user5690: So I've been recording gameplay & posting it on YouTube for a few years now. Primarily using Sony Vegas as it always seemed to be the community standard. Never really had an issue.
Since I built my new PC about a year ago, which on all accounts is superior to my previous PC my video render time seems to have slowed down quite substantially. Granted, I am now rendering in 1080p. BUT - Would that actually make much of a difference, opposed to 720p? I can't confirm or deny whether I've tried rendering in 720p with the new machine as I honestly can't remember. However, I did render a 1080p video on my old PC and it didn't take anywhere near an hour! I've only rendered about 10/15 videos on my new PC over the past year, trying to get back into it. 
For example:
- a 20 minute video used to take about 15-20 minutes to render on my old PC in 720p.
- A 20 minute video will take almost an hour to render on my new(ish) PC in 1080p
Could this be due to new hardware not being.... As good? In certain areas? Or should I be experiencing a faster video render? 
OLD PC:
Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit
Asus P6TSE
Intel i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
6GB Corsair Dominator @ 1600MHz
Nvidia GTX 260 896Mb
1250w Cooler Master Real Power Pro
Western Digital 1TB HDD

NEW PC:
Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit
Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor 
Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI332G186C0QK)
Asus GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair Professional Series AX1200 High Performance 1200W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-1200AXUK)
Kingston 240GB SSDNow V+200 Drive SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SVP200S37A/240G)
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD2002FAEX) HDD

Any help is very much appreciated!!
Thanks!!

user2836: A few possibilities I see.  
First, yes, 1080P really is that much larger and more complex than 720P.  720P is only 1280 by 720 or 921 thousand pixels per frame.  1080P on the other hand is 1920 by 1080 or over two million pixels of information per frame.  You have more than twice the data to process, so it would be expected to take more than twice the time on similar hardware.
Second, you didn't mention frame rate, but that can make a substantial difference as well.  If you were doing 24fps in 720 and are now doing 30 or 60fps, that would be massive.  Similarly to before, if you increased from 24 to 30, there would be more than 1/5 more time.  From 30 to 60 would be more than double.
Third, I don't know Vegas, but most decent editing systems support CUDA acceleration of rendering (using the GPU to render).  If your software doesn't have support for CUDA on your new graphics card, but did on your old, that would have a major impact on render performance.
Forth, are you using similar bit-rates?  The bit-rate you use impacts the level of compression and the level of compression can have a major impact on speed.  The more you compress, the more it has to look for patterns, so moving from 720p to 1080p without also increasing the bit rate of the final video would result in a significant slow down as well.  (Same goes for if you are using quality based rendering/encoding and increased the quality level.)

user5821: Rendering in 1080p takes up more resources than 720p, so it is normal that your render is slower than usual, even though your new hardware is superior. 1280x720 = 921600 pixels per frame, 1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels per frame. The software has to render 2.25x the amount of pixels per frame, so you can expect it to take about twice as long.
the 770 GTX has 1536 CUDA Cores, the 260 GTX has 192, so your new graphics card is far superior for video rendering. In theory it should be a lot faster for video rendering.
Depending on your version of Sony Vegas, you can enable CUDA for your Nvidia graphics card, this should increase the speed. Go to Options >> Preferences... and go to the video tab. In version 12.0 there's a dropdown menu labeled "GPU acceleration of video processing". Set the value of the dropdown value from "Off" to your Graphics Card ("NVIDIA Corporation (GeForce GTX 770)")
If you're not using 12.0, it comes down to selecting the right render settings in the Render As... menu. Since you're uploading to YouTube, I recommend rendering as Sony AVC (.m2ts) and selecting the template 'Internet 1920x1080-30p'. The ratio rendering time to video length should be about 1:1. Still, Sony Vegas 12 had a lot of updates regarding GPU acceleration and rendering in general, so consider upgrading.

5690: <p>So I've been recording gameplay &amp; posting it on YouTube for a few years now. Primarily using Sony Vegas as it always seemed to be the community standard. Never really had an issue.</p>

<p>Since I built my new PC about a year ago, which on all accounts is superior to my previous PC my video render time seems to have slowed down quite substantially. Granted, I am now rendering in 1080p. BUT - Would that actually make much of a difference, opposed to 720p? I can't confirm or deny whether I've tried rendering in 720p with the new machine as I honestly can't remember. However, I did render a 1080p video on my old PC and it didn't take anywhere near an hour! I've only rendered about 10/15 videos on my new PC over the past year, trying to get back into it. </p>

<p>For example:
- a 20 minute video used to take about 15-20 minutes to render on my old PC in 720p.
- A 20 minute video will take almost an hour to render on my new(ish) PC in 1080p</p>

<p>Could this be due to new hardware not being.... As good? In certain areas? Or should I be experiencing a faster video render? </p>

<p><strong>OLD PC:</strong></p>

<pre><code>Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit
Asus P6TSE
Intel i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
6GB Corsair Dominator @ 1600MHz
Nvidia GTX 260 896Mb
1250w Cooler Master Real Power Pro
Western Digital 1TB HDD
</code></pre>

<p><strong>NEW PC:</strong></p>

<pre><code>Windows 7 Ultimate - 64bit
Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor 
Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI332G186C0QK)
Asus GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair Professional Series AX1200 High Performance 1200W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (CMPSU-1200AXUK)
Kingston 240GB SSDNow V+200 Drive SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (SVP200S37A/240G)
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD2002FAEX) HDD
</code></pre>

<p>Any help is very much appreciated!!</p>

<p>Thanks!!</p>
 2836: <p>A few possibilities I see.  </p>

<p>First, yes, 1080P really is that much larger and more complex than 720P.  720P is only 1280 by 720 or 921 thousand pixels per frame.  1080P on the other hand is 1920 by 1080 or over two million pixels of information per frame.  You have more than twice the data to process, so it would be expected to take more than twice the time on similar hardware.</p>

<p>Second, you didn't mention frame rate, but that can make a substantial difference as well.  If you were doing 24fps in 720 and are now doing 30 or 60fps, that would be massive.  Similarly to before, if you increased from 24 to 30, there would be more than 1/5 more time.  From 30 to 60 would be more than double.</p>

<p>Third, I don't know Vegas, but most decent editing systems support CUDA acceleration of rendering (using the GPU to render).  If your software doesn't have support for CUDA on your new graphics card, but did on your old, that would have a major impact on render performance.</p>

<p>Forth, are you using similar bit-rates?  The bit-rate you use impacts the level of compression and the level of compression can have a major impact on speed.  The more you compress, the more it has to look for patterns, so moving from 720p to 1080p without also increasing the bit rate of the final video would result in a significant slow down as well.  (Same goes for if you are using quality based rendering/encoding and increased the quality level.)</p>
 5821: <p>Rendering in 1080p takes up more resources than 720p, so it is normal that your render is slower than usual, even though your new hardware is superior. 1280x720 = 921600 pixels per frame, 1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels per frame. The software has to render 2.25x the amount of pixels per frame, so you can expect it to take about twice as long.</p>

<p>the 770 GTX has 1536 CUDA Cores, the 260 GTX has 192, so your new graphics card is far superior for video rendering. In theory it should be a lot faster for video rendering.</p>

<p>Depending on your version of Sony Vegas, you can enable CUDA for your Nvidia graphics card, this should increase the speed. Go to Options >> Preferences... and go to the video tab. In version 12.0 there's a dropdown menu labeled "GPU acceleration of video processing". Set the value of the dropdown value from "Off" to your Graphics Card ("NVIDIA Corporation (GeForce GTX 770)")</p>

<p>If you're not using 12.0, it comes down to selecting the right render settings in the Render As... menu. Since you're uploading to YouTube, I recommend rendering as Sony AVC (.m2ts) and selecting the template 'Internet 1920x1080-30p'. The ratio rendering time to video length should be about 1:1. Still, Sony Vegas 12 had a lot of updates regarding GPU acceleration and rendering in general, so consider upgrading.</p>
