to build a system when the hex-core SandyBridge chips are released later this year. Since Vegas is *not* handicapped with video card requirements, Vegas doesn't need any adjustments to use the on-board video. Preview should be pretty brisk without the NorthBridge restraints.
musicvid10 wrote on 1/3/2011, 9:17 PM
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-17.html

Look at the Mainconcept and Handbrake render times at the bottom of the page.
WOW!
Grazie wrote on 1/3/2011, 11:30 PM
OK. We/I've been here before. Apologies if I appear a wee bit cynical, but show me the beef?

Just show me I'd get better FPS while using Vegas, WITHOUT needing to do any interim proxy renders and I may just excited.

Until that time, I for one just can't get sweaty.

Grazie

farss wrote on 1/4/2011, 12:00 AM
". Apologies if I appear a wee bit cynical, but show me the beef?"

Actual benchmarks for Vegas 10 here:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1501/15/

Please take careful note that the best times were with the 2600K part overclocked to just under 5GHz. At this stage the price of the overclockable K part is unknown.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 1/4/2011, 12:52 AM
Do they give FPS rates? Anything to compare to? Or is it more interpretation required?

Anything that I'd understand?

Grazie

farss wrote on 1/4/2011, 3:12 AM
"Do they give FPS rates?"

No, purely comparison of render speed and then only over the Sandy Bridge range against an AMD part.

"Anything that I'd understand?"

Well I did read another review that I can no longer find.
It compared performance of the Sandy Bridge CPU against the previous i7 part at the same clock speed and doing the same task. Sandy Bridge for both CS5 and Vegas showed only a roughly 10% improvement. As noted by others Handbrake and other dedicated transcoding apps have an improvement of around 200%. As I pointed out though in a previous thread on this topic encoding is only part of what's going on when most of us are rendering out a project. Processing FXs, masks, compositing frames etc are CPU intensive and all Vegas has to get them done is the CPU.

What Sandy Bridge does bring to the table for us is more bang for the buck and lower power consumption. At around $400 the i7 2600 part gives us a 3.4GHz clock and 4 cores and at around half the power consumption of the previous i7. So it is good news, nothing to make your head spin but more than enough to make you glad you waited a couple of months.

The other thing with Sandy Bridge is overclocking seems to have become mainstream. Intel have worked with the overclocking community and will release different versions of their CPUs specifically targetting the overclocker. To get decent overclocking you also need the right mobo. Given Vegas's reliance on the CPU overclocking is probably going to be an attractive option to the Vegas user. If overclocking scares you I'd suspect your system builder can do it for you.

If none of that makes much sense then look at it this way. Very soon all you'll be able to buy is a Sandy Bridge CPU and a mobo to suit. You'll pay possibly a little less, it'll run Vegas a bit faster and you'll save a bit on your power bill. So all the news is good.

Oh but wait, there's more. All the new mobos have USB 3.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 1/4/2011, 3:37 AM
[i]If none of that makes much sense then look at it this way. Very soon all you'll be able to buy is a Sandy Bridge CPU and a mobo to suit. You'll pay possibly a little less, it'll run Vegas a bit faster and you'll save a bit on your power bill. So all the news is good. [/I]

Until the time when I, and I suggest you too, see Vegas playing near enough full FPS, with something like AVCHD with fx-ing, and at Best, what I'm left with is just a promise.

I've learnt to become hard-nosed about this stuff. Right now, do you think the Vegas SONY Boyz are building one of these boxes? And testing it against VP10? I can dream…

Grazie



farss wrote on 1/4/2011, 5:12 AM
"Until the time when I, and I suggest you too, see Vegas playing near enough full FPS, with something like AVCHD with fx-ing, and at Best, what I'm left with is just a promise."

Sorry but I don't even see a promise or light at the end of tunnel.
Sure I think you could get what you want. Buy one of those turnkey Vegas systems with dual 6 core Xeon CPUs and a slab of RAM in it for around $10K.

" Right now, do you think the Vegas SONY Boyz are building one of these boxes?"

I'd be more hoping they're working on their own version of Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine. Independant reviews say Adobe have managed to increase performance by a factor of 10. It's going to take a lot of money to get a CPU only solution that can compete or an aweful long wait for Moore's law to catch up to that kind of performance improvement.

Bob.
Hulk wrote on 1/4/2011, 6:38 AM
MSRP on the 2600k is $317. It might be a few dollars higher than that initially due to high demand.

Clock-for-clock and core-for-core Sandy Bridge is much faster than Nehalem. No doubt about that.

Even without quicksync implimentation Vegas performance will be much better for the video editors dollar.

Power usage under load is lower (and cooler).

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/4/2011, 8:56 AM
on the other side of this coin, having been force to upgrade a couple months ago due to hardware failure, I'm pleased to see that the total improvement appears to be less than a halving of render times ( at least so far ). As that is what generally determines my upgrading ( that and budget of course :) ).

Dave