What's in your box?

[Burt Alcantara]

I'm building a new system. I don't know how far to go with RAM and CPU. My camera is a T2i. I'm currently using an old 2 Ghz dual-core with 2 GB RAM running XP in a virtual window. I can play the MOV files on the timeline but editing is not realistic. Transcoding with Streamclip is go-make-a-cuppa-coffee slow.

I'm looking at either an AMD 6 Phenom X6 1055T or an Intel I7-930. The AMD system will be substantially less expensive but is dual channel. I'd like to be able to keep this system for at least 5 years and be flexible enough to allow me to move to something like Edius if the need every came up.

What do you use and would you buy it again?

Thanks,
Burt

[Andy Wilkinson]

Hi.

I've just bought a i7 rig with 8GB RAM for Vegas 9E - I have a Canon 7D amongst my cameras. I'd read the i7 chip is definitely the one to go for regarding video editing (over any AMD chips) but I can't claim to be an expert on that as I've a 1000 other things I also need to be expert on! Also, the rig does not arrive until Monday so I can't give you real world insight just yet, However, Dale, who posted on the thread I started below seems happy with the spec I'm getting! Hope this helps - at least a little.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-hap...grade-how.html

[Burt Alcantara]

One issue I've not seen much is threading. On some benchmarks, the claim is encoding will make use of all cores. As each core has 2 threads, it would seem that a 6 core die would yield 12 threads vs 8 threads for a 4 core leading to a faster encode time.

However, this is all theoretical tecno-babble-multi-speak. Will it render a 1 GB MOV file faster?

Specing this machine is making me crazy.

Burt

[Mike Kujbida]

Take a look at the specs on the new Vegas Pro Master Suite Systems and go from there.
These systems are pre-loaded with a pile of software so you can subtract those prices right away if you don't own everything already.
One guy on the Sony Vegas forum did a comparison with parts bought from Newegg.
Using the lowest price Master Suite and subtracting the software, he found that the savings was only $376.30.

His comparison parts list was as follows:
SUPERMICRO MBD-C7X58-O Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard $259.99
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz $587.99
CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) Memory $304.99
2 x WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Hard Drives $219.98
PNY VCQFX580-PCIE-PB Quadro FX 580 Video Card $189.99
Sony 24X DVD/CD Rewritable $26.99
Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Case $199.99
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700 PSU $139.99
Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit $99.99
Total Hardware $2,029.90

[Burt Alcantara]

A system like that is way overkill for my abilities. I was curious to see that the highest end system maxed out at 16 GB RAM. I don't know anything about Xeon CPUs but an I7-930 is about as far as I can go money wise. Once you get up into those high end processors you have to start worrying about cooling, especially if one overclocks.

I guess the first marker for me is the 16 GB cap. I'll looking into the Xeon regarding hyperthreading.

Thanks for that link,
Burt