iMac - Final Cut and After Effects CS3

[shanghaicanuck]

Hey guys, I've been doing tons of research on this site about the new iMac and have a couple questions:

First of all, I'm looking to purchase the iMac primarily to use Adobe After Effects CS3 and the Final Cut Studio 2 package. Clearly, I would prefer to have as much RAM as possible in order to fully take advantage of these programs, but I'm not sure whether the $700 price tag is worth it to upgrade from 2 gigs to 4 gigs.

I've also heard that a scratch disk would be a good idea. Any thoughts on specific drives that would be useful for such a task?

Lastly, I'm also considering whether the difference between the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and the 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme is worth the extra $500 (although I certainly could use the extra hard drive space provided for video editing).

Any thoughts about this situation would be greatly appreciated, as I simply wish to run After Effects and Final Cut relatively quickly with shorter rendering periods. Thanks! :D

[HLdan]

You can opt for the $1799 U.S model and just upgrade the processor to 2.8Ghz and save about half the cost. Never buy Apple's ram as it's just overpriced for whatever reason. I bought my ram (which works flawlessly) from www.4allmemory.com and the price was $260 for 4GB including tax and shipping.
For the apps you are running any of the current Core 2 models will be fine however you can't lose with maxed out ram and the fastest processor.

You certainly can't say, "Oh the processor is way too fast, I should've gotten the slower one). LOL. :)

[shanghaicanuck]

Cool, thanks! Good point about the CPU ;) I'm a pretty huge noob when it comes to installing RAM purchased from a third-party. What would be the best way to do this? Would I order a model with 1 GB of RAM, then buy 4 gigs elsewhere and replace the 1 with the 4? (Yes, this is a super-noob question, but hey I gotta learn somehow heh).

[divedude]

Would I order a model with 1 GB of RAM, then buy 4 gigs elsewhere and replace the 1 with the 4?

Yes, that is what I did. It is easy to swap the ram, the manual tells you how.

[shanghaicanuck]

Cool, so it looks like I will be ordering my RAM from this dealer as I heard they have reasonable shipping to Canada: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/53IM2DDR4GBK/

Does this look about right to you guys? (I've decided on the 2.8 24" iMac :D)

[shanghaicanuck]

whoops, scratch that... gonna go slightly more expensive: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/TechWorks/12683P4GB/

[jersey]

Look at dealram.com For your set up, 4gigs (2 2gb chips) is $195. No, its not a huge difference, but its enough to cover shipping.