Finally getting an iMac, need advice on video and memory

[Pnut13]

Hello everybody!

I have been lurking around here for a few months, trying to figure out what Mac desktop i should get..........well my HP's Motherboard finally went and I am sans any computer.

I need this computer for some personal video editing and picture manipulation and surfing the web. I do not play video games on this, that is what my Wii and PS3 are for. Eventually i would like to do some computer animation, like Maya 6 ( i have an old used copy)

---I think the iMac is for me but i have a few questions
looking at a refirbished on apple.com

20-inch glossy widescreen display
2GB memory
320GB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory


-looking at 2Gigs of Ram, and a ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
card, is that enough to render video without freezing in Apples iMovie????( I have a Kodac digital cameral that does video in 720p's.)

-The monitor has plenty f Firewire and USB's ports which is great but does it have an DVI-D out put so you can use it on a larger Monitor or TV????

-now i was told that the ram on the computer, is much more important than what ever is on the video card, so that 2GBS of ram is just enough to do video and not to pay too much on the 256MB of memory on the card...is this true????



any feedback i get will help me so much! thanks guys, I will use this info to decide on buying the imac I am thinking of now or getting a different one.

,
Pnut

 

[chas0001]

If you are not desperate to get an iMac you may want to hold off for a short while. Apparently they are going to be updated very soon (Buyer Guide iMac) and possibly with new graphics cards.

Personally I would order the iMac with the stock RAM and then upgrade it using third party RAM from http://www.macsales.com. Its far cheaper as Apple charges a premium for RAM.

The iMac has mini DVI out so it can be connected to a monitor or TV using an appropriate adaptor.

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

You should be fine with iMovie and the 2 gigs of RAM, but it could get a little slow at times. I would purchase that iMac if it is a good price then pick up some extra RAM from ramjet.com to max it out for the best possible performance with video editing.

 

[Pnut13]

If you are not desperate to get an iMac you may want to hold off for a short while. Apparently they are going to be updated very soon (Buyer Guide iMac) and possibly with new graphics cards.

Personally I would order the iMac with the stock RAM and then upgrade it using third party RAM from http://www.macsales.com. Its far cheaper as Apple charges a premium for RAM.

The iMac has mini DVI out so it can be connected to a monitor or TV using an appropriate adaptor.

Ok good news on the output, otherwise i would go for a 24", now i will get a 20"

the updating part is not so much of a hangup anymore because 1-no computer i would like one soon, and 2- maybe the upgrade will be only a slightly better video card, and there might still not be one....so the wait will be for not.
Thanks for the advice

so i guess getting more ram is more important than say one video card over the other???