21.5″ iMac to run the entire Final Cut Pro 3. Suite

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

21.5″ iMac to run the entire Final Cut Pro 3. Suite

Posted by Jordan Work on July 21, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Hello Creatives,

I want to edit with the Final Cut Studio 3.0 (FCP 7, Motion 4, COLOR…) and I’m wondering if this new iMac, straight from the Apple Website, is a good device to purchase, and if not what do you recommend? (Keep in mind I want as a good a bang for my buck as I can get… not the biggest budget)

The specs are…

21.5-inch: 2.5GHz

* 2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
* 1920 x 1080 resolution
* 4GB (two 2GB) memory
* 500GB hard drive1
* AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB

Keep in mind I will use a 1 TB external hard drive for my scratch disk.

Thank you for any help you can give,

– Jordan

Drake Hale replied 14 years, 9 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

David Sikes
July 21, 2011 at 6:31 pm

I can’t speak from a more professional standpoint, but I’m in school for media production (so I’m on a budget) and I ran FCS2 (then 3, after it came out) on my 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 20″ iMac with only 2GB of RAM from 2007-2011. All applications ran fine for me, even working with multiple layers of HD footage in a sequence that ran for several hours. With that quad core and 4GB of RAM, you’ll be fine – in my opinion.

You will have to purchase more hard drive space – a terabyte will fill up faster than you think. I daisy chain several terabytes off of my iMac.

Fun fact: that 20″ iMac is still running strong. I gave it to my dad when I upgraded to a new iMac recently.

– David Sikes
Jordan Work
July 21, 2011 at 8:48 pm

Thanks David!

Anyone else have input on a 21.5″ mac running FCP3?

Thanks again!

– Jordan
Michael Sacci
July 22, 2011 at 11:33 pm

the software will run fine, with thunderbolt a lot of the short comings are removed (or will be removed). The screen is a little small for editing but you can always add a second monitor later.

If you pay on doing a lot of Motion or AE you will want to get as much ram as you can, once again this can be added after the fact.
Jordan Work
July 23, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Thanks so much!
Drake Hale
July 25, 2011 at 2:57 pm

I bought a 27″ iMac a few months back and am running FCS 2 and have had no real problems running the apps. I haven’t opened color as my current work doesn’t call for it, but everything else is pretty snappy

“It’s all about keyframes”
Anonymous

2011 3.2GHz 27″ iMac, Final Cut Studio 2, Adobe CS4

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