Need advice on building a video editing iMac

I am no expert but I've been reading the forums long enough to answer this question. I also do a good amount of video editing so I paid attention to these types of posts before I bought my iMac.

This was my choice...

3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

The CPU is plenty fast enough and while the i7 will have slightly faster rendering times, I am not editing massive movies. It will be way faster than any machine I've used in the past.

8GB of Ram because as I was advised by so many on this forum, you can easily install some Crucial memory cards (2x8GB) and bump your system up to 24 GB ram for an extra 140 bucks, (look up crucial Memory on Amazon) and that saved me a load of cash that I used to upgrade to Fusion.

The debate is ongoing but all seem to agree that SSD (flash) is the way to go but it ain't cheap. Fusion is a good compromise that offers 128 GB of SSD and 1 TB of HDD storage. You get the speed of SSD and the large storage that HDD offers. If you have the money, upgrade to flash and you can find many topics that discuss the advantages but for my purposes, Fusion will do just fine.

I am not a gamer but because I run FCPX, I didn't want to mess around with the GPU so I maxed out. If you are editing, this seems like a smart upgrade as well.

Again, I am no expert but this is the system that I went with and I feel good about. As a part time video editor, I feel great about my choice.

We are lucky that no matter what machine you choose, you are going to get a beast!! Best of luck to you!!

Processor:i7 for hyperthreading
Ram:16-32GB
Boot drive:SSD
GPU:Go with the base.Doesn't matter if you don't play games.
External drive:Thunderbold raid 0 for your media files and rendering.

Op I think your spec looks good

I went with 16gb, I know it's cheaper to do it yourself but it means when I upgrade myself I can go to the full 32gb without throwing the stock sticks away.

Base ram you upgrade to 24gb unless you ditch the 2x 4gb sticks for another 16gb kit

bp1000 said:

Op I think your spec looks good

I went with 16gb, I know it's cheaper to do it yourself but it means when I upgrade myself I can go to the full 32gb without throwing the stock sticks away.

Base ram you upgrade to 24gb unless you ditch the 2x 4gb sticks for another 16gb kit

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I tend to have the mindset that you don't actually pay for the 2x4GB anyway.

I think with video you would benefit from a SSD (256-512GB) with HD instead of fusion. You can fusion that as well, but the SSD part of a regular fusion is only 128GB, and that is easily filled with large video projects. It will fall back to HD speed all the time.
You could also opt for a 512GB SSD and an external USB3 Seagate Barracuda 3TB. Those drives are really fast for all the storage and raw data. I don't know what Apple picks as 3TB drive, but when it's a WD Green you're way better off with that external Barracuda.

scrill said:

So can someone explain to me how ram and storage effect video editing?

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I can't speak to the veracity of this information, since I don't do video work, but here's an expert from a blog post on maximizing performance in FCPX:

PERFORMANCE
FCP X takes full advantage of the Mac in terms of processor speed, drive speed, RAM and graphics cards. Decoding common camera codecs like AVCHD, XDCAM HD and others can be extremely difficult mathematically. This is no problem for an up-to-date system, but many people are trying to work with HD codecs on older laptops with slower graphics cards and minimal RAM.
These systems are fully supported as a minimum system requirement and, if you were doing minimum things (editing with DV or ProRes Proxy, for instance), then you will generally be fine. But if you are trying to work with professional formats under pressure, you need a system that is configured properly for that level of work.
The best tip for anyone who is experiencing slow response is add more RAM. I recommend a minimum of 8 GB, if your system supports it. And, if you own a MacPro, buy a faster graphics card with more VRAM. You will notice an immediate difference in speed, no matter what video format they are working on.
Another issue that slows performance, aside from the codec, is the image size. Larger images are harder to work with than smaller images.
UPDATE – MARCH 16, 2012
Another issue that affects performance is your graphics card. Earlier versions of Final Cut were totally dependent upon the speed of the CPU. Final Cut Pro X changed that by tightly integrating the graphics chip with video editing.

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The full post is here:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/improving-fcp-x-performance/