New Quad Core PC for HDV in Sony Vegas

I finally got sick and tired of lost time due to ageing hardware problems and clunky HDV performance on my P4 3.0C so I've bought a new quad core PC. Here's the spec:

CPU

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz S775

Quite a lot cheaper than the extreme QX6700 or QX6800 but still quad. Sony Vegas uses all 4 cores for rendering so it's really worthwhile getting a quad processor. Q6600 seems to be the current price v performance sweet spot. I know there's a further price cut on July 22 but you've got to jump in at some time.

Motherboard

Asus P5W64 WS Professional

The Intel D975XBX2 also looked good too but not well supported here in Thailand.

RAM

4Gb (2 pairs) of Corsair Memory TWIN2X2048-6400 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400 CL5

I didn't really like to fill up all four slots but 2Gb DIMMS weren't available. Then again would I seriously ever want to go to 8Gb on this motherboard?

Graphics

2 x Gigabyte GV-NX86T256D

This gives me 4 x DVI outputs. I'm running 2 x 17" LCDs off one and when it arrives I will run the Samsung 24" LCD off the other as a Windows Secondary Display over DVI (which Vegas supports for external monitoring). The cards have big heat sinks, not fans, which keeps the noise down. I actually wanted 2 x MSI NX7600GS-T2D256EH which are cheaper but couldn't get them. The extra oomph will be useful for Bluff Titler etc..

System Drive

Western Digital Raptor 36GB S150 16MB 10000RPM

The 36Gb Raptor on my old machine has done great for the last 3 years and I'm not really into RAID.

Data drives

2 x Seagate 500Gb S300 16Mb

Not in a RAID. Assets on one (E:), rendering and everything else to the other (D:).

DVD Writer

Pioneer 112 18x18 SATA DVD Writer

I wanted Benq Benq 16XX again but they're out of production now.

CPU Cooler

Zalman CNPS9700NT

Audio

Echo Gina 3G

I already had this. It sits in one of the regular PCI slots (with breakout box). I use this for Vegas and Sound Forge to my M-Audio monitors and all other audio goes out through the motherboard's soundmax audio to my hi-fi.

Case

Lian Li PC-7

My existing Lian Li case has been excellent. The ThermalTake cases looked very nice too.

Power Supply

Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT (620W)

I actually wanted the Enermax Noisetaker II DXX 600W SLI or something specifically designed to be quiet so I don't need to sit in the other room for voiceovers but none were available. But this standard power supply is quiet and the machine in general is quieter than the last one.

Monitors for XP desktop

2 x 17" LCD DVI

I already had these and run my timeline right across them in a "Span" configuration.

Monitor for video

Samsung 244T

Still waiting for this. Will monitor on it from Vegas as a Windows Secondary Display. No Dell here in Thailand and this is available but doesn't have as many inputs as Dell. But DVI should be enough for what I need.

Keyboard

Logitech Newtouch Multimedia

Same as my last machine.

Operating System

Windows XP x64 Professional

Sony are launching a 64-bit version of Vegas later in the year so I've installed this so I can take full advantage when it comes. You can read about my experiences with XP x64 on the Sony Vegas forum. A couple of annoyances but mostly good so far

Also there is more about the computer itself in this thread, including how NOT to flash your BIOS.

Tomorrow I'll be doing a side-by-side rendering comparison with my P4 3.0C machine.

That's it, i'm all geeked out

Mate you must have "Tiiiiiime is on your side, yes it is"

Nice strip down though

Dive safe

DeanB

Quite the opposite actually Dean. I was so paranoid about screwing up and getting the wrong bits that I posted the whole spec on the Vegas forum before I ordered. So basically it was a cut and paste job to here. Might save someone a lot of trouble doing all the research though if they're buying a machine in the near future.

good god, sounds like someone went on a shopping spree at Pantip Plaza or its equivalent down in Phuket...

love to hear what kind of rendering times you are getting with that quad monster... Interesting to see you went with the 2x8600GT's in SLI

Yes, Pakman, it's a Pantip Plaza special. Actually the shop "Compute & More" there is very good.

I'm not running SLI on the graphics cards. They're independent. In fact one is sitting there doing sweet fanny adams while we wait for the 24" LCD to get out of Thai customs.

OK, so here are the results, in reverse order of course, using the Sony Vegas HDV render test:

Old Machine (P4 3.0C, 2Gb RAM, Vegas 7.0e, RAM Preview 0Mb)

16 mins 19 secs

New Machine (Quad Q6600, 4Gb RAM, Vegas 70e, RAM Preview 1Mb, XP x64)

2 mins 14 secs

That's more than a 7x increase in rendering speed over a 3 year jump I'm more than happy with that, plus of course the better handling of big projects and media on the timeline.

I then overclocked manually +10% and the core temps shot into the 90s from the 50s with no speed benefit. I then tried overclocking using "ASUS N.O.S." so-called intelligent system and the CPU ran at 2.64GHz instead of 2.40GHz but I only saved 4 seconds in the render. So now I've gone back to no overclocking. I think the Intel motherboard is probably an easier board to work with, especially if you want to overclock.

Another thing I noticed is that I still got 2:14 even with various background stuff running like anti-virus and so on.

Now to actually get some work done and start making it pay.

Go Nick

Make sure you post some rendering times.

EDIUS can output (1 hour from a HDV timeline) to a DVD file in 3 hours on my P4 3GIG.

Im hoping that will be under 1 hour once I build a Quad.

Yes Wags, will time it rendering some DVD MPEG2 files both straight from Vegas using the Main Concept codec and in my beloved CCE Basic.

Wags are you talking about compressing PAL HDV direct to SD PAL widescreen?

What settings you using and I'll try them here? Bitrate? CBR? VBR? Interlaced or Progressive?

Initial test shows about 65 mins for 60 mins of HDV to SD PAL widescreen using the standard VBR Main Concept template and no audio, with all 4 cores at 90-100%. But I'm looking into faster workflows.

Right, I've done some rendering tests on a 168 second manta ray clip.

Target: 8000kbps CBR progressive, MPEG2 720x576 PAL 25fps elementary video stream for DVD

1. Source: 1050i HDV, no audio, no effects etc.

---------------------------------------------- Quad Q6600 -------------------- P4 3.0C

Vegas 7 (Main Concept) ------------- 1.33 x real time -------------- 0.18 x real time

CCE Basic (via Frameserver) ------- 1.50 x real time ------------- 0.20 x real time

2. Source: PAL DV widescreen, no audio, no effects etc.

---------------------------------------------- Quad Q6600 -------------------- P4 3.0C

Vegas 7 (Main Concept) -------------- 2.8 x real time ---------------- 1.09 x real time

CCE Basic (via Frameserver) --------- 4.3 x real time ---------------- 1.63 x real time

CCE Basic direct ------------------------ 8.8 x real time --------------- 2.59 x real time

So with no effects and no audio I can render an hour of HDV to MPEG2 for DVD in 40 minutes by frameserving to CCE. That's 7.5 times faster than my old machine.

p.s. Could one of you powerful please people put this in the forum it belongs in? Cheers

Thats great Nick, well done on posting this stuff.

Really looking forward to building a new system now.

To answer your question, yes I was going from a 1440/1080 timeline straight to 720/576 CBR 8mbps progressive Mpeg2 for that time on my 3 GIG PC. With DV material doing the dailies here a 20 min DV timeline takes about 15-20 mins to encode out a interlaced DVD file so that would be down to under 5 mins on a system like yours I suppose.

Move this info, were to... looks fine here in this post?

I mean move the whole thread to the editing forum Wags.

By the way in my my previous post #8 I was getting such slow times because I had "dynamic RAM preview" set to 1Mb. Once I increased it to 16Mb or more the time came right down. Over 256Mb and the times started to lengthen again.

O.....

Abracadabra...it is done

Cheers Wags.

I just rendered the whole of my 110 minute "Reef Life of the Andaman" DVD again just for laughs. Standard definition 4:3 with lots of colour correction and a watermark all the way through. 2-pass VBR, average 4950 kbps, min 2000 kbps, max 8000 kbps, frameserved from Vegas to CCE.

On my old machine it was a nightmare and took something like 24 hours at the 3rd attempt. Now it's sailed through and taken just 3 hours