Is that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti? I see it on Amazon for $250 which isn't bad...

yeap. there's probably 100's of versions 1gb / 2gb, overclocked etc... but in general its gtx560Ti.
now when the gtx680 is out they should get a little bit cheaper

I recently upgraded to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX-580 - 1536MB with the sole purpose of cutting down the amount of crashes in Vegas 11. It didn't really help. However I have since increased the amount of ram in my computer from 8 to 16GB and that HAS cut down on the crashes. I won't say it's working perfectly because I've only worked in Vegas for a few hours after I upgraded the ram, but so far I haven't gotten any crashes. Which might go to proving my theory that some crashes might be related to a memory leak.

So my advice is to get that card, but if you can afford it, get as much ram as you can. There definitely seems to be a lot more stability in Vegas since I doubled my memory.

Off Topic here, but against my own embargo of helping people with PC problems...
There definitely seems to be a lot more stability in Vegas since I doubled my memory.
Knowing how Windows manages the resource pool this could indicate that your original memory has a problem. To verify this, swap your new and old memory positions and if your crash problems return, trash the old RAM and buy some more like the new ones.

Wait a while, if you can. The procices on the "older" GTX cards should be coming down a bit, since they've just released a brand new one.

Steve, thanks for the suggestion, and thanks for helping out a poor misguided PC owner! LOL! :-)

Actually I totally swapped out the old memory sticks, I had 4 - 2GB sticks and swapped them out for 4 - 4 GB sticks. So the old memory sticks are totally out of the picture. And I would do further testing but getting to the memory on my board is a huge PITA. With an almost Amazon forest worth of cables, wires, and other assorted obstacles, I don't want to go through that again if I don't have to. (I know, Macs have very clean, nice and organized internal layouts, right?) ;-)

But besides that, I seriously doubt all the other folks with the same kind of crashing problems (usually associated with 3rd party plugins) ALL have bad memory sticks. I just think that if there is a memory leak in the software, then the more memory you have, the longer it will take before all your memory leaks away causing a crash. Kind of makes sense, and as far as workarounds go, it's pretty straightforward (if you have the extra money to spend on more RAM)

Problems with memory are more common than you might think. Having worked on many computers in a large IT environment, memory comes in second to heat in my book. If in diagnosing computer crashes on various software, the first thing I look at is heat/fan issues. Many times I find a computer works fine on most software, but suddenly it crashes on certain programs. In looking closely, there is often a dead fan inside that normally doesn't seem to matter. But when the processor really starts working, heat builds up, and crashes start. Same for memory. Most programs work and a few crash. I swap out the memory for known good memory and suddenly the crashes disappear.

It is important to recognize that the crashes do not occur on many programs, but do on certain programs. So remember, go for heat and memory for troubleshooting.

Sorry, but I have never really had issues with Vegas crashing in any version. So, I view with a little skepticism complaints about the software. I also will quickly add that I am not a heavy user of Vegas on a daily basis.

Just IMHO........

David

David - Yeah I'm pretty fanatical about heat, my PC has 4 fans on the case, plus a fan on the graphics card and CPU. And I'm constantly blowing out the dust that builds up in the fan casings (screens), because we live in a very dusty environment.

I'm like that with all my equipment. I have my wireless router (which is known to get really hot) propped up on two sides with two DVD cases so the bottom has about two inches of room. When the Cable technician came to the house to fix a wiring problem he saw what I did with the modem and praised me for doing that, he said he wished all his customers would be that observant about heat issues.

Thanks to all for your replies... I didn't realize the memory question would generate so much conversation but it's appreciated. What I get from this discussion and my original question is the following:
- my choice of the Dell XPS is probably OK but I should opt to double the memory to 16GB
- the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a good choice for the video card. Dell doesn't offer it but I can get it elsewhere for around $250
- Need to be really careful about ventilation to keep heat under control.

Sorry for being so simple minded but I'm more on the creative side and less on the tech side...

If anyone is worried about their RAM being good just run Memtest for a couple of full cycles.
RAM is inherently error prone so it's not unusual to get the odd crash due to a bit being flipped. How often that'll happen depends on where you live, sun spot activity etc. The best way to mitigate the risk is to use ECC RAM but although the RAM itself is reasonably priced the CPUs and mobos that support it are not.

Bob.

Hmmm, I never knew that about ECC and non-ECC ram. Honestly, I never fully understood what half the numbers/letters meant associated with RAM. I usually just looked up my motherboard and found the RAM type that would work with it. And of course mine would have to be non-ECC.

I'm guessing only the newest boards take ECC ram? Kind of like cars and leaded and unleaded gasoline. (For those old enough to remember the good old days of leaded gas)

"I'm guessing only the newest boards take ECC ram"

No, I have a 5 year old Xeon system with it.
In general it's only the "enterprise" class mobos with the Xeon CPUs that support it.

Bob.

"And of course mine would have to be non-ECC"

Generally only the more expensive motherboards support ECC memory.