Imacs system

[Craig Seeman]

All the specs aren’t clear but OS 10.5.8 on anything with MC6 or FCPX is a no go.
You might want to be at 10.7.2.

Personally I’d want iMacs with Quad i7 and two Thunderbolt ports. When you start thinking about storage (and you seem to be with Pegasus) and Video I/O and if you consider a 2nd monitor on those systems, as time goes on you might appreciate the 2nd Thunderbolt port. You’re probably going to stuff as much RAM as you can in there. FCPX eats RAM and MC6 is 64bit as well.

[Craig Alan]

The nine I have are on snow leopard but can be upgraded to Lion. They have one thunderbolt port.
The other specs are for brand new Imacs and would come with lion.

What spec is not clear?

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Seeman]

[Craig Alan] “What spec is not clear?”
[Craig Alan] “The nine I have are on snow leopard “
That was one because I only saw you mention 10.5.8.

Avid Media Composer 6 requires Lion

I see a mention of 4GB RAM on one (or more) systems and while that will work, it’s just barely. RAM is relatively cheap (as is Lion) so they should be inexpensive upgrades.

My concern about one Thunderbolt port is sharing devices if you’re short, in a classroom environment.
Many Thunderbolt devices don’t have daisy chain ports so if you’re on a single port you could spend a lot of time stoping to pull things apart. It’s primarily a convenience thing at this point.

[Craig Alan]

The 10.5.8 is the laptop I’m using. Graphic card in it will not work with FCP X.

The pegasus raid has two thunderbolt ports.

The 4 gig ram is what comes from Apple.

I plan to order 12 or 16 gig from OWC.

Hubs will come down in price I hope.

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Seeman]

[Craig Alan] “The 10.5.8 is the laptop I’m using. Graphic card in it will not work with FCP X. “

I’ve used MacBookPro early 2008 with FCPX. Is your’s older?
I believe 4.1 is early 2008.
I did get a new MBP late 2011 as I need to use the laptop often enough that the speed was a bit of a drag but it did work.

[Craig Alan]

according to apple GeForce 8600M GT
does not support fcp x graphic need.

look at this:
https://www.apple.com/imac/performance.html

why is the I5 faster than the I7?

Is it just that I7 needs more ram?

OSX 10.5.8; MacBookPro4,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Seeman]

I don’t think they were tested against the same model. I think each was tested against a specific predecessor. You see an even more exaggerated relationship with the Graphics cards.

See the footnotes

Testing conducted by Apple in April 2011 using preproduction 21.5-inch 2.7GHz Intel Core i5–based iMac units and shipping 21.5-inch 3.2GHz Intel Core i3–based iMac units.
and
Testing conducted by Apple in April 2011 using preproduction 27-inch 3.4GHz Intel Core i7–based iMac units and shipping 27-inch 2.93GHz Intel Core i7–based iMac units

Which would mean the i5 was tested against the previous i3 and the i7 was tested against the previous i7 (so a less radical difference).

[Mohamed Safwat]

Hello,
I’m buying the new 27-inch 3.4GHz Intel Core i7–based iMac to do motion graphics, HD video and 3d projects on both FCS & X. After effects, C4D. do you think it’s wise to max the ram to 32GB, apple told me the max is 16GB. also do you think 2GB of Vram is worth buy? I only need the Tbolt connection to monitor my video levels.

thanks