Computer for editing documentary with CS5

C

custerc

Well-known member
Hi all...so, I have been thinking about this, and I just can't decide what the best choice is, perhaps ya'll can offer some wisdom. The particulars:

I'm in the process of shooting a full-length documentary in China. I'm looking for something to edit it with primarily, and would also be using it for browsing, etc. I really prefer OS X to Windows, but I can probably live with Windows if I have to. The real kicker is that I'm probably moving back to the US next June, so I need something that either I can take with me on a plane or ship home safely. I wouldn't mind paying a few hundred dollars for the shipping if I could be sure it was going to be safe that way.

Like I said, I'll be editing a doc with CS5, so it needs to be able to run that well and handle huge quantities of HD footage. For that reason, I'd prefer something with a larger hard drive; obviously I can use externals but that's a pain. I'd also prefer something that comes with or that I can install an SDD in for booting programs and the OS, and has another HDD for data storage.

The options I've considered:

Buy a MacBook Pro, open it up, and put in an SDD, move the HDD to the optical drive's spot, and then set up the optical drive as an external.

Buy an iMac with relatively tricked out options, including the SDD/2TB HDD combo, and hope it will work decently when I need to move it home.

Build a Hackintosh according to that NFS guide http://nofilmschool.com/build-a-hackintosh/ and hope I can get it home in one piece (not the monitor, I can sell that in China and buy a new one at home, they're not that expensive)

Or just build/buy a PC straight up. Like I said, I prefer OSX to Windows, but what I've used is Windows XP, never Windows 7, which I gather is a bit better? The other upside of Windows is that I could run some games on it, and I do enjoy gaming in my free time. I haven't used a PC to play games for years though.

I'd be more excited about the Mac options but my current computer, a Mac, is a total piece of crap. Almost everything on it has broken. The PowerBook I had before it was fine but this MBP (2008) is a piece of junk. Sure, I could get it all fixed if I had bought AppleCare, but I thought the point of buying a really expensive computer was that it was reliable. As far as I'm concerned, if I need to buy expensive insurance ON TOP of the overpriced computer itself (based on performance), I might as well just buy a PC, maybe?
 
Take a look at the bigger iMacs. They should be able to run CS5.5 fairly well, as long as you add some RAM. You can use Thunderbolt or FW for storage.
 
arniepix said:
Take a look at the bigger iMacs. They should be able to run CS5.5 fairly well, as long as you add some RAM. You can use Thunderbolt or FW for storage.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was looking at the smaller one actually, but then picking the highest options processor, RAM, HDDs, etc. My only concern with that (other than the expense) is that they're really very portable, and you can't even take them apart, so I'd be worried about shipping it home. Or maybe bringing it on the airline as carry-on; I'd have to see whether that's an option or not I guess...but adding one of those thunderbolt RAID external drive stacks would make it pretty damn useful....
 
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DadinWestchester said:
If you are looking at notebooks, you might consider the Dell Precision M6600. You can put multiple HD's and 16 or 32GB Ram. With FCPX falling out of favor and you are using CS5.5 go with Win7/64bit.
The Nvidia cards will take advantage of CS5's Cuda compatability.
http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterpris...00/pd.aspx?refid=precision-m6600&s=biz&cs=555
Click to expand...

Interesting...but expensive! Once you put in a reasonable amount of RAM and a few HDs, it's just as bad as the Macs, really...sure you can but 32 GB or RAM, but it costs $8,000...adding a 750GB HD costs $450....wtf? I customized a system the way I wanted it and it was over $4,000, even with a lower-end processor, their smallest SSD, only one extra HDD, etc.

What's really weird is that if you customize an Alienware Laptop (which is through dell, so it's the exact same system) some of the SAME components cost less! Like, for example, the same 32 GB 1333mhz costs $2000 instead of $8000....I could trick out an Alienware laptop with the same/better specs than the dell one for less than $3,000 (barely). The only problem is that they don't allow more than one hard drive in the laptop, and I'd really rather have an SSD boot drive and then a big regular HDD to store video on....
 
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For those interested, I just did a bit of a comparison....custom PC maker Falcon Northwest offers a desktop called the fragbox that's the size of a shoebox, so it's pretty easily portable. I tricked out a system of that, and a 21" iMac, for comparison:

Falcon Northwest fragbox fully pimped for $2,848:
4Core i7 960 3.2ghz
24GB 1333mhz RAM
GeForce GTX 560 TI
64GB SSD + 2TB 7200 RPM HDDs
Windows 7 Pro

Apple iMac 21" fully pimped for $2,913
4Core i7 2.8 ghz
16 GB 1333 mhz RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512MB GDDR5
256 GB SSD + 2 TB 7200 RPM
+ AppleCare

So you can get a bit more performance out of the PC for a slightly lower price (they'd be about the same without applecare) and the PC is more portable....but I really like OS X. So I guess at some point I'm going to have to decide how much I love OS X....and how much I trust apple hardware.

Anyway, looking for more thoughts/advice/anything
 
again, for the record, some custom configurations I was playing with with Maingear's smaller desktops:

Maingear Xcube Super Stock 6 fully pimped: $2,995
]4core i7 960 3.2ghz
24 gb 1600 mhz
]2x nvidia geforce 460
120 GB Intel SSD + 2TB WD 7200 RPM HDDs
Blu Ray burner
Windows 7 Pro

or can switch out GFX card to 1 GTX 560 to bring it to $2,897

OR

Maingear Vybe Super Stock 6 fully pimped: $2,923
4core i7 960 32 ghz
24 gb 1600 mhz
2x nvidia geforce gtx 550
120 GB Intel SSD + 2TB WD 7200 RPM HDDs
Blu Ray burner
Windows 7 Pro

15 X 19.2 x 8.2...could be carry-on, but just barely.
 
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