What's the Best Computer Configuration for Vegas

bmwmom63 wrote on 6/18/2009, 12:12 PM
My husband and I are starting a video business. He'll focus on events and promotional videos, I'll focus on creating memorial and autobiographical DVDs. We've been using Vegas Studio 4.0 for YEARS and now realize it's time to upgrade. :) We know we need a new tower that will be dedicated solely to video production and were told it's best to build the computer around the software. What do you suggest for Vegas Pro 9. Obviously we'll start with the system requirements suggested on their website, but my husband wants to know how much processing strength we need to have unrestricted workflow of video information from our processor to our storage drive?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 6/18/2009, 12:17 PM
Concentrate on CPU horsepower first, possibly an i7? Next comes all the disk storage space you can muster. Then build around that.

You'll be glad you did. Things like RAM, disk speed, graphics accelerators, are much less important when working with Vegas.
srode wrote on 6/18/2009, 3:50 PM
I agree with the above, i7 but would add get a board you can overclock a 920. Add 6GB of RAM - get 4 1TB HDDs put them in Raid 10 for speed and redundancy - add a single disc 1TB for back up and you are pretty set - most boards have 6 SATA ports - use the last unused port for a Bluray Burner if you want - or a DVD burner if you aren't going to use Bluray media.

If you do overclock the CPU - replace the stock heat sink with a Thermalright Ultra 120 and a nice quiet PWM fan of your choice. A gigabyte Triton case is a good choice that will handle all that with room to spare - if you want more drives in the future you can use a back plane in the unused 5.25 inch bays to add 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 more drives.

Corsair 620 is a great power supply.
Jim H wrote on 6/18/2009, 6:54 PM
For a friend I just bought an off the shelf Acer M661 with a Q6600 processor and 6 gigs for around $500. Splurged on a 16-9 widescreen monitor from Dell and an External 1T drive. It's quite peppy for a budget PC and runs Vegas well. I've been using an old AMD 4800+ dual core for years for HD editing and plan on keeping it going for another 6 months and will upgrade to an i7 rig of some sort. All depends on your budget.
ritsmer wrote on 6/19/2009, 2:37 AM
And do not forget the OS - i.e. working with Vegas under XP x32 I get about 50.000 page faults per second (no kidding) but on the same machine under Windows 7 x64 I get 0-3 page faults per second - this making previewing and rendering run at quite surprising speeds :-)
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/19/2009, 5:52 AM
It seems (under a non-scientific observation) that more people have issues with Vegas + Intel Quad/i7 + Nvidia setups. Could just be that there's so few AMD/ATI users here that there isn't enough of a pool for issues to show, but that's how it seems. I barely run in to any of the issues people who say they have Intel Quad's/i7's run in to (crashing, freezes, etc). Nvidia just has issues with some Intel Quad core's/i7's, there's a checkbox in the driver settings to deal with that I'm told.
John_Cline wrote on 6/19/2009, 6:08 AM
Are you talking about nVidia Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets or nVidia video cards? I have never had any issues at all with nVidia video cards, but I have had big problems with motherboards using their chipsets.

I have had the best luck by far using Intel motherboards (which obviously use Intel chipsets) and Intel processors.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/19/2009, 6:24 AM
I've read articles about people with issues with the nvidia chipsets, but I've talked to people (in person & via forums) who've had problems with nvidia cards & intel multicore. It could very well be related to them having nvidia chipsets too (many people think nvidia everything = gold), but it was ALWAYS a combo of intel multi + nvidia. An issue with the drivers/card & intel CPU's. At first I thought it was limited to games but when I'd forward game fixes to non-gamers they had less issues too. Always intel CPU's & nvidia. If they had an ATI GPU no issues, AMD CPU no issues, but the other combo had issues.

When I had Intel I've had great luck with Intel & Via chipsets. Neither ever failed for me. With AMD I've had Via & ATI chipsets, never failed for me. But with technology changing all the time, I don't base purchases on chipsets but on reviews of the motherboard.
farss wrote on 6/19/2009, 6:35 AM
As this is for a business buy a machine built by a systems integrator who has a proven track record supplying systems for use in this industry. Working with video hammers hardware like almost nothing else does. You should get same day on site warranty of at least 12 months as part of the deal.
This machine will be mission critical to your business, don't cut corners. You want kit that works, it's a difficult enough game without wasting time and money on non core issues like debugging computers.

Bob.