+1 on what he said.

The only thing I would mention is that I use a pair of Samsung 840 Pro SSDs and when the project is finished, I move all of it off onto a 2TB conventional drive. That way I get fast performance but don't fill up the drive with old projects.

Geoff

I have not tried overclocking, mostly because I don't know how to do that kind of stuff and am afraid I'll mess something up permanently =(

See:
http://blog.whitesites.com/Graphics-Card-for-the-Fastest-Rendering-in-Sony-Vegas-Pro-12__635078797007330625_blog.htm
"Plus it requires water cooling ( notice the water ports on the top of the card )."

Water cooling?? Is that something I really want to get into? I don't even want to bring a coke in here for fear of knocking it over and ruining a hard drive or something lol..

Regarding the video card, is the performance just experienced during encode, or does the better video card also improve the editing process itself?

Yes, I have a system drive (not SSD) and regular external firewire drives for projects.

The other side of this is that I want to be sure I have hardware that is stable and doesn't cause Vegas to crash...

MikeLV

You don't need a water-cooled card. The GTX570 which I have in my system doesn't even break a sweat under Vegas Pro. But you have to check if it fits into your casing, it is a rather large card taking up 3 slots and it is also quite long. I had a GTX560Ti and performance difference is in the area of +60% on average. The performance is felt during editing and rendering depending on the codec you use.
Don't use external firewire drives for editing work, they are just too slow. You can use them to store your footage and archive projects. Your motherboard should have plenty of SATA ports including SATA-III 6GB ports and even onboard RAID? There are many more "tricks" to get the most from a system and changing your system drive to a SSD is one of them. GeeBax like me also uses SSDs for editing and like me stores projects and footage on conventional HDDs.
If you want an even more stable system, do yourself a favor and buy a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). It does two things; a) save from a power outage that could ruin a hole day of work and more, b) supply the system with a smooth and stable current and voltage. Many, Many, Many people underestimate the influence the "dirty" power that comes out of a wall outlet has on the system.
Overclocking your current system is very easy and there are many tutorials on the internet. I believe even the manual tells you how to do it. I had mine running on 4.3GHz but I had a water cooler. A closed loop water cooler such as a H60 or H80 for the CPU is nothing to be afraid off; it's as easy to install as an air cooler. These are pre-filled with coolant and sealed systems. The really weak point in your current system is the power supply unit, RAM, HDD and graphic card.

As I said earlier, I had a system like yours, exactly same board, same CPU, similar memory (mine was and still is G.Skill PC17000 4x4GB), Win7Pro64, a 1200W power supply, PSU and a GTX570. I never had any of the issues people in this forum have with their systems. VP11 and VP12 have always worked for me and that with GPU acceleration on at all times.

I just swapped out my C drive with Samsung SSD (750GB). Really humming - like having a new PC - software opens in a flash (hehe, literally). Was about $500.

Shop around though. I didn't find the best price on Amazon like I thought I would. B&H had better prices.

Mike

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply and explain these things. AVCHD is such a pain to deal with, especially with two video tracks. I'm looking forward to the improvements after the upgrades!

I understand having two SSD's, one for system and one for editing is preferred, but if I only get one, should it be used for the system or the editing?

So the GTX570 is Nvidia - since I have an ASUS board, I should try to find an ASUS brand card, or does it make a big difference at all?

No 570??:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%2050001315%20600030348&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Pagesize=100

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR4.TRC1.A0.Xnvidia+gtx+570&_nkw=nvidia+gtx+570&_sacat=0&_from=R40

And I found a whole bunch of them at great prices.

I searched Nvidia and gtx and saw a list of cards and then saw the 570.

No concern about buying hardware like that on eBay?

Old Smoke, you said you have the same board as me, so the 570 should mine as well, correct?

please vegas for mac

Do all the GTX570 cards support two monitors?

Yes, the ASUS GTX570/580 will fit your board but you have to check on your casing. The card is aside from being 3 slots wide also rather long and you have to make sure it doesn't interfere with a drive cage or so. I am not sure if all 570 cards do support two monitors but the ASUS GTX570 does. I have tow in my system with 3 monitors and a HDTV for preview.

I bought my second GTX570 off eBay and it works flawless. The GTX580 is another 5-10% faster. However all socket 1155 boards will switch to 2x8 PCie when two cards are installed; also a reason why I switched to socket 2011.

570 appears to be discontinued, is this just because it's a few years old?

That is the reason but you can get them off eBay at very good prices!

Is the GTX 600 series no good for my needs? They seem to be abundant.. Ranging in price from $100 to $1000!

GTX600 is based on Keppler architecture. Although this is a newer technology then the Fermi based 500 series, it isn't well supported under Vegas 11 & 12; same applies for 700 series cards.

FWIW I'm running an Asus GTX 760 in a new system and V12 has operated perfectly. I'm away from home so can't tell you which driver I'm using but it was the one on the setup disk and it is NOT the latest driver.

MikeLV see this thread about new machines too:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=872507

@flyingski

Have you done any render speed tests? Would be nice to see a system with a newer graphic card to be better then old 500 series.

Is this a recent change? Your system spec still lists a 560Ti.

I've heard a lot of negative stories about Windows 8 in general.. How does Vegas like it?

Avoid it as long as you can!

Vegas 12, Windows 8.1 and GTX570 is a no go for me.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=872946&Replies=10

I'm worried if I look at Final Cut Pro, I might like it and want to change everything over to Mac lol..

Good luck with that. I tried PPro, Avid, Edius…. non of them are as fast and intuitive as Sony Vegas, it took way to long to just get anything on the timeline.

Maybe it's just me?

I don't think it's you. I've never had any classes in video editing, and when I got into this new skill, Vegas was the only NLE that I was able to start using pretty quickly.