iMac G5 capabilities for editing with FCS
by Adam Raney
on
Apr 9, 2008 at 3:12:59 pm
Hi all,
A family member has offered to give me an iMac G5 with a 2.0 gig processor / ADI radion 9600 video card. It has 2 firewire 400 ports, no option for an 800 port. It can max out at 2 GB of RAM. If I am planning on doing some HDV editing is this worth picking up? What limitations will I face? Any idea if the video card can be replaced with a better one? I have been debating buying a new Mac for a year, (currently have an iBook G4 that I use FCP 4.5 on) but am wary of only a half-step improvement...
Many thanks, adam
Re: iMac G5 capabilities for editing with FCS by Cale Mooth on Apr 9, 2008 at 9:03:15 pm
You'll notice a nice performance boost going from the iBook to the G5 and that will likely get you by. Obviously a new Mac Pro is going to be even more ridiculous in terms of performance.
I'm a big believer in having the right tools for the job and would definitely go for the newest machine. But it all depends on your workload and how intense your individual projects are.
Re: iMac G5 capabilities for editing with FCS by Guillaume Charron on Apr 30, 2008 at 11:08:51 pm
I'm using an 20inchs iMac (2nd generation) for about 1.5 year. I'm not working a lot at home so my computer is used basicaly for personnel test, project, etc. That being said, I also worked with hd footage for compositing in shake and for animation in after effects. I also worked in FCP with sd footage. I managed to make it worked with all the formatss. Sometimes it was a little bit slow but in general it worked fine.
Would I buy the same computer today? I would at least get the 24inchs for several reasons. Better video card, bigger screen, better processors, 4 gigs of ram (by the way in my iMac I have 3 gigs of ram), etc. Another reason would be the fact that you have a screen with the iMac (so you don't need to by one). But if you'r like me you like to work with two screens.
Finaly, Apple just released a new iMac with better processors. On the website they compare performance with sotware like FCP, after effects, etc. And the iMac is now between 17% and 30% faster (depending on the software).
