I would say forklift the x58 chipset, move to a z97 chipset with a 4770k, and a 290x. That would give you the most bang for your buck. The Gen1 i7 lacks instruction sets that are useful, and the operational speed probably would hold back a GPU with PCIe 3.0 capabilities.

If you stick with the x58. I would try the 7970, 7990, or 290x.

You are not really specific as to what you are trying to solve with your upgrade. "Better performance" is a marketing term and not anything specific.

Old Smoke,

We may be using one of the 3rd Party Chroma Key plugins but other than that, none that I know of right now.

The source material will vary. Some shot with our Sony HXR-NX5U. Plus we will be incorporating some older stock footage footage shot with a variety of other less sophisticated cameras... until we have time to go out and re-shoot it with the NX5U.

Regarding the Rendering Encoder our plans were to use whatever comes in Sony Vegas 13... which would be the Sony AVC encoder I would assume... but I'll be darn'd if I'm sure.

A lot of the work will involve chroma keying the subjects over various stock footage... then adding additional assets to the production as necessary.

Then depending on what it is... rendering it out for either the web, TV, or DVD/Blu-Ray Disk.

My relative inactivity with video over recent years has left me in the dust and working to catch up so thanks for your patience.

I'm not sure if what we have may work OK in the beginning of this project but I thought the topic deserved discussion with you experts so...

Thanks for the help !

PS - Not doing 3D

Here is the problem: The best cards for VP13 are still older ones; Nvidia GTX580 or AMD 7950. These cards are fully supported with AMD being a bit better for timeline performance. Both of these cards will accelerate the MC AVC encoder as well as Sony's AVC encoder.
Newer Nvidia don't work to the point where there is less performance improvements then with the older cards. Newer AMD/ATI cards like my R9 290 work very well for timeline performance and MPEG-2 renders. However, MC AVC and Sony AVC will fall back to CPU only regardless of the settings in the render template.

If you deliver a lot for PC or Internet viewing; try the "Vegas to Handbrake frameserve method" meaning you are not relying on the MC AVC or Sony AVC encoder. For BluRay, use the MC MPEG-2 encoder. If you are ok with all that, go for a R9 290, 280 or 270.

Great help! Thanks. Two more questions if you don't mind.

Question 1 - Video Card:

Wonder if the AMD 7950 video card will plug right in in place of my PNY GEOFORCE GTS450 1GB card and work OK with the mobo and i7 chip set I have?

(see my system specs at the beginning of this thread)

Question 2 - Encoder:

I went to download the "Debugmode FrameServer" called for in the "Vegas to Handbrake frameserve method" instructions here...
http://www.vegasvideo.de/vegas-2-handbrake-en

but

http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/ Tells me to download one version if I have Pro+ and another if not.

- Not sure what the + means.
- We just upgraded to Vegas Pro 13
- We did not buy Vegas Pro Edit - which does not include DVD Architect and all the the other extras.

Thanks again for the help.

[I]Wonder if the AMD 7950 video card will plug right in in place of my PNY GEOFORCE GTS450 1GB card and work OK with the mobo and i7 chip set I have?[/I]

I don't see a reason why not; it's a standard PCIe 2.0 card. They only thing you have to ensure is that your power supply is sufficient and that you have the space (length and width) for it in your PC case.

[I]- Not sure what the + means.[/I]
The + means VP13 and later versions; there are no later versions at the moment.

Why the 7950 vs 7970ghz? The 7970 is at least an XT chip, anything below an XT chip is gimp for the class. I would say if you are going to buy an older card, why not buy the flagship for that day. At least max the compute performance.

I would HIGHLY recommend either a EVGA Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 Superover clocked or the EVGA GTX 960 SSC model. You lose a few CUDA cores but what you lose in CUDA, you gain in Mhz speed. Great card for most anything, video or other wise.

@Josh_Grid21

Please don't recommend cards that are not supported!

Why? What cards are supported for Vegas? Since when are those cards not supported?

Again, do more research before you recommend anything related to GPU for Vegas.
Full support for Vegas GPU acceleration stops with the Fermi architecture. Has been discussed and tested a million times on this forum.

Then explain to me (nicely please) why the Kepler GPU worked so well with it? I've had no issues with the GTX 760 and currently trying the Maxwell GPU.

Read this

How do you define "worked well"? Have you ever tested your cards with the SCS Benchmark project? How much acceleration do you get? How well do 3rd party plug ins work with the Keppler and later cards?

Acceleration was great, short render times, works great with 3rd party plugins. I had NO issues with Keppler GPU and Maxwell works much the same. A few less Stream processors but still just as good as Keppler. Now yes, Sony Pro does crash for me sometimes but NOT often does that happen. I blame that on poor software coding in the acceleration support. But beside that, it's stable. I have done many many tests on this and found what I use works for me. But it may not work for everyone else. To each his own when it comes their system set ups.

If it works so well for you, run the SCS Benchmark project rendered to MC AVC using CUDA and let us know how fast it is? Maybe you finally found a newer card that works?

When I went to go look for your benchmark it says it's not available for download from your one drive. Could you give me a link to download it? Please and thank you.

Hey I was testing the playback of a 1080p video. The video effects I have on are Brightness and Contrast, Levels, Black and White, Sepia, HitFilm Film Damage and HitFilm Cine Style. My GPU use during editing play back was 55%. And one of those videos had animated light rays with GPU usage around 60%. So Yes Maxwell GPUs work with GPU acceleration in Vegas Pro 13 64-bit.

Josh Grid21,


Your GTX 960 GPU work so well with Vegas Pro 13, as you told us about. How about do a screen capture of the Sony Benchmark Project (The Red Car) and upload it here. To show us the performance of the GTX960. I want to see timeline performance, playback and any rendering you wish to chose from. If you can't do that as I have requested. Then your full of BS about how great your GTX960 and Vegas.

Well I don't happen to have the "Red car" project, so could you nicely give me a link to it so I can test it out?

I am uploading the project again. It's a bit more then 1GB and will take a while. I'll post the link when it's done.

Edit:
Upload done. Here is the link.

Look, I know you all want proof, and I already showed it in the video I played in my video. You gonna have to take my word for it that GTX 960 cards do work with GPU acceleration because I have ran multiple tests over and over again and I have seen the results. Not drop frames during preview playback at all.

Sorry, cant your word for it and your video is not a prove at all. Run the SCS Benchmark test and post a video as I did ; then we can talk whether your GTX900 series works or not.

Fine, if you insist. But I must ask, in order for me to show this correctly, can you be so kind as to tell me your render settings?