Video machine build

[JP513]

So I just built a system the first time and it was pretty cool to do. I built it towards video editing rather than gaming (more processor, less graphics), and spent less than $1500 on the whole thing. Wanted to compare notes and share my results with anyone interested and am curious what other people who have done the same thing have to say about what they may or may not have done differently.

Quick version of my results is that I can encode HD 1080 in Vegas Pro 3x faster than real time (without effects). That's pretty good, and probably better than I expected for the $1490 I spent.

Here's the expense breakdown:

$295 Intel i7 4770K (4th gen)
$125 G.Skill 16GB RAM 1866
$195 EVGA GTX 660 2GB (w/ 960 CUDA cores)
$85 Samsung 840 Pro 120GB SSD (for OS & apps)
$110 Seagate 3TB HDD (for storage--might add a 2nd for RAID)
$130 WIndows 7 Pro (pro version required to use more than 16GB RAM
$180 Asus Z87-PRO LGA 1150 ATX motherboard
$105 Corsair GS700 power supply
$150 LG 23" LED monitor
$90 Pioneer Cougar mid-tower
$25 Samsung DVD writer/player
-------
$1490

Welcome any feedback.

[Ferus]

Does your Sony Vegas work with GPU acceleration and the GTX 660 card? of do you render with CPU only?

The new Intel Haswell cpu's have shown great results in the editing test, but the quality wasent as good.

So far I still get the best result with my 570 series Geforce

I have a 240gb SSD for OS and two 160GB in raid 0 for editing.
For "nearline storage, I have two internal Western Digital Green series disk in a Raid1.

For storage and backup, I have a synology NAS to be safe

[JP513]

Yes it does, or at least it can; it's v11, so graphics acceleration is available, for both CUDA and OpenCL it does acceleration. But . . . I actually don't know whether my excellent rendering results are already incorporating the acceleration from the GPU, or if it's from CPU only. I didn't do anything to the settings in Vegas to make it use GPU. I'm not on that machine right now so I can't check if there is a setting for it in the menu or if its automatically going to accelerate simply by being installed.

Haswell is great I think mostly in terms of power, but only about a 10% performance boost over Ivy Bridge, but I was building new, so I decide to wait until it came out since I wasn't going with a 6-core. I'll probably do that for my next build.

570 has been around a while but only has 480 cuda cores; you'd get double that with a 660.

Originally Posted by Ferus

Does your Sony Vegas work with GPU acceleration and the GTX 660 card? of do you render with CPU only?

The new Intel Haswell cpu's have shown great results in the editing test, but the quality wasent as good.

So far I still get the best result with my 570 series Geforce

I have a 240gb SSD for OS and two 160GB in raid 0 for editing.
For "nearline storage, I have two internal Western Digital Green series disk in a Raid1.

For storage and backup, I have a synology NAS to be safe

[candyflip]

I built one similar a few months back. Runs OSX too!

[JP513]

Originally Posted by candyflip

I built one similar a few months back. Runs OSX too!

That's what is known as a hackintosh, right? That sounds pretty cool. Is it about the same process as a normal PC build, but adds the other OS? I use Mac for all non-video computing.

[freecartoonporn]

how many btc ? can it mine ?

[Ferus]

Originally Posted by JP513

Yes it does, or at least it can; it's v11, so graphics acceleration is available, for both CUDA and OpenCL it does acceleration. But . . . I actually don't know whether my excellent rendering results are already incorporating the acceleration from the GPU, or if it's from CPU only. I didn't do anything to the settings in Vegas to make it use GPU. I'm not on that machine right now so I can't check if there is a setting for it in the menu or if its automatically going to accelerate simply by being installed.

Haswell is great I think mostly in terms of power, but only about a 10% performance boost over Ivy Bridge, but I was building new, so I decide to wait until it came out since I wasn't going with a 6-core. I'll probably do that for my next build.

570 has been around a while but only has 480 cuda cores; you'd get double that with a 660.

The problem with the 600 series, it is a new chipset(Kepler), and the drivers aren't working for Sony yet, or at least wasn't when I checked last month.

The 4770k is the best cpu for encoding atm
more here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3521-3.html

Default rendersetting in Vegas Pro is "hardware if available" You can see it in taskmanager when you render. If the CPU is below 50% when rendering, its using the Nvidia card.

[Ferus]

edit:
I see driver version 320.49 now works with Sony Vegas. Good news for many
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=863905

[candyflip]

Originally Posted by JP513

That's what is known as a hackintosh, right? That sounds pretty cool. Is it about the same process as a normal PC build, but adds the other OS? I use Mac for all non-video computing.

Yep, you take a retail OSX install and run an app that installs some drivers while moving a few things around and you're good to go.

I can boot in and out of OSX/Windows/Ubuntu with ease.

I basically have everything you have, except for the motherboard and more RAM. The motherboard is the key to easy Hackintoshing.

[Paul&John]

16gigs, 3TB disk.. Damn I need to upgrade my shitty comp

[JP513]

Originally Posted by Ferus

The problem with the 600 series, it is a new chipset(Kepler), and the drivers aren't working for Sony yet, or at least wasn't when I checked last month.

The 4770k is the best cpu for encoding atm
more here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3521-3.html

Default rendersetting in Vegas Pro is "hardware if available" You can see it in taskmanager when you render. If the CPU is below 50% when rendering, its using the Nvidia card.

Thanks for getting back to me on that. Looks like the drivers are updated now. I saw the "if available" option and it had my card filled it on the field so it obviously recognized. Just to verify, I turned it off and ran a test sample, which was only about 75% faster than real time. Turned it back on and it was the same 3 1/4x faster than real time, so glad to see the graphic acceleration is working. Only thing different is the CPU usage topped out at 92% Any idea why?

This makes me wonder, if I bought a 2nd one of these cards (and @ only $195, why not?), and went from 960 CUDA cores to 1920, how much of a performance increase could I realize? I'm really curious now!

Yes, this i7 is the best qua core out there, though for $275 more, I could have had a hexa-core. Hmmmm . . .

[Ferus]

Originally Posted by JP513

This makes me wonder, if I bought a 2nd one of these cards (and @ only $195, why not?), and went from 960 CUDA cores to 1920, how much of a performance increase could I realize? I'm really curious now!

It wont be double up. Usually somewhere around 75-85% is the usual gain. There are some overhead with two cards, but its still a gain in output(and noise )

[JP513]

Originally Posted by Ferus

It wont be double up. Usually somewhere around 75-85% is the usual gain. There are some overhead with two cards, but its still a gain in output(and noise )

Hmmm, interesting though. Even without double performance, a 75% gain--shit, even a 50% gain--would be well worth a 2nd $195 card. If I could take 3x real rendering HD up to 5x, that would be stunning. And so worth it.

I appreciate the insight, thanks.

[Peace]

good thing....