Been asking similar questions about the logic of that great announcement ever since it was made. Especially since I'd never touch anything AMD again. Maybe SCS saw the light and are just hoping it all fades to black.

Bob.

"could this be how vegas will begin to throroughly utilise 4 cores? I mean considering quad doesnt do much for V7"
=====================================================
I have NO idea where this is coming from but it is COMPLETELY inaccurate. If you look at the HDV render test thread you will see plain as day that the Q6600 quad core is almost DOUBLE the speed of its dual core little brother (E6600)

This is one of the FEW nle's that I have seen using all 4 cores to their full extent

Vegas 7 DOES use all 4 cores... I'm not too sure what more people are expecting!!??

blink3time3, I think Farss point out that the old cf encoder was having problems, not HDV in the render issue with Quads.

Yes,
I have a quad core xeon system that V7 happily uses all 4 cores on.
However others such as V. Milt are seeing negative improvements with 4 cores. My point was that the issue is not cut and dried and not all of it is under Vegas's direct control.
The MC and CF codecs, audio plugs etc can and no doubt all do their own thing.

Bob.

SCS started developing for the AMD64 architecture because it is superior to the Core Architecture. Don't get me wrong, benchmarks don't lie, and Intel IS benchmarking higher right now, but if Intel were inherently better, don't you think that studios like Dreamworks, PDI, Weta, Pixar or Disney would use them? Well, they don't, because AMD has proven themselves in the Workstation class, and especially in network-render intensive applications. When I say that the AMD64 architecture is better I mean to say that it is both more forward thinking and more efficient: The on die memory controller (already many years older than Core or Core2) allows for lower memory latency and greater system bandwidth, shuttling data through the processing core(s) more consistently. Think of it like USB 2 vs Firewire, one has a higher theoretical limit, but the other has a higher real-world sustained transfer speed; Intel has a much better looking processor on paper and for gaming, but AMD has a much better real-world performance for working professionals, as well as a much more scalable architecture. Beyond that, AMD is developing technology to allow for 3rd party co-processing. So imagine a hardware h.264 encoder... placed on your motherboard, using system memory to crank out HD content at faster than realtime.

To say that SCS got scared is a gross display of ignorance; I talked to their techs at NAB and they were genuinely excited to be developing for AMD arch.

so when do we get more info? there's not even a mention of a 64-bit version of Vegas yet & before it was they don't program for an unsupported OS but now XP 64 & Vista 64 are out there & working.

I'd like some justification from any software people (not just sony/sofo) for me getting a 64-bit capable processor any time now.

"but AMD has a much better real-world performance for working professionals, as well as a much more scalable architecture"

There is a lot wrong with this....

If intel benchmarks are faster, then AMD has lower real world performance for working professionals.

How does AMD have ANYTHING that's scalable right now? They are at the end of their current coat tails so that architecture scalability is dead. They can't get their new chips up to speed and in production. Right now, there is no scalability.

I really don't want to get into a fanboi pissing argument but sometimes I just have to call them when I see them. The actual pipelines of the processors will differ but there is nothing to compare the newer intel chips. Any AMD "performance' gain statements can't be proven.

Plus, what kind of sense would it make to tailor make a software release for a CPU architecture that has less than 20% of ANY market? If they were going to do that, they would be better off porting to Apple... oops, thats intel again huh? I wonder if Disney and Pixar use AMD's in their Macs? Pixars' specs for their newest Renderman version is for Pentium 4 or above. That doesn't sound like it's been optimized for AMD chips.

Plus, what kind of sense would it make to tailor make a software release for a CPU architecture that has less than 20% of ANY market?

everything is 64-bit now. Software is already coming out, occationatly, Vista exclusive. PCI GPU's came out AFTER 64-bit CPU's & people adopted to those no problem & those required new hardware. Give the people who bought the tech a reason to have done it.

Latest Intel vs AMD SSE news:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=719&tag=nl.e622

I use Intel right now. But DreamWorks, PDI, and many others use AMD. Forgive me for throwing Disney and Pixar into that group of studios, but my brother works at DreamWorks feature animation, as well as Gnomon, and he has friends that work in several other studios. Your post doesn't change any of that, though I'm just as concerned as you are about AMD moving so slowly to 65Nm manufacture.