Need faster machine for FCP + on budget

Regnis

Regnis

Active member
hey guys,

well i've started to get into some pretty serious HD video editing (as well as a fair bit of work in photoshop & lightroom) now that we have started a little filming business.

what i currently use:
late 2009 27inch iMac
core 2 duo
1tb
4gb ram
edit off g-raid 800 firewire 1tb ex drive

so i really need a faster machine. I don't know a huge amount about computers/processors etc so it would be good if you could keep it pretty simple. no suggestions of a hackintosh because i just want something delivered ready to go! and no suggestions of a windows based machine because i will never be going back there.

so i love my 27inch iMac but it just isn't fast enough. I have a friend who is soley is just starting out in photography and is pretty keen to buy it off me,

so i'm on the look out for something that is going to allow me to edit HD video footage pretty seamlessly. At the moment i'm getting long render times and it is sometimes killing me.

i want the 27inch iMac again cause i just love the screen. my budget is around $2200 could maybe push it to $2500

I need to know what kind of spec i need...
i'm aware the i7 quad core is faster than what i have at the moment but do i need extra ram etc....

please only answer this question if you do serious video editing and have had experience with these machines.

thankyou
reg
__________________
 
We have a Quad i7 27" iMac that one of the editors uses daily for HD editing and it totally blows away the Core-2-Duo iMac we have (in fact we just don't edit on the C2D machine anymore). For most things the i7 quad is 98% as good at our 8 core Mac Pro tower, so I'd have no problem buying another iMac, as long as it had Thunderbolt ;)

In terms of RAM, if you are using FCP 7 then 8GB is fine. We've edited with 4GB with no problems, but 8GB made it even nicer because FCP could have it's full 4GB and then the OS and other programs could have the rest. We bought 3rd party RAM (Apple ram is over priced) and installed it in about 30 seconds.

If you are moving to FCP-X in the near future then you will be able to use even more RAM, so don't buy RAM in small sticks now because you'll have to throw them away if you later want to upgrade to 16GB (which is 4x4GB).
 
really appreciate the response mate. just the info i was looking for...probably not what my wallet wanted to hear tho.

just wondering if you could post a link to where to buy 3rd party ram from and how to install it... i haven't the foggiest idea

i've sent u a pm as well
 
If you're on a budget, yet, the new Thunderbolt iMac (27") is the budget way to go. It's graphics card is up to speed, get all the RAM you can afford. Remember, FCP X will be out any day now, and will take advantage of all that. FW800 is just barely enough to edit HD, so plan on a Thuderbolt drive when they start shipping in a couple of months.

If this is something you're doing for a living, consider a small business load, get a Mac Pro, AJA Kona LHi card, FSI monitor. If you'll ever have anything to send to a broadcast station, you're going to need a real production monitor. If you're going to be making a living at this...
 
cheers for the info ben..... could you give me an example of a real production monitor?

any idea what kind of prices we'll be looking at for decent thunderbolt drives?
 
FSI 17" monitor (Flanders Scientific Inc) would be the best bang for your buck, and last longer than any thing else. They do firmware updates like no one else. For example, I bought an LM-2450W a bit back, and it's been discontinued and replaced with a 2460 model. Via firmware updates, my 2450 has all the exact features of the 2460, so I've not lost any thing. I'm sure the day will come when my 2450 can't update to new features they update the 2460 to, but, my 2450 will still be legitimate, more than functional, calibrated, and the best bang for the buck.

As for Thunderbolt drive prices, like FCP X, we'll have to see what they cost when they come out. But, there's no other real options for serious, professional HD drive bandwidth on an iMac.

One idea is to get a new iMac with an SSD OS drive, and a secondary internal 7200rpm SATA drive, but you're limited to 1TB. You could use a FW800 drobo for back up/archive. Yeah, you can get both an internal SSD (cost more per GB than spinning disk, but works great) and an internal SATA drive in the new iMacs. Not sure if they put a 2TB for that second drive, if do I'd go for the 2TB, but I know you can get at least a 1TB internal secondary drive.

And the best graphics card option you can get, will make a huge improvement in the long run, make the Mac more significant in the long run, will give you more bang and longevity for your dollar.

As much RAM as you can afford. Well, we really don't know what RAM FCP X will realistically eat up, but at least 8, more won't hurt in the long run.
 
BenB said:
FSI 17" monitor (Flanders Scientific Inc) would be the best bang for your buck, and last longer than any thing else. They do firmware updates like no one else. For example, I bought an LM-2450W a bit back, and it's been discontinued and replaced with a 2460 model. Via firmware updates, my 2450 has all the exact features of the 2460, so I've not lost any thing. I'm sure the day will come when my 2450 can't update to new features they update the 2460 to, but, my 2450 will still be legitimate, more than functional, calibrated, and the best bang for the buck.

As for Thunderbolt drive prices, like FCP X, we'll have to see what they cost when they come out. But, there's no other real options for serious, professional HD drive bandwidth on an iMac.

One idea is to get a new iMac with an SSD OS drive, and a secondary internal 7200rpm SATA drive, but you're limited to 1TB. You could use a FW800 drobo for back up/archive. Yeah, you can get both an internal SSD (cost more per GB than spinning disk, but works great) and an internal SATA drive in the new iMacs. Not sure if they put a 2TB for that second drive, if do I'd go for the 2TB, but I know you can get at least a 1TB internal secondary drive.

And the best graphics card option you can get, will make a huge improvement in the long run, make the Mac more significant in the long run, will give you more bang and longevity for your dollar.

As much RAM as you can afford. Well, we really don't know what RAM FCP X will realistically eat up, but at least 8, more won't hurt in the long run.
Click to expand...

Not sure you can swap out graphics cards on an iMac without voiding the warranty or even if that would be feasible.
Also iMac's work under OpenCL not CUDA(Nvidia), so some applications like the new Davinci Resolve 8 will not be fully supported (only partially for the moment).
 
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