Pretty much any of the new Intel i7 processors would run circles around your 2.8Ghz P4. I like Intel motherboards as well. They are not the absolute fastest or most feature rich, but they are incredibly stable.

There are no hardware accelerators which work with Vegas.

Yes, the 64-bit version of Vegas does render faster that the 32-bit version.

I just rendered out a 4-minute 1920x1080 project with multiple layers, ProTitle animated titles and other effects to a YUV. File was 34GB.

It took 14 hours on my 2.8gH Intel P4 machine.

Just asking: what is considered the best (or at least adequate) processor/motherboard combo to get renders back down to reasonable times?
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Not sure what slowed it down, but a newer system may not have done much better depending upon the complexity of what Vegas and your system were trying to render. Seems like a long time for a small file.

That said, a great bargain and apparently stable board is the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P which is around $120 (AR) delivered.

You can use DDR2 ram with it which is dirt cheap right now, then spend the money on the processor. Since this board accepts both 65nm and 45nm processors, I would recommend the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz for around $340 delivered. You can also go for the Q9550 which is about $60 cheaper. Both can be overclocked quite easily if you are into that. Figure roughly 6 clocks more for each (safely).

John

You can give a try to a combo like mine: Gigabyte EX58-UD4P + i7 920.

Thanks for the input.

I realize there are 340 posts on this subject. I was involved in them, back then.

But processors, mobo's and RAM change faster than I can keep up and I appreciate the latest experience from Vegas users. I can't really trust the wisdom of my local computer store that builds computers for gamers and really does not know from video editing and especially of how Vegas works best.

I know of the i7 processor (it's in the Fry's ad) but Intel has a way of marketing their goods in such a way that I could be sorry for my selection.

"Intel has a way of marketing their goods in such a way that I could be sorry for my selection."

On what are you basing this statement? I've never known Intel to engage in any deceptive marketing practices.

Keep in mind that exactly what the very best system for video is likely to be depends on the type of video you work with and what you do with it.
For cuts only edits working with near or fully uncompressed video i/o bandwidth is more a factor than CPU speed.
For FX intensive work with the latest high compression codecs i/o bandwidth is less of an issue than CPU speed.
Of course if you've got lots of money to spend a system with large RAID arrays, top shelf RAID controllers, bulk RAM and 8 cores on an enterprise class mobo will scream through anything very reliably.

Organising your workflow can have a big impact on render times as well. Doing everthing on the one T/L means any changes require a complete re-render of the whole show. Breaking things down into sensible modules can save a lot of time wasting.

Bob.

I am using an Intel Core i7 920 (2.67 GHz) with ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme RT 1366 CPU cooler

The machine is pretty new and I have yet to do any serious HD project benchmarking,

I found a comparator where you can select different CPUs and compare them to one another in terms of performance using various benchmarks including Sony Vegas Pro 8 Blu-Ray Disk Image Creation.

The AnandTech Bench(beta).

John

I am using an Intel Core i7 920 (2.67 GHz) with ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard

I jus made a system with this combination and it is pretty good - for shure good value for money. I have not compared to my dual quadcore Dell workstation yet, but I guess it might be close.

/Ulf

"Intel has a way of marketing their goods in such a way that I could be sorry for my selection."

On what are you basing this statement? I've never known Intel to engage in any deceptive marketing practices.
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Perhaps from articles such as this one.

A new round of documents out in the Vista "Junk PC" lawsuit shows that Intel bullied Microsoft into saying an Intel chipset could run Vista, when in fact, it couldn't run the most vital parts of the new operating system, such as running Aero. Intel had billions of dollars at stake, and Microsoft, in the words of one exec, "caved" into Intel.

This may come as a surprise to many but many of us who work at intel know about the deceptive marketing and bullying partners into giving them a sweet deal has been Intel's trademark policies. I dont agree with it but that how they scramble to stay on top.

John

Here is what I am using without issue.

Windows Version: Vista Ultimate 64
RAM: 8gb
Processor: 2 Quad Core Xeon E5420's
Video Card: EVGA nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 ddr3
Sound Card: SigmaTel STAC9274D
Video Capture: firewire/ ADS Pyro A/V Link
Mobo: Intel Skulltrail

Here is more info on it.

j razz

"Perhaps from articles such as this one."

All of this took place over three years ago and so what if the 915 chips couldn't run Vista's Aero interface, that's the first thing I shut OFF. The 915 is pretty ancient and no one should be running Vista on a chipset that old anyway.

Amen to that, but Microsoft just got sued for charging people money to downgrade Vista to XP for new computers that were labeled "Vista Capable" but couldn't run it in a meaningful way.

You'd think the computer manufacturers would be responsible for this mess first...

"Perhaps from articles such as this one."

All of this took place over three years ago and so what if the 915 chips couldn't run Vista's Aero interface, that's the first thing I shut OFF. The 915 is pretty ancient and no one should be running Vista on a chipset that old anyway.
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Article I linked is dated November 14, 2008. Response at the end of my quote from person who works for Intel was from that same time.

John

Yes, but the events about which the article is discussing took place in January of 2006.

Sidecar:

That's a good question, with a lot of qualifiers to answer.

1. Are you looking for a whole new machine?

2. Are you set on building it yourself?

3. Do you have a good budget for the new box or upgrade?

I spent massive money on hardware upgrades in 2008 (10K+), and in retrospect, it wasn't a great move, because the stability and performance increases were not that great.

If you are building a new system yourself, the LGA 1366/i7 platform is the only way to go. The i7 920 and Asus P6T is a good combo. LGA 775 based systems are about as fast, only cost a little less and are more prone to memory compatability problems (which is still a problem with the LGA 1366 platform). I wouldn't build a new LGA775 system.

I think the best bang for the buck is a refurbished Q6600 or Q6700 system. Maybe something like this:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11311576&whse=bc&topnav=&browse=&lang=en-US

This would be a huge improvement over your P4 based system.

anything from AMD 64 on up or any AMD X2/Phenom or Intel Core duel/i7 will be LOTS faster then the Intel p4 chip you're using (i've had experiences where the P3's & p4's @ simular clock speeds had the p3's faster too!).

Honestly, find out what's the most expensive CPU, cut the price in 1/2 & get the best one @ that price. the difference in speed between a $500 CPU & a $1k CPU is normally very marginal.

(I had a friend who worked @ intel for a while & he can honestly say they use very deceptive practices to sell things too. Doesn't make the stuff any less suitable, be he'll even say when AMD was, hand down, better, intel would make specific, non-realistic, examples where intel was better & use that for sales. He even bought an AMD cpu @ that time).

"Perhaps from articles such as this one."
Response by John_ Cline
All of this took place over three years ago and so what if the 915 chips couldn't run Vista's Aero interface, that's the first thing I shut OFF. The 915 is pretty ancient and no one should be running Vista on a chipset that old anyway.
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Article I linked is dated November 14, 2008. Response at the end of my quote from person who works for Intel was from that same time.

John
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Reply by: John_Cline

Yes, but the events about which the article is discussing took place in January of 2006.
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Well, the first link was in answer to your statement - "I've never known Intel to engage in any deceptive marketing practices."
I guess if complaints aren't resolved overnight they don't count?

OK John. Want some more recent examples?

June 4, 2008

The Korea Fair Trade Commission has fined Intel Corp. $25.4 million for abusing its dominant position in the microprocessor market.

January 28, 2009

BRUSSELS — A decision by Intel, the chip maker, to defy European antitrust investigators raised questions Wednesday about how the European Commission should handle the remainder of the investigation and discourage similar behavior.

A Google search reveals quite a history of accusations against them.

John

Look, the original poster was wondering if it would be a mistake to buy an Intel processor because of their "deceptive marketing practices." Nobody has ever gotten fired or otherwise screwed by using Intel microprocessors. Millions and millions and millions of people get real work done every day using Intel products. They currenty have the fastest processors on the market and have for quite some time. No amount of marketing hype can distort the render times being reported in my "rendertest-hdv" thread.

I know literally hundreds of people that work at a huge Intel plant here in Albuquerque, some in marketing, some in PR and some are engineers in design and fabrication, none of them have ever said anything about Intel engaging in deception about the capabilities of their products.

The Intel 915 chipset, which is the root of the article, was released in June of 2004, no one should be running Vista on a chipset that old. You can, just not with the Aero interface, so "Vista Capable" is not necessarily the same as "Vista Compatible."

I'm done discussing this.

I have used a couple of boards (the latest is a gigabyte) but from my experience Intel is the most stable. Your experiences may be different. As mentioned by John not necessarily feature rich but rock solid reliability. If I build again I will go back to Intel.