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#1 2009-05-09 12:06 pm
- critterdoc
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Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
A very good friend returned from the west coast where he attended Final Cut Studio "movie school" in a program offered by [I believe] the Travel Channel. Attendees were apparently schooled in FCS on MacBook Pros in the classroom. Knowing my passion for Mac stuff, he called me for advice on hardware options. My first call went to the Apple website where we quickly 'built' up with a hardware package that approached $6,000 for a Mac Pro 8-Core. Before death-by-sticker shock sets in I'm wondering if anyone here can speak from experience to the question of whether or not the latest 3.06GHz iMac with max ram and HDD is an option for effectively running FCS and/or Final Cut Express.
Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Last edited by critterdoc (2009-05-09 4:21 pm)
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#2 2009-05-09 3:39 pm
- Nefarious
- Tuning Fork
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
$ 6000 ??
First, I would save a couple hundred by getting the 2.93 Ghz machine, but keeping the 1 TB disk. Next, I would save $ 1000 by getting only 4 GB of RAM.
Spend that money you've saved on other software, OS 10.6 and a backup hard disk.
That said, no, I've no idea about FCE or FCS.
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#3 2009-05-09 4:31 pm
- dv
- Negusa Negest
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
Do not buy RAM or HD upgrades from Apple.
I just saved you like a bazillion dollars.
To answer your actual question, yes, a dual core imac would run FCS/FCE just fine. It would just render slower.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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#4 2009-05-09 4:37 pm
- critterdoc
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
Nefarious wrote:
$ 6000 ??
First, I would save a couple hundred by getting the 2.93 Ghz machine, but keeping the 1 TB disk. Next, I would save $ 1000 by getting only 4 GB of RAM.
Spend that money you've saved on other software, OS 10.6 and a backup hard disk.
That said, no, I've no idea about FCE or FCS.
Yes indeed, $6000 or more for Mac Pro 8-Core build with RAM expansion from OWC.
FCE and FCS referring to Final Cut Express and Final Cut studio.
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#5 2009-05-09 11:36 pm
- avkills
- demyelinated brain matter
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
Be smart about what you buy from Apple -- RAM isn't one of them unless this is for mission critical business use. When I spec our work machines; I buy Apple RAM because I want the full warranty to cover everything. With that said ---
Personally, I would buy the Quad core tower for starters --- no need to go full tilt boogie until you need to. Use that cost savings to buy media drives, more RAM and possibly a better GPU.
-mark
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#6 2009-05-09 11:37 pm
- avkills
- demyelinated brain matter
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
You never want to use the internal system drive for media. You can, but you shouldn't.
-mark
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#7 2009-05-10 8:00 am
- mrreet2001
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Re: Final Cut Studio or Express and the latest 3.06GHz iMac???
the lowest specd Mac Pro will be better than the highest imac
2.66Ghz QuadCore-Nehalem w/24"LED CD ---2.2Ghz BlackMB---15" 2.4Ghz MBP(work)
Dual 2.3Ghz G5 (4G Ram, 2x 250G HD)(10.5 server)--- 400Mhz G4 PM (10.4 Server)
1.5GHz Powerbook---1.6Ghz G5 iMac
"So he fels down in a poisoning gas."
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