Depends on the software package you use. FCPX uses OpenCL for real-time playback w/o rendering, including realtime FX, transcoding and accelerating plugin rende

Depends on the software package you use. FCPX uses OpenCL for real-time playback w/o rendering, including realtime FX, transcoding and accelerating plugin rendering. Premiere Pro's Mercury Engine does similar things with CUDA accelerating many effects, scaling, deinterlacing, blending, and color-space conversions. If you're going to do proxy-less RT 4K like they mentioned in the keynote, you will need the GPU. BTW, I spec'd out a Z620 w/ an E5-1620v2/12GB RAM and topped $3K even w/o video cards. 2 W7000's puts you over $5K: http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/MiddleFrame.asp?page=config&ProductLineId=433&FamilyId=3539&BaseId=38384&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID= http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/MiddleFrame.asp?page=config...