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Best imac setup for Final Cut Pro and After Effects
Hey, I’m looking to purchase a new iMac for around 1500.
I understand the more money I put into it the better it will be, but is it possible to buy a basic iMac and then buy seperate components to add on to run more smoothly?
Any pointers or past experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
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8 Replies
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There are no separate components to add, other than RAM. That’s the only thing you can upgrade on an iMac. Out of the box it is good for FCP and After Effects.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Buy the best you can afford – a quad core is a must, as it will improve performance no end – the i7’s hyper thread, meaning you have an 8-core machine. Max out the RAM to 16Gb – it’s not expensive like Mac Pro RAM, and it will allow FCP and AE to run smoothly together.
I have a couple of the 3.4Ghz i7 quads, and they beat some of my Mac Pros at FCP renders. Lovely machines.
You’ll need to add some fast storage – preferably thunderbolt RAID, though right now it’s Promise (yuck) or Lacie (yuck), and the latter are rapidly going out of stock as Thailand floods. If you want broadcast monitoring and video input, you can choose between the excellent MXO2 with thunderbolt, and the excellent Blackmagic Ultrastudio 3D.
All the best.
BenEdit Out Ltd
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FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producerhttps://www.blackmagic-design.com/community/communitydetails/?UserStoryId=8757
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Shane and Ben, thanks for your help.
I’ve just realised that Final Cut Pro 7 has been replaced less than useful Final Cut Pro X.
And now OS Lion will not support Final Cut 7.
Would you recommend you down grading to Snow Leopard or even switching to Premiere which I’d rather not?
Thanks
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[Adam Oldfield] “And now OS Lion will not support Final Cut 7.”
It will too. I’m running FCP 7 on Lion. Works fine.
[Adam Oldfield] “Would you recommend you down grading to Snow Leopard or even switching to Premiere which I’d rather not?”
You cannot downgrade new machines to an older OS. The firmware prevents you from doing that. FCP 7 works on Lion. But you will have to switch NLEs eventually. The one you choose depends on the tasks you need to complete.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Are you using it on Mac OS X, latest version with no problems?
Cheers
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Yes, I am.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Perfect, that’s made my life much easier.
Thanks for your help Shane.
Adam
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Shane, I’m on Lion too on an old original Mac Pro. Are you finding that Lion eats RAM for lunch? Given i’ve only got 8 gigs of RAM, but that used to be plenty to mess with AE, PS, and FCP all open at once. Now I’m finding that FCP isn’t releasing memory when it quits. The Free Memory in the Activity monitor used to go almost all the way back to around 5 or 6 gigs when all the apps were shut down, but now it usually reads 3.5 gigs. I’ve even had all the apps shut down and had it read that I only had less than a gig of RAM free. Memory leaks or RAM fragmentation or something.
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