Advice & direction in purchasing a new computer for AE CS5/6

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Advice & direction in purchasing a new computer for AE CS5/6
by Andrew Parks on May 6, 2012 at 5:01:35 pm

Hi Everyone,

I'm posting on this forum because I need some help and guidance in finding out which computer is the best to run Adobe Effects & Premiere Pro CS5 and CS6 since my company is going to upgrade to the CS6 suite later on in the year. Currently I'm looking to do short video editing as I'm being taught the basics of video editing and creating effects. As you can see I'm still very new to this but any help would be much appreciated. My price range is around $2000-3000.

I was looking at an iMac but I read up that you can only max out at 16 GB of ram. My knowledge right now is very limited in terms of technical expertise with the hardware but any advice or direction would be much appreciated.

Im looking to progressive make my way into video editing and effect creation.

Cheers,

Andrew

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Re: Advice & direction in purchasing a new computer for AE CS5/6
by Walter Soyka on May 6, 2012 at 6:03:27 pm

I'd certainly start with the system requirements for After Effects [link] and Premiere Pro [link]. Pay special attention to the supported graphics cards for AE's new raytracing renderer and Premiere Pro's GPU acceleration.

Based on the current tech specs, I wouldn't recommend an iMac for AE or Pr as my first choice. They would both run on the iMac, but without the benefit of GPU acceleration.

You might look at a MacBook Pro (Premiere Pro can at least use the AMD Radeon HD 6750M or 6770M for most GPU-accelerated processing), or a Mac Pro with an upgraded video card.

Have you considered using a PC instead of a Mac? You might be able to find some more appealing options in your price range.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
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