Buy a new Mac Pro today or in 1.5 years when I graduate? Help!!

[Jodorowsky]

Hey everyone, I’m looking for some advice… I’m a junior in college majoring in film and media studies, and I’m thinking about buying a Mac pro to help with my situation. I do a lot of shooting in DV and even more in HDV. I love editing with FCP and Color, and I’m beginning to explore Motion. In addition, I do some photo editing of TIFFs and RAW photo files. Finally, I also have a massive library of music… 40,000 songs in mp3, 10,000 in FLAC and also a small collection of video that I’ve ripped from DVDs.

So the Mac Pro would really help me consolidate all these interests into one place. But the thing is, while I have $4000 now (and I mean now, I can order today if I want), I wont ever again… I’ll be buying HDV decks, recording equipment, camera lenses, grad school expenses etc. so money will be tight. So I want to time my purchase properly, but I don’t know the significance of what’s on the horizon. Convenience would dictate that I can get my computer next year (my senior year of college), hell, I can use the school’s computers until I graduate. So my question is, if I am patient, and I do wait until May 2010, will the Sandy Bridge upgrade or the Westmere or whatever it is be worth waiting for? I’m talking from a professional standpoint here. That is to say, do those new technologies of the next 1.5 years, i.e. 32nm architecture, or whatever it is that is the CPUs new “big deal,” justify a wait? If it’s just a 10% performance increase, I’ll buy now…. But, if it’s something like 24 cores working in perfect synchrony, some new computing revolution, I’ll kind of feel like a doofus for not being patient. What should I do?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[Tomorrow]

I've heard of waiting a month or two for an update, but Good Lord man, one and a half years?

You haven't listed a single redeeming reason to wait that long, because frankly, there isn't one. You have the money and the need now, buy it now. Trust me, a machine like that isn't gonna be obsolete in 18 months.

 

[aaquib]

I've heard of waiting a month or two for an update, but Good Lord man, one and a half years?

You haven't listed a single redeeming reason to wait that long, because frankly, there isn't one. You have the money and the need now, buy it now. Trust me, a machine like that isn't gonna be obsolete in 18 months.

+1

 

[Jodorowsky]

I think I agree. I'm basically thinking that this is a machine I'm going to be using for HD video editing. My only hope was that I could somehow get a system that would be able to edit uncompressed HD in a year and a half. But that will be just as difficult then right? No processor will magically solve that... right?... right? (I'd be kicking myself if that capability became cheap when i graduated)

 

[Boneoh]

Hard to choose

It's hard to choose.

But the fact remains that as soon as you get it home, that new computer slowly starts to become obsolete. It's just like buying a car. You make the commitment, and then next year the same model gets some new feature that you wish you had.

The good new about the mac pro is that you can easily upgrade drives, video cards, memory, etc.

Just go for it! Once you get it, just tell yourself that you are now in a committed relationship for some time to come. Don't torture yourself by oggling every other pretty girl that walks by

 

[Tallest Skil]

...upgrade... ...video cards...

Quote of the day. Funny as heck, man! Kudos!

 

[Fomaphone]

I think I agree. I'm basically thinking that this is a machine I'm going to be using for HD video editing. My only hope was that I could somehow get a system that would be able to edit uncompressed HD in a year and a half. But that will be just as difficult then right? No processor will magically solve that... right?... right? (I'd be kicking myself if that capability became cheap when i graduated)

you won't be able to build a system for $4k that can handle uncompressed HD comfortably. for that, you will need a good deal of processor power, a lot of RAM, and the cheapest HDD option for what you want is 4 1tb drives in a RAID 5 array (just for scratch... that doesn't even touch storage/backup). then you'll need monitors that can do justice to your image and either decks that can handle your footage or huge portable storage solutions to take your footage from an ingest station.

do what i did, and spec for ProRes. you can do that for closer to $4,000, and nobody is going to give a rip that a college student's reel isn't mastered in uncompressed 10-bit.

ps, i'm a senior cinema student, graduating in may. FCP editor, often simultaneously using After Effects, Motion, Compressor, and Photoshop/Illustrator and Bridge

edit: this is a good machine that they're offering right now, especially with the student ADC discount (for which you are eligible if you buy the membership and confirm your student status). who knows what will happen in 3 years with the economy in the s***ter right now, but that's probably when a creative pro like you would want to upgrade this generation of computer. at that time, i do expect that there will be many more cores, faster hard disks, vastly improved ODD technology, all reasons to LET A CLIENT OR EMPLOYER PAY FOR YOUR NEXT COMPUTER. focus on a good student's reel for now, which you can do with the money you have, and you can make whatever you want happen in a few years. (a case for buying now)

edit#2: if you can wait so long to buy, consider waiting until the late 09 bump that this line may get ... put the money you're sitting on in a CD account-- that way you won't be able to let yourself touch it in the interim, and you'll have a few hundred extra bucks when it comes along. for now you can just prepare for that purchase by writing some scripts, shooting some stuff, working on some titles on the school's computers, learning via lynda.com tutorials, etc. and buy this when you're ready for post on whatever you're preparing. (a case for waiting a little while, since you said you could wait a long while)

 

[jjahshik32]

Buy now, life is too short...