Upgrade or buy new mac pro or imac

[krifu749]

I edit film with FCP and I have reached a point where I need a better computer. The Mac Pro I have now dates from 2006/2007 and is way to slow for my needs. The question now is: should I upgrade the computer I have or should I buy a new iMac or Mac Pro. I would appreciate any advice! I’m of course looking for the most cost effective solution.

This is what I have today:

Mac Pro

2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

Hard-disk: 232,44 GB

I might also have to upgrade my Final Cut Pro as it is as old as the computer: FCP 5.1.4 What would you recommend here?

I need a computer to edit film (possibly HD) and also a good way to do my back-up. My internet connection isn’t very fast…

Thank you in advance!

[Rob]

I have a Mac Pro with that same processor. I never sit around wishing it was faster, so I’m wondering if the problem your media management. You only listened on hard drive – the 250GB drive. Is that the only drive in your computer and the only drive you use for video editing? If so, then yes your computer will be very slow and it will be more cost effective to by the proper storage devices.

But if you are handling your media correctly and still need a faster computer, buying new Mac Pro will last longer because they’re expandable and they stuff more processors in them. So it takes longer for them to be perceived as “slow.”

If you upgrade to the new FCP, you’re stuck with FCP X, which doesn’t open old projects. I think Apple is still offering FCS (FCP7), but there’s a catch to it or something.

And as for backup, well, you need to have a hard drive (or preferably a RAID) dedicated to your projects and a hard drive dedicated to backing up the memory cards that your camera records to (if you’ve made the leap to solid state recording). Then you need to back up both of those drives. G-Tech is a good source for RAIDs and hard drives.

[Charles]

Rob, the new Mac Pro’s do not need a raid card, it is right on the board now. I just got one about 3 months ago and it is really simple to do. One problem I can see from his current system is that he only has two gig of ram. If he goes to http://www.crucial.com it can scan his system and see how much he can cram into it.

Also a few 1.5 terabyte hard drives could be in order, they are getting cheaper every day. Get another 250 gig hard drive and then you can set the two 250’s to raid 1 and the 1.5’s to raid 0 and you could be rocking and rolling.

One question, are those Intel processors or are they another brand. If they are Intel you may also be able to plug in a graphics processing card, if FCP accepts them that is. I use Premiere and love the Mercury Play Back engine as it helps to speed up the rendering process.

Hope this helps.

[Charles]

Sorry, instead of he I meant She.

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