VP-19 + Boris Continuum 2021 – Seek Good Used Video Card

Soniclight-2.0 wrote on 4/1/2022, 8:11 PM





(First, yes, I considered posting this in Off-Topic, but I may never be read, so please don't delete it. Thanks.)

It's taken me a long while to get the gumption to ask for this, so please bear with me to allow me to give background on why I cannot afford a current graphics card. It is not... a short post.

But fiduciary translation first:

My budget for a good used card is around USD $100-150 incl. Shipping and handling. My system is Windows 10 Home and I live in the greater Los Angeles, California area.

The opening low quality photo is of my system's PCI slots and where my current, essentially entry level GPU sits. The second is from my MOBO's PCI page.

OK, now for wallet and other factors limiting my purchase power and ability to handle normal complexities.

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Perhaps TMI, but Still The Facts

I'm not a pro but serious amateur from former graphic design background and some fairly decent music music creation/production skills for which I use Steinberg Cubase Pro.

I've been a member at this forum since 2006 (started on VP6) under two usernames - Soniclight, then Soniclight 2.0 due to glitch unable to use original and have greatly learned from some of the veteran members here.

I'm 67 old, 30 years on only limited U.S. Social Security/Disability income of just under USD $1000 total per month and my condition is a form of permanent, daily/chronic anxiety-depression.

Luckily I live in a nice one bedroom apartment on a public housing property for seniors and disabled – and began using EBT (food stamps) last year which had been a real blessing.

Due to my condition, it is getting harder for me to process very useful but for-me too complex FYI posts or in-depth input such as those by Nick Hope or others who are vastly more informed than I on graphics cards and related under-the-hood ways to make Vegas work smoothly.

While I've only been able to afford basic consumer video cards over the years, they've all been nVidia, and it appears that Nick and others say that AMD based cards are more compatible with Vegas Pro.

But I then I may or may not be correct on that assumption.

I've applied as much as I can handle in-program such as Preferences settings, yet I still get slow preview in the Timeline with certain Particle Illusion emitters – which are kind of my signature thing.

But I've been AWOL in anything creative and nuked most of my videos during the last few years due some crisis level moments requiring albeit short but unpleasant hospitalization and a long, yet unfinished road back.

I simply can't deal with revolving technical issues when I already have a hard time getting into the creative “zone” - which is one of the few life therapeutics I still have.

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My income limits what I can afford and my system is far from what most of you use, but it's what I got. That said, I have built all my last 4 computers myself, so I'm not totally all-gone :)

I'm providing a hopefully rather detailed specs closing this post – including links. The only reason I was able to upgrade to VP19 from VP10 and get Continuum 2021.5 (99% for Particle Illusion) was the U.S. Covid stimulus checks over 2020. But that's almost all gone.

Supply chain and computer chips market issues has shot up the cost of both new and old graphics cards, though that may be waning a bit. But from the research I've done online, any decent new or used card is still out of my range.
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One Current Reason for This Posting

I haven't created any videos in some years, but I want to be able to pull off a short music video for those suffering in Ukraine. It may or may not happen due to the above mentioned challenges.

Yet if I can get Vegas and Continuum to work better, it will help the confidence factor.

I'm remastering the remaining single .wav render/export from Cubase (I lost the master .cpr work project file) of my very first actual video I ever made -- thanks to my first real NLE, Vegas 6 -- and the first generation of Particle Illusion 3. It was in part for an Israel-based grassroots, citizens Arab-Israeli “rapprochement” site back in 2006.

Much of the video part is somewhat embarrassing for it's not sophisticated. But I want to weave a new video around the music for that part still works IMO.

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OK, nuf of the life story violins however factual it all is.

If you have such a card or know someone who does, feel free to post here or contact me via PM.

Thank you for taking the time to read this longwinded wordsmithin' thing...

~ Philip Knight (aka Soniclight 2.0)

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GENERAL SYSTEM SPECS:

Win 10 64 bit Home

MSI Performance B450 Gaming Plus mobo

Ryzen 5 1600 CPU (6 actual cores, no overclocking)

Crucial 3200 Mhz DDR4 2 x 16 Gb - XMP

Dual 24" LCD Samsung Monitors*

OS on Samsung Pro 850 SSD + 2 Logical SSD + 3 Mechanical HDDs (SATA non-RAID)

nVidia GT 710 2 Gb. DDR3 Video Card

Behringer UMC 204HD 192K USB + MIDI Audio Interface 

(* Monitors manf 2013

Brightness 300 cd/m2

Color support 16.7Million

Dynamic Contrast Ration 70,000:1

Static Contrast Ratio 1,000:1

Response time 5ms)

______________

CPU: AMD Ryzen™ 5 1600

# of CPU Cores - 6

# of Threads - 12

Max. Boost Clock - Up to 3.6GHz

Base Clock - 3.2GHz

Total L1 Cache - 576KB

Total L2 Cache - 3MB

Total L3 Cache - 16MB

Default TDP - 65W

Processor Technology for CPU Cores - 14nm

Unlocked for Overclocking - Yes

CPU Socket - AM4

Max. Operating Temperature (Tjmax) - 95°C

Launch Date - 4/11/2017

Unit Manufacturer Page

______________

MOBO: MSI Gaming Plus B450

CPU (MAX SUPPORT) - RYZEN 9

SOCKET - AM4 

CHIPSET - AMD® B450 Chipset

DDR4 MEMORY - 1866/ 2133/ 2400/ 2667Mhz (by JEDEC)

- 2667/ 2800/ 2933/ 3000/ 3066/ 3200/ 3466 MHz (by A-XMP OC MODE)

MEMORY CHANNEL - Dual

DIMM SLOTS - 4

MAX MEMORY (GB) - 128 

PCI-E X16 - 2

PCI-E GEN - Gen3(16) (8), Gen2(4) 

PCI-E X1 - 4 

SATAIII - 6

M.2 SLOT - 1

RAID - 0/1/10

MOBO Manufacturer Page

______________

GPU:

EVGA GeForce GT 710 2 GB (Single Slot, Dual DVI)

Specifications:

Base Clock: 954 MHZ

Memory Clock: 1800 MHz Effective

CUDA Cores: 192

Bus Type: PCIe 2.0

Memory Detail: 2048MB DDR3

Memory Bit Width: 64 Bit

Memory Speed: 1.1ns

Memory Bandwidth: 14.4 GB/s

UPC: 843368039257

EAN: 4250812412423

.....

Key Features:

1x Dual-Link DVI-I 1x Single-Link DVI-D

HDMI 1.4a connector

Microsoft DirectX 12 API (feature level 11_0) Support

NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync

NVIDIA CUDA Technology with OpenCL support

NVIDIA FXAA Technology

NVIDIA PhysX technology

NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology

OpenGL 4.6 Support

PCI Express 2.0 support

GPU Manufacturer Page

Comments

Reyfox wrote on 4/4/2022, 8:08 AM

I've been "sitting" with my old RX480 for years. I waited for the prices of the AMD 5700 to drop, which never happened. And now, prices of GPU's, although coming down, is still to high for me. The Old RX480 8GB is still working. I took it apart to clean all the dust, dirt and grime out of it and give it new thermal paste. The next cleaning, if I don't have a new card by then, will be replacing the thermal pads.

Getting anything now on the used market for the price you are asking, might be better, but it's a "shot in the dark". At church, we needed a graphics card in the computer. The cheapest thing that was out and available here in Poland was an AMD RX550. Price for this sub $100 card? Over $200. It hurts just thinking about it.

Buying used can also be problematic too. Not knowing the use or abuse of a card.

I'm still waiting....

Soniclight-2.0 wrote on 4/4/2022, 10:50 PM

@Reyfox - Oh, I know my OP is total "shot in the dark" and your story seems to illustrate that the overall GPU shortage and high prices is not over yet. I could rack my request as somewhat delusional, but... back in the day when I was far more active here, I was blessed with help from some of the veterans here:

The only reason I had VP 10 and then VP 12 (which I never used due to not being in any space to create videos or anything creative for some years due to the above mentioned) was that at least two members outright gave me their VP 10 and 12 since they had moved on to later versions.

One even gave me Adobe Creative Suite 3 so I could have AE, sending it all the way from Australia. But due to Windows changing, I wasn't able to use it much for there were OS problems.

So I'm still living in the past in a fantasy of some pro editor here with a dusty box of GPU hardware that just hasn't been thrown out or recycled yet.

And that in that box would be something that is outdated to them but a substantial step up for my system. He or she could make a bit of money and I'd have a better GPU.

Oh, well, it was worth a try. :)
 

Reyfox wrote on 4/5/2022, 4:02 AM

@Soniclight-2.0 don't let me toss water on your parade! Nothing wrong with asking. In the past, I've helped others with hardware I no longer use. But now, my "old" hardware is really old and not worth anything to anyone because it won't run any modern day apps.

I've been waiting and waiting for a few years now for GPU prices to drop. It's not "life or death" if I don't get a new card. It's just that my current card has seen a lot of hours and I would like to give it a rest.

I'm retired living on a US gov't pension here in Poland, where VAT drives up the price of hardware beyond reason (at least to me), compared to what I would pay in the States.

Hopefully, someone will read this and have what you need.

David-Knarr wrote on 4/6/2022, 12:58 AM

@soniclight 2.0. I have an AMD MSI factory over clocked RX-570 that I bought about 2 years ago. I used it to do some rendering speed tests with Vegas and a couple of other programs. I had it in my system for 1day and it was running for about 6 hours. I was testing it against the RX-580 (and a few other video cards). It is in the original box and has been sitting in a closet. I pulled it out tonight and put it in one of my systems to test it and it working great. If you want it you can have it for $100 and I will pay for the shipping via Priority Mail. Let me know if you want it. Dave

David-Knarr wrote on 4/6/2022, 1:00 AM

One more thing what is the size of your power supply in your computer. I want to make sure the power supply is high enough in watts to handle the card.

Soniclight-2.0 wrote on 4/6/2022, 8:16 AM

Hi Dave - Wow, thanks for the offer. I just need to make sure it would work on my system:

It seems that as with nVidia's models, there may be variations of the RX-570 but as far as this spec sheet I found at the MSI's website, it's a DisplayPort x 2 / HDMI x 2 / DL-DVI-D. My 9 y.o. basic yet faithful Samsung dual monitors are DVI, and I'm not totally clear on whether DisplayPort > DVI adapters work, but I do believe HDMI > DVI do. I would just buy both and see what happens.

Power supply: I should be OK as per above mentioned specs (recommended PSU is 450W), I have a Thermaltake Smart 700W 80+ and I've never seen my system use half of that even when in full tilt rendering mode.

Once we finalize this, we should take this off-forum via PM. I do have PayPal if that is convenient for you.

Again, thanks for your generosity. Definitely an upgrade from my little GT 710 (it's decent for its level, just not for current NLEs and plugins).

Soniclight-2.0 wrote on 4/6/2022, 8:30 AM

PS: I'm more than willing to pay the Priority Mail also, but since it appears there are two models as per specs for unit + box/package - one at 778g (1 lb. 12 oz), the other 1371g (3 lbs. 0.3 oz), I'd have to know which one. Let me know. To do so, I would also need your ZIP code if you are in the U.S. or other if outside of the U.S. Mine is Woodland Hills, 91367 California (Greater Los Angeles Area). We can get into that via PM. Thanks.

Soniclight-2.0 wrote on 4/6/2022, 6:17 PM

Well, even though I almost nuked the OP due to crickets for days, I'm glad I didn't.
My warmest thanks to @David-Knarr for a great deal.
It will be nice to have some far better GPU muscle under-the-hood.

Case very fortunately closed.