Hardware Setups for Vegas

P

proride

Active member
I am in the first stages of building a desktop PC for Vegas and would like to get some advice and/or suggestions on hardware setups. I work a lot as a director/cameraman but have two documentary projects that require me to edit. One will be in SD and the other HD.

Looking forward to hearing your setups, Thanks!
 
The fastest processor and as much fast RAM as possible. These are the two overriding concerns.

The video card doesn't matter.
 
Vegas itself does not require a high end card, but some plug-ins for Vegas (Magic Bullet for example) will.

I'd keep that in mind when building your machine.
 
As David suggested, the two main ingrediants are CPU power and RAM. I recently had a new rig made by the guys at VisionDAW.
My machine has been configured for both audio and video. Here's their link:
http://www.visiondaw.com/productcart/pc/index.asp

I'm a professional musician here in Las Vegas, NV and an aspiring indie filmmaker.


I decided to go Windows XP Pro x64 because it allows any programs that are written to work on a 64bit machine to take full advantage
of ALL the CPU and RAM available. Case in point is After Effects. It has the ability to use multiple processors or, as I have opted, Nucleo Pro 2
utilizes all my systems resources. They recommend 2 Gb RAM per CPU core. I have dual quad Zeon 3GB processors which = 8 processors. Therefore,
I have 16 GB RAM = 2 for each processor.

As far as hard dirves go: I have one specifically for audio and one specfically for video. Both are removable. This works quite well
and makes the machine "lean" and quick as possible.
I have 2 750 SATA drives for my audio samples to stream from and another 2 750 SATA drives that are stripped at Raid 0 giving me 1.5 Terrabytes for Audio, SD or HD Data.

Here are my PC's specs in case you're interested. Good luck.
Mark Dalzell / AudioScapes / Sin City Productions
Las Vegas, NV

VisionDAW 4U 8-Core Xeon Workstation
2 Intel QUAD-Core Xeon 5365-3.0GHz, 8MB, 1333MHz Processors
16GB 667MHz Fully Buffered Server Memory Modules (2x2GB)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition
WDC 250GB, Ultra ATA100, 7200 rpm, 8MG Buffer Main OS HD
MOTU 24 I/O (main) / MOTU 2408mk3 (slave)
2 WDC 750GB, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 16MG Buffer HD (Samples)
Plexor PX-800A 18X Dbl. Layer DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
Front Panel USB Acess
Integrated FireWire (1394a) interface
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W Power Supply
Dual ESATA Bracket
2 WWDC 750GB, SATA II, 7200 RPM, 16MB Buffer HD (Raid 0)
3xUAD1 Universal Audio Cards
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT, 512MB,
PCI-Express, DUAL-DVI Video Card
Dual 25.5" Samsung 2693HM LCD HD Monitors
 
XP x64 can technically handle 128GB of RAM (although I don't think a system actually exists). Regular XP can only see 3GB max.
 
i just got rid of my old system (athlon x2 3800+ 2.5GB DDR3, IDE HD's, 19inch wide win xp)

My new system i put together today is: Intel core 2 duo e6850, 4GB DDR2800, SATA HD, 22 in wide screen lcd, and 64-bit win xp.


So for from installing programs and a drivers, it doesnt seem faster at all, however I do love the 22inch a whole lot more than the 19 inch.

go newegg.com!
 
Mdslammer, your system is pretty impressive. How much was the total cost for it?
Thanks!
 
Hey mdslammer,

Thanks for the detailed post! I have a local custom builder looking at posts on here to assist me so your post was very helpful! What was the cost? I came across a similar style post somewhere on the site about three weeks ago and for the life of me can not find it again. I think it was someone from england (maybe) and he detailed his editing suite and post workflow. If anybody comes across this post let us know. It was very detailed and would be a good addition to mdslammers input. I am learning it is as much about what your end goals are that defines total setup so posts like mdslammers are very helpful. Thanks!
 
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