Vegas Editing Computer for under $1,500 at DVinfo.net

Jerry Neal · October 21st, 2009, 10:45 AM

I need a new video editing computer but only have about $1,000-$1,500 to spend. I like the HP Workstations, but they are out of my price range.

Can you reccommend a high-end "consumer" PC that will do a good job editing HD running Vegas? Please include RAM and video/graphics card requirments.

I'll probably go with the Windows 7, 64-bit platform. I'd like to get two good sized internal harddrives and will probably use external drives for additional space.

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I know there have been some recent developments with Intel processors and I wanted to get the latest opinions.

Thanks in advance for your feedback and suggestions.

Jerry

Don Bloom · October 21st, 2009, 11:02 AM

are you editing HD(V) or SD or...? Also what is the OS?

That can make a big difference in the inards or the box however generally speaking since Vegas is not hardware dependent the vid card has very little to do with the performance of Vegas although it does allow you to use multiple monitors if you are so inclined.
If you're going to use WinXP then it can only see 3 gigs of RAM, not sure about Vista or the soon to be released Windows7.

Also are you thinking of setting up a RAID system? Keep in mind too the number of ports (USB, FW and ESata) that you might need and maybe add one of each for future use.

Brian Luce · October 21st, 2009, 07:46 PM

I have a Dell XPS Studio. i7 Quad core, e-sata drive, 650 gig internal HDD, edits XDCAM, m2t, and Canon 7d footage pretty well. It was all under $600.

24" 1920x1080 LCD $178.

Jeff Harper · October 21st, 2009, 09:27 PM

Windows 7 64 bit is excellent choice.

Get the fastest processor you can afford, a i7 920 or better, or the 860.

Graphics cards are of little importance with Vegas. Any system with the above processors will probably have good enough graphics. Nvidia chipped PCIe cards are best over all, but not required. AVOID integrated graphics, but integrated audio is fine.

Attempt to get a PC with integrated estata, avoid the Dells with add on esata cards. Buy a 1TB or 2TB external e-sata drive for video storage. This is where to download your video from your camera, unless your extra internal drives are sufficient.

Choose a PC with two or more hard drives. Make sure your unit has enough firewire and USB connections. Firewire and esata is becoming harder to find on the same PC, so double check the specs before purchasing.

Dells are fine, I also like HP very much. I personally build my own, however.

Jeff Wisener · October 26th, 2009, 02:47 PM

I just got Movie Platinum 9, not sure if I will out grow it or not.

For those that do a lot of editing, maybe you can advise me on my future PC build. Right now I got a Dual core 1.8ghz with 2 gb ram. My existing motherboard can accept a quadcore & a maximum of 8GB of ram. I already have an nvidia geforce 8800 gts video card. I have windows vista & a good 600w power supply.

I was thinking of upgrading to a quadcore while still using my old motherboard, something like a Quad 2.4 GHz Processor because I can buy it for about $180. I have a 250GB hard drive but was thinking of adding another TB & upgrading my OS to Windows 7 professional & like I said, upgrade to 8GB ram. The idea is I could do it cheaper than a new pc & plan on moving overseas in 2.5 years thus the goal is to last me 2.5 years, then buy a new PC at that point.

Do any of you that have experience with Vegas think this is a good or bad idea? Any feedback would be helpful....Thanks in advance!

Michael Tobias · October 26th, 2009, 06:29 PM

For doing work at home I purchased a Gateway DX4820-03 Desktop Computer - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.50GHz, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, Intel GMA X4500, Vista Home Premium 64 (which I upgraded to Windows 7) and to tell the truth that thing is running better than the HP Workstation I have at work running XP. And it was around $700 at TigerDirect. And that's working both SD and HDV

Keith Paisley · October 29th, 2009, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

I have a Dell XPS Studio. i7 Quad core, e-sata drive, 650 gig internal HDD, edits XDCAM, m2t, and Canon 7d footage pretty well. It was all under $600.

24" 1920x1080 LCD $178.

can I ask where you found a core i7 Dell XPS Studio for under $600?

Jonathan Palfrey · October 29th, 2009, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

I have a Dell XPS Studio. i7 Quad core, e-sata drive, 650 gig internal HDD, edits XDCAM, m2t, and Canon 7d footage pretty well. It was all under $600.

24" 1920x1080 LCD $178.

I have this one, although its was a bit more expensive. Still very good for the price and works well. Like Brian said it edits XDCAM, m2t and 7D footage very well.

Brian Luce · October 29th, 2009, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith Paisley

can I ask where you found a core i7 Dell XPS Studio for under $600?

Dell Outlet. Just before W7 they were practically paying you to unload their Vista machines. Another unglamorous moment for Vista.

Jeff Wisener · October 29th, 2009, 04:04 PM

It looks like Vista will go down as one of the worse OS windows has produced & of course I got it on my PC at home, lucky me.

Brian Luce · October 29th, 2009, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Wisener

It looks like Vista will go down as one of the worse OS windows has produced & of course I got it on my PC at home, lucky me.

I have the latest mutation of Vista and it remains shockingly bad.

Chris Davis · November 2nd, 2009, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Wisener

It looks like Vista will go down as one of the worse OS windows has produced & of course I got it on my PC at home, lucky me.

You obviously never used Windows ME. Vista has *nothing* on that. Personally, I never had any issues with Vista.

Anyway, a big second on Dell Outlet. I'm running Vegas under Windows 7 on a Dell XPS with a quad-core Intel. Got it for $900 almost two years ago (with a Blu-ray burner.)

$1,500 will buy a mighty fine Vegas editing station.

Brian Luce · November 2nd, 2009, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Davis

You obviously never used Windows ME. Vista has *nothing* on that. Personally, I never had any issues with Vista.

Yes ME was another boondoggle. But unlike Vista, it wasn't with us that long. And its successor, W2000 was pretty good. But Vista seems like it's been with us since the time of Moses.

Duane Adam · November 2nd, 2009, 03:46 PM

In regards to the poster's question, I was in the same boat and ended up with a Dell sx8000 (i7/860) as I didn't have time to build my own. I went with the Dell as it has a standard PCI slot which I needed for a Lynx sound card I didn't want to replace. Suprising how few of the newer breed have a standard PCI slot on the board. It only has 4 sata connections but that's enough for my 3 hard drive setup, also has an esata for storage drives.

I rendered an AVI file that had taken about 2.5 hours on my XP dual core computer in about 35 minutes so it's quite a bit faster.

Biggest surprise is how easy Windows 7 is to work with. So far it seems vastly superior to either XP or Vista.

The Dell was around $1,019 not including the 2 additional drives.

BTW, it crashed the first time I tried to render a file. I changed the maximum number of rendered threads (preferences/video) to one like I had to with XP, and now it's fine.

October 21st, 2009, 10:45 AM	#1
Jerry Neal Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Denver, Colorado Posts: 121	Vegas Editing Computer for under $1,500 I need a new video editing computer but only have about $1,000-$1,500 to spend. I like the HP Workstations, but they are out of my price range. Can you reccommend a high-end "consumer" PC that will do a good job editing HD running Vegas? Please include RAM and video/graphics card requirments. I'll probably go with the Windows 7, 64-bit platform. I'd like to get two good sized internal harddrives and will probably use external drives for additional space. I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I know there have been some recent developments with Intel processors and I wanted to get the latest opinions. Thanks in advance for your feedback and suggestions. Jerry

October 21st, 2009, 11:02 AM	#2
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	are you editing HD(V) or SD or...? Also what is the OS? That can make a big difference in the inards or the box however generally speaking since Vegas is not hardware dependent the vid card has very little to do with the performance of Vegas although it does allow you to use multiple monitors if you are so inclined. If you're going to use WinXP then it can only see 3 gigs of RAM, not sure about Vista or the soon to be released Windows7. Also are you thinking of setting up a RAID system? Keep in mind too the number of ports (USB, FW and ESata) that you might need and maybe add one of each for future use. __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

October 21st, 2009, 07:46 PM	#3
Brian Luce Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,290	I have a Dell XPS Studio. i7 Quad core, e-sata drive, 650 gig internal HDD, edits XDCAM, m2t, and Canon 7d footage pretty well. It was all under $600. 24" 1920x1080 LCD $178.

October 21st, 2009, 09:27 PM	#4
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Windows 7 64 bit is excellent choice. Get the fastest processor you can afford, a i7 920 or better, or the 860. Graphics cards are of little importance with Vegas. Any system with the above processors will probably have good enough graphics. Nvidia chipped PCIe cards are best over all, but not required. AVOID integrated graphics, but integrated audio is fine. Attempt to get a PC with integrated estata, avoid the Dells with add on esata cards. Buy a 1TB or 2TB external e-sata drive for video storage. This is where to download your video from your camera, unless your extra internal drives are sufficient. Choose a PC with two or more hard drives. Make sure your unit has enough firewire and USB connections. Firewire and esata is becoming harder to find on the same PC, so double check the specs before purchasing. Dells are fine, I also like HP very much. I personally build my own, however.

October 26th, 2009, 02:47 PM	#5
Jeff Wisener Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oceanside Ca & Bali Indonesia Posts: 158	I just got Movie Platinum 9, not sure if I will out grow it or not. For those that do a lot of editing, maybe you can advise me on my future PC build. Right now I got a Dual core 1.8ghz with 2 gb ram. My existing motherboard can accept a quadcore & a maximum of 8GB of ram. I already have an nvidia geforce 8800 gts video card. I have windows vista & a good 600w power supply. I was thinking of upgrading to a quadcore while still using my old motherboard, something like a Quad 2.4 GHz Processor because I can buy it for about $180. I have a 250GB hard drive but was thinking of adding another TB & upgrading my OS to Windows 7 professional & like I said, upgrade to 8GB ram. The idea is I could do it cheaper than a new pc & plan on moving overseas in 2.5 years thus the goal is to last me 2.5 years, then buy a new PC at that point. Do any of you that have experience with Vegas think this is a good or bad idea? Any feedback would be helpful....Thanks in advance!

October 26th, 2009, 06:29 PM	#6
Michael Tobias Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 45	For doing work at home I purchased a Gateway DX4820-03 Desktop Computer - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.50GHz, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, Intel GMA X4500, Vista Home Premium 64 (which I upgraded to Windows 7) and to tell the truth that thing is running better than the HP Workstation I have at work running XP. And it was around $700 at TigerDirect. And that's working both SD and HDV

October 29th, 2009, 04:04 PM	#10
Jeff Wisener Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oceanside Ca & Bali Indonesia Posts: 158	It looks like Vista will go down as one of the worse OS windows has produced & of course I got it on my PC at home, lucky me.

November 2nd, 2009, 03:46 PM	#14
Duane Adam Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Gilroy, CA Posts: 398	In regards to the poster's question, I was in the same boat and ended up with a Dell sx8000 (i7/860) as I didn't have time to build my own. I went with the Dell as it has a standard PCI slot which I needed for a Lynx sound card I didn't want to replace. Suprising how few of the newer breed have a standard PCI slot on the board. It only has 4 sata connections but that's enough for my 3 hard drive setup, also has an esata for storage drives. I rendered an AVI file that had taken about 2.5 hours on my XP dual core computer in about 35 minutes so it's quite a bit faster. Biggest surprise is how easy Windows 7 is to work with. So far it seems vastly superior to either XP or Vista. The Dell was around $1,019 not including the 2 additional drives. BTW, it crashed the first time I tried to render a file. I changed the maximum number of rendered threads (preferences/video) to one like I had to with XP, and now it's fine.