[Deb Davis]

[Brian Charles] “The benchmarks (speed results) on a 4 core MacPro Tower aren’t dramatically faster than the MacBook Pro i7 which has 4 cores and 8 threads. (I have the MacPro 12 core Westmere with 32 GB of RAM). Processor speed is only one measure of a system’s performance, pay attention to disk speed and I/O as well.

The advantage of the tower is expandability. More drives, more RAM, slots for video I/O boards.

Hmmm…. good to note. So I guess unless you have the money to go to at least an 8 core or 12 core, a tower doesn’t have much of an advantage other than expandability at the 4 core or 6 core category.

[Brian Charles] The MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt, a real game changer once the devices arrive (drives and I/O cards). LaCie has already demoed a Thunderbolt drive on a Macbook Pro, Matrox is updating their interface for the MXO boxes, AJA and Blackmagic will follow suit. So the slots on the Mac Pro may be moot.

Good to know. I didn’t know this. Thank you.

[Brian Charles] Regardless of your choice, buy the RAM elsewhere, Apple charges a horrendous premium for it, and its really simple to install your own.

yes, definitely.

[Brian Charles] The MacPro’s are rumored to be updated with Thunderbolt soon so there may be reason to hold off if you can.”

This is what I hear as well. I have time so it sounds like it would be worth the wait. Thank you. This was helpful.

[Deb Davis]

[Tudor "Ted" Jelescu] “For 2700 usd you can get a MacBook Pro with 8gb of Ram and 500 GB hard @7500rpm. That’s a decent machine that’s mobile as well. If you have a bit more to spend I would get a solid state drive for OS and software and working project, with an external drive to keep all my other files including a clone of the current project.
As you get more funds you can add a second display and eventually a tower.”

Thank you and what if I went the tower route? I guess I would have to start with a quad core. Keep the 2.8GHz but ramp up the RAM to 12GB (3×4) and keep everything else the defaults?

This of course pushes me over slightly plus no display (boo). BUT, rather than an Apple Cinema Display, what are the best options out there for monitors?

[Deb Davis]

Before answering your questions I think you should be clear on some issues:

Makes sense. Thanks 🙂

1- Do you need a mobile workstation at all? This will narrow down your options. If it’s a would be nice but I don’t need it kind of thing, a desktop is always better. More upgrade capabilities.

Agreed and it’s more of a portability issue. I’ll be working in multiple places/locations. So, let me pose the question this way: If I were to have a desktop (with a no more than $3k budget) and get a laptop that allowed met to work remotely, what would be a solid set up? Not that I can afford all of this at once but would love a direction.

2- If AE is what you need most, the graphics card does not need to be the latest, hottest most expensive, a mid range will do, but more RAM will help. So, is AE your main app or not?

Ah, makes sense. AE is going to be the primary. Then FCP, then Cinema 4D.