Looks good, except I would go with a boot device of 2TB at least, 4TB preferable. You want to make use of the fast PCI lane directly to your Processor with this Intel setup, all other nvme devices connected still have to go via the chipset first; that is if want to give your Videocard the full bandwidth.

I am not a fan of Radeon cards, they have good HW, but I always have the impression they are let down by software / driver issues. Nvidea excels in this area. For Davinci resolve NVIDEA is also a no brainer. 8 GB on the videocard as a contend creator is a bit on the low side and not future safe, the trend is going up.

I am satisfied with my system, and it is very quiet.

@pierre-k

"I'm also planning to upgrade my PC now, but I decided to wait for the lower latency and price of ddr5 and the future upgrade of playing in Vegas."

Last time, I went for low latency memory over size. Since I'm stalling a few more weeks, I'm open to other memory options.

I expect to replace my graphics card eventually, I'm currently just not excited about a particular one.

@bitman

I usually don't use my boot device for workspace since I maintain different images for different tasks. I'm currently dual-booting a legacy system with Vegas 13 through 18 and a system with Vegas Pro 19-643. Those images currently live on a 400GB Intel 750 plug-in NVMe card which will likely be retired on the new system because of PCIe lane constraints.

@john_dennis Wow, that system will be like night and day vrs the one in your signature!

When I looked over the ram listed on the Asus support page for that mb, I only saw it listed as a single, not as a 2 x 32gb kit. You might want to consider this Kingston on NewEgg with similar latency, speed, and price. There's also a CL40 5200 there for a few dollars less, both on the Asus list.

I usually don't use my boot device for workspace since I maintain different images for different tasks.

Same here. I generally boot from a 500gb m.2 and use a separate m.2 as a work drive. My sense is that Windows hits the boot drive allot harder than Vegas hits the work drive. In fact, I have a couple sata-ssd hot-swap drive bays that I use for project archiving and I get almost the same Vegas performance from them as I do the m.2 work drive once the project is loaded. And the overnight benchmark scripts give pretty much identical results. Really big projects do load quicker off the m.2 work drive, however. And m.2/cfast media copies to it quicker.

@Howard-Vigorita

I looked at the ASUS QVL for the Kingston. I'll consider those kits as I get closer.

I've had good luck with Corsair, but I haven't found 2X32GB, yet.

 

I usually don't use my boot device for workspace since I maintain different images for different tasks.

Same here. I generally boot from a 500gb m.2 and use a separate m.2 as a work drive.

Vegas doesn't yet have a version of smart cache, but it possibly will in the future. With Resolve, by default smart cache is uncompressed using large amounts of storage, for this reason I don't consider it safe to use the boot drive. It is better to use a scratch disk that can be swapped out as it degrades, the high bandwidth also doesn't compete with Windows operations on the boot drive. For this reason I consider dual M.2 NVME a necessity for best performance.

As you probably know the Zen 4 based 7950X was recently released and is quite a bit faster than the Zen 3 based part it supersedes. This is the only Vegas Pro test I can find and the 7950X looks really fast in this test. We will need more tests to corroborate this but Zen 4 is looking like a great CPU for Vegas Pro and most anything else. https://www.comptoir-hardware.com/articles/cpu-mobo-ram/46620-test-amd-ryzen-9-7950x-a-7-7700x-zen-4-am5-x670e-a-ddr5.html?start=10

That being said the 13900K will be released on October 20 and the larger L2 cache, 8 additional E cores and higher clocks will make it a competitor as well. Having those 8 Golden Cove P cores keeping your editing smooth while the 16 Gracemonts E's are cranking away in the background might also be a great solution.

Really, you can't go wrong with any new processor these days. I currently have a 12700K and since the 13900K is a direct drop in upgrade I'm most likely going to pick one up. I can't resist all those cores.

My advice would be to wait until Raptor Lake drops. Read a bunch of reviews and buy the part that give the most bang for the buck running the compute heavy applications that you use on a daily basis.

Mark

Do not expect wonders from the E-cores, (it may even be worse for raptor lake) as long as Vegas pro 19 or 20 is not optimized for 12th gen processors a i9-12900K has the same rendering speed as i9-9900K unless you disable the E-cores, (or kept busy by other programs), then you can render almost 2x as fast (vs i9-9900K). At least that was what I experienced in my case with the Vegas bench comparing my legacy results with new runs. Some feedback from the devs at Vegas would be welcome on the issue as I reported on this forum, and in an official ticket, but there is a big silence so far.

@bitman

I read your thread regarding your E core experience. I only render using HO frameserving to Render+ and have not noticed that behavior. In fact, because of the frameserving there is significant use of compute resources between Vegas and the encoding software, which of course is a separate application from Vegas Pro.

If Vegas is the background task then Vegas will slow down as it is relegated primarily to the E cores. That I have noticed. But it gets full access to the P's when in the foreground on my system.

The E cores will have access to more cache with Raptor Lake and this should improve their performance as they have been somewhat "starved" by the ADL implementation.

Yes, if Vegas is running on the E's then you will notice performance more akin to Skylake cores (9900K, actually Intel generations 6xxx through 10xxx, they got some mileage out of the Skylake core!). Gracemont at only a fraction of the die area of Skylake performs almost as good, about Haswell level from my testing.

Also, you can use Process Lasso to "lock" Vegas Pro to the P cores if necessary.

Everybody has a different usage scenario. The hybrid approach may not be best for you. Personally I like it because when I'm editing video, or doing Photoshop work I always have full access to the P cores while the E's are rendering or doing other non-real-time intensive work in the background. I like having the P's always available for what I'm currently doing so that I'm not waiting for an operation in PS or Vegas or hearing glitches in Presonus Studio One.

From what I have read the E's are not energy efficiency cores but rather area efficiency cores. For the die area they occupy they offer quite a bit of compute. The theory goes like this. If you have a bunch of applications running at once all demanding cycles from the CPU, the one you are currently working with is most important because you are interacting with it and don't want to wait on the computer. Since most software outside of benchmarks don't fully utilize more than 6 or 8 cores the 8 P's are there to keep you working in real-time while the E's handle the background tasks.

Yeah I know that has not been your experience and it's frustrating for you! Maybe the Vegas engineers could step to clarify as you've been asking...

I'm "looping in a wait state" until the October announcements and then the possible availability of parts after that. If it rains in the California January storm window, I'll be tucked away inside field-stripping my current build and creating something new. Whatever it is.

This thread is producing good discussion.

@Hulk Interesting, I have not thought about using frame serving, if I can remember correctly, I once experimented with it quite a while ago, but the rendering was slower, so I did not pursue it then.

I am not entirely convinced if Vegas Pro is preferring E-cores over P-cores when rendering. Actually, when trying to get to the bottom of it by running monitoring applications for core behavior like HWinfo64 or windows 11 own task manager during a render session, I see Vegas using P-cores and some E-core activity and the render is fast. Closing all monitoring applications and Vegas, then starting Vegas anew (without the monitoring stuff or other applications) the render is slow...

I tried Process Lasso to lock Vegas pro to P-cores, or to increase priority, but the process thread core affinity is strangely ignored. Manual setting the affinity or with a script looks also correctly set, but it is likewise ignored. Disabling the E-cores in BIOS or using Gigabytes DRM fix tool does work, but that defies the advantages of a hybrid processor.

I agree with Hulk that rendering could be a background task on E-cores if you do not mind a longer rendering time, while you do some other tasks on your computer with great performance. However, in case of Vegas, the idea of rendering out some Vegas stuff and at the same time editing with Vegas the next part will not work as rendering blocks editing of the same Vegas process. I guess you could always start a second Vegas process, but this would be pushing your luck I presume... I can imagine for many professionals and youtubers time is money and would like their rendering time halved.

Best of both worlds would be a new render option setting in Vegas: performance rendering or background rendering (with a core affinity and priority that really works)

I don't want to derail the OP but the difference in quality for a given file size is readily apparent when getting outside of Vegas with Handbrake or HOS Render+ (they use the same x264/265 encoder I believe). Especially when creating smaller file sizes.

Yes, we are derailing! Normally I would use Voukoder (all the issues with P-E core are with Vegas "classic" rendering, have not tried if I have the same issue with Voukoder yet)

As of this date, I can see no compelling reason to buy the i9-12900K over an i7-13700K.

Comparison

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=230500,134599

i9-12900K Price = $499.90 i7-13700K Price = $449.99

As of this date, I can see no compelling reason to buy the i9-12900K over an i7-13700K.

Comparison

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=230500,134599

i9-12900K Price = $499.90 i7-13700K Price = $449.99

Compelling or not? Your take. I would choose i7-13700K because of:
A) Total L2 Cache 24MB vs 14MB (i9-12900K)
and B) Higher cores (P+E) speeds, plus slightly better DDR5 RAM memory allowance.
Also make sure those prices are MSRP + vendor % (vary with time).

However in terms of power consumption...
http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce6075096ed8d947af302589ad7f9dd1abd7df3ff6119e14e4dbbc4792b3575f.png
i9-12900K shows less power usage there. Most probably because it has lower core speeds, which for gaming means the same game lengths produces less power consumption, but for rendering the slower CPU will also take a longer lapse to complete the task, so what will effectively be the total power consumption comparison utilizing VEGAS, is not so clear yet.

Since my main tasks deal with Audio I would also choose i7-13700k over i9-13900K
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17601/intel-core-i9-13900k-and-i5-13600k-review

After reading more about the recent announcements, I've updated the CPU and memory selections. I can afford to go all the way to the i9-13900K, but I'm not currently convinced the advantages will be that great over the four-to-five-year life of the machine.

I would like to get a Z790 chipset (just because), but the feature set of the ASUS ProArt Z690-CREATOR WIFI LGA 1700 ATX motherboard matches my perceived needs.

I went with the i5-13600K for excellent performance without the serious power and heat disadvantages (I can still do air cooling). I matched it with 64GB 5200 DDR5 and an affordable MSI z690 Tomahawak motherboard (has the better audio and good enough VRMs, don't see benefits to more expensive boards).

I did benchmarks here so you can see how it compares: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b3ggVifKsuT-cp2kQHjum_KnQ4-2jBmUIvzmu7BQZ34/

@RogerS

I appreciate the benefits of moderation.

I remain committed to water cooling, but I'm not anxious to run a processor into diminishing returns in terms of power consumption just because I can.

I'm still looking at motherboards with 10gb ethernet to improve file management over time.

You probably want to be looking for an ATX motherboard with onboard 10gig ethernet and as many expansion slots as you can get. If you can get at least 1 pcie4 expansion slot, you could use it for a secondary gpu like the inexpensive Arc a380 and get just as good or better performance as with an Intel/igpu combo cpu. Instead going with an Intel X-series or a Ryzen with more cores. The Amd motherboards may be ahead of Intel at the moment with more pcie4 lanes, slots, and allowed m.2s before sharing bandwidth.

@Howard-Vigorita

My case will support E-ATX motherboards, but I haven't found a special reason to go that large with the Z690, Z790 platform yet.

The on-die iGPU has seemed compelling for decode, but similar results might be as effective with the ARC. Thinking...

I'll spend more time looking at AMD before I make the purchases.

The on-die iGPU has seemed compelling for decode, but similar results might be as effective with the ARC. Thinking...

No might about it here. Had to disable the uhd750 in my aio-cooled 11900k and replace it functionally with an Arc to get better Vegas hevc performance than my older air-cooled 9900k/uhd630 machine.

I went with the i5-13600K for excellent performance without the serious power and heat disadvantages (I can still do air cooling). I matched it with 64GB 5200 DDR5 and an affordable MSI z690 Tomahawak motherboard (has the better audio and good enough VRMs, don't see benefits to more expensive boards).

I did benchmarks here so you can see how it compares: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b3ggVifKsuT-cp2kQHjum_KnQ4-2jBmUIvzmu7BQZ34/

You do realize that at the same power/heat settings the 13900K is more performant than the 13600K or the 13700K, right? It's a simple matter of the fact that more transistors at lower clocks (in the more linear portion of the v/f curve) are more efficient. If you purchased the 13600K for economic value then right on. But if it was just so you could air cool then you could get more performance and still be air cooled. I have a 13900K air cooled, I just set the BIOS to 175W max. It'll still boost 2 cores up to 5.8GHz for lightly threaded apps. It's fast and efficient at this power setting.

Of course you always have the option to upgrade to the 13900K if you so choose!

Mark

. I have a 13900K air cooled, I just set the BIOS to 175W max. It'll still boost 2 cores up to 5.8GHz for lightly threaded apps. It's fast and efficient at this power setting.
 

@Hulk Do a transcode, encode to MagixHEVC using Mainconcept HEVC, let it run for a couple of minutes, ensure Vegas isn't being weird and it's actually using 100% CPU, what is your all core CPU frequency power restricted to 175W?

We know that Vegas thrives on high clock speeds, I suspect you're removing part of the reason why 13 series works so well for Vegas. If you can't get Vegas to load up all your cores, do a cinebench all core test, what is the all core frequency.

This is Blender, a good real world test of all cores

When not thermally throttled it wants 495watts, run at 175watts it's clocks will have to be much lower. We've seen how Ryzen threadrippers don't excel in vegas even with 32cores mostly to do with low clocks. Fewer faster cores are better.