Best Video Card for Imac

[AnonymousPerson]

Hello,

I'm trying to decide what will be better for Final Cut Studio in a 24" Imac. (mostly 720p and 1080i HDV, some minor XCAM footage)

I will be using Color and Motion somewhat frequently.

I've read about the glitches with the NVIDIA cards and wonder if I should just go with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO instead. (I'm not doing any gaming)

I'm trying to save as much money as possible and am looking into the refurbished
model. I'm aware with the problems of Color Correcting with the glossy screen and will be doing Color Correction with an external monitor.

Anyway, here are the questions:


1. Which is the better option for FCP, Motion and Color: ATI Radeon 2600 PRO 256 mb or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512 mb? Is the NVIDIA card worth the extra money.

2. Will the 2.8 GHz suffice for these purposes or is it worth spending the extra money for the 3.06 GHz version?


I will be upgrading to 4 GB of RAM. This will be for a short term use machine and will probably resell it after a few months and upgrade to a Mac Pro. A little extra rendering time isn't going to kill me, I'm just mainly concerned right now about how well these machines will handle Color and Motion.

Thank you.

 

[Eidorian]

Why not just get the Mac Pro in the first place? The refurbished quad core isn't that expensive.

 

[AnonymousPerson]

Why not just get the Mac Pro in the first place? The refurbished quad core isn't that expensive.

Because it's not within my budget right now. I'm trying to save money.

If a refurbished 24" 2.8 GHz Imac will work for now, I'd rather get that than spend an additional $800+ for a refurbished minimum spec 8-core. I'm not interested in a Quad core. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I would rather just wait and get an even better equipped Mac Pro in the near future.

I don't really wish to spend over $2000 anyway. But I might be willing to go a little over that with an Imac option, but not by much. I'm on a really tight budget.