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What is the most affordable/effective mac to buy to run FCPS2?
Hi,
What is the best mac to get to run Final Cut pro Studio 2? By best , I mean lowest cost without enduring slow and painful performance. A mac pro is out of my budget unfortunately. I am looking at the mac book, mac book pro and iMac. I am a middle school teacher on a shoestring budget who works mostly with multiclip projects. I am interested in starting a home based videography business. I have been learning and using FCP5 on my school computer for school projects. Now, many people have asked me to do commercial projects but I would obviously like to use my own equipment to avoid any conflicts. Any advice on what specs I need to get to run FCP2 smoothly is greatly appreciated. Mobility would be nice but not at a major cost difference.
Thanks!
— Dennis -
11 Replies
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Do not get the Macbook or the Mac Mini. They use a cheapo graphics chip that will make everything slower and you can’t even use Motion or Color.
The 24″ high-end iMac is fine. The Macbook Pro is probably better because the cardbus slot gives you more external storage options.
Sean
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You can get some G5’s pretty inexpensively right now. If you’re thinking of upgrading in the future — Kona card, more hard drive space, more RAM, bigger screen, etc — it’ll be easier and cheaper to upgrade than an iMac or PowerBook/MacBook Pro.
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Check out Apple’s Educational Store and the Refurbished specials.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Thanks for all the responses so far. I just got back from Best Buy and they have a 24″imac 2.8 GHZ 2GB Mem. 320GB Hard Drive and the ATI Radeon HD 2600Pro Graphics w 256MB dedicated mem. for 1799.99 can upgrade the RAM to 4GB for $140.00 more if it is needed.
I can get a 20″ iMac for 1499.00. Everything is the same except it is 2.66GHZ. Again I can upgrade to 4GB if needed for the same price above.
Lastly is the cheapest iMac 20″ for $1199.99
ATI RADEON HD 2400 XT graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
250GB HD
1GB DDR2 SDRAM again expandable to 4GB for $160.00I’ve decided the mobility is not as important as the mac as I will be working in my house and I already have a laptop from school.
I have only a few days to decide as the school G5 that leaked coolant and possibly fried the motherboard ultimately might not be repaired soon enough or at all. I already had half of a $1000 project started which is due in 2 weeks.
My gut is the middle one. Will that do fine? Do I need to upgrade to 4GB? Any last advice. Again I am looking for the lowest bang for my buck since I have to listen to my wife later. Thanks again! -
I have the 24″ iMac with 4 gigs. It does the job with FCS2 and I also have the full Adobe Suite and use AE with no problems. I have just completed some TV spots shot on RED and it also works great with the RED footage.
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If you’re going to get an iMac you should get the 24″ with the Nvidia 8800. Otherwise it’s pointless in my opinion. Either get a good graphics card that will last a while, or don’t even bother and just get a Mac Mini. Definitely don’t get the 20″. That’s too much money to be permanently stuck with a small screen and a $99 graphics card.
Honestly all the iMacs are pretty overpriced IMO. Half the price is the monitor, and non-Apple monitors are cheap. The Mac Pros, on the other hand, are priced very competitively compared to PCs with similar specs.
Sean
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[Dennis Matuch] “I am a middle school teacher on a shoestring budget who works mostly with multiclip projects”
Where you are using multi clips, then keep in mind that hard drive speed & connectivity speed will play a big part in how well that performance.
With a Macbook Pro you can add a esata card and a esata raid to the machine for faster drive speed and faster connectivity speed (esata is 2x as fast as FW800)
[Dennis Matuch] “I just got back from Best Buy”
You are a teacher and I dont think Best Buy can give you the educational price that you are eligible for. Ether buy from an Apple Store or online at apple.com
There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity! -
the imac seems a very good choice, in my opinion they are actually very cheap for what your getting
the monitor to me seems pretty good, doesnt look cheap at all, I know from photography what a decent monitor looks like
my only thing about imac is the problem that this user needs a fast hard drive to do multi cam so basically it is a no brainer for me, mac pro and internal Sata drives as a cheap raid, then pick up 2 old CRT monitors from his school and hes away
maybe would work with firwire 800 raid on imac though
I have been advising the imac to lots of people looking for cheap kit that are working in DV, I think it is cheap for what it does and it kind of is more than enough for a lot of users, it even gets Motion working
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I use a 24″ iMac with FCP2 and it is great. I have the 2.8 gz and I upgraded to the 4g ram and 1T hard drive – your space requirements may not be as intense as mine (I do HD) but I would definitely upgrade your memory if you can afford the $$. You can always add a Firewire 800 external drive when you run out of drive space.
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I just went to Best Buy to check them out in person. It is much closer than the nearest Apple store for me. The Best Buy I went to actually has an Apple Booth and Apple rep there to help with questions. I will acually purchase from Apple when the time comes as it is $100-200 cheaper with a better graphics card. MacBook Pro would be nice but timing is bad right now as far as the extra money is concerned.
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