Advice on new Mac Pro config

[yellingdog]

My church is purchasing a new Mac Pro and I have a few questions. I was thinking about purchasing a last gen model upgrading, or even buying a bottom current gen and upgrading ram, HDD, and graphics.

I understand that as long as you use DDR3 and ECC ram, then last gen can use it, and any sata 3.0 drive under 2TB can be used in last gen. My question is can I use a PC graphics card? Can I buy a stock ATI 5870 and use it, or do I have to be ripped off by Apple and buy their version?

I guess I should also ask for general advice if I should forget about buying last gen because the new ones will be so much better for what I need. This computer is dedicated to Video Editing with FCP, and lots of work in Motion. We currently have a G5 so anything will be better, but what is most important to video editing. Max RAM? Fastest processor? or the best graphics.
Thanks.

 

[Hellhammer]

You can use PC 5870 but only under Windows before someone flashes the 5870 to work in Macs as well. Do you really need a Mac Pro and 5870 for church?

 

[hispanicboy]

Hellhammer: yes, many churches do "high end" video production on a weekly basis and with a short turnaround each week every ounce of speed in editing and render time is valuable.

yallindog: FCP, Motion, & Compresser are going to eat up any processor, memory, or graphics card you throw at it. i just did tons of back and forth on price and value for my upgrade (coming from the first MacPro) and ended up deciding on the base Quad core model with the processor bump to 3.2. that brings the total cost to $2,899.00 which is still pretty reasonable.

you'll want to add more memory from someone like owc, but that machine should do a great job for the coming years.

a bit of a breakdown on where your specs will go.

processor: render times
ram: real time previews, amount of apps open
graphics card: real time previews

good luck.