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G5 v. G4 and Final Cut Pro

A

atacinus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 25, 2003
310
0
New York City
Okay, here.s the deal. I edit video with Final Cut pro...currently on a G5 iMac 1.6ghz with 512mb ram. I am moving into a small [it.s nyc after all] apartment and won.t have room for my desk. So I.m getting a laptop. I can.t afford the powerbook...so scratch that. I.m going to get the iBook and put 1024mb ram in it. My question is this...the difference in MhZ between the G5 [1.6] and iBook [1.33] is not much...so speed on normal apps is not going to be an issue...but how much of FCP is optimized for the G5? Please don.t get off topic here and start talking about the 12' v. 14' etc...I just want to know if it will be a significant downgrade...I used to use FCP on a 1ghz powerbook and had no complaints...is it the same for the iBook?

Thanks,
Christien.
 
atacinus said:
Okay, here.s the deal. I edit video with Final Cut pro...currently on a G5 iMac 1.6ghz with 512mb ram. I am moving into a small [it.s nyc after all] apartment and won.t have room for my desk. So I.m getting a laptop. I can.t afford the powerbook...so scratch that. I.m going to get the iBook and put 1024mb ram in it. My question is this...the difference in MhZ between the G5 [1.6] and iBook [1.33] is not much...so speed on normal apps is not going to be an issue...but how much of FCP is optimized for the G5? Please don.t get off topic here and start talking about the 12' v. 14' etc...I just want to know if it will be a significant downgrade...I used to use FCP on a 1ghz powerbook and had no complaints...is it the same for the iBook?

Thanks,
Christien.
Click to expand...

It's all about the FSB.
 
well that.s a more significant difference...533 for the iMac vs. 133 for the ibook, with that said though I have no clue what that means.

Christien.
 
Oh, but with that said, I see that the 1ghz powerbook i used to edit on is only 167...

Any ideas on what all this means?

Christien.
 
If I may, you could get a wall mount for your iMac and that might give you the best of both worlds for your needs. Since I got my iMac (coming from my iBook) you may not be happy with the waiting time and if your time is money, that is saying something itself ;) It could work but others may have more input that me, hope this helped.
 
I have three machines running FCP 4.5
PMG5 D2.3 2.5GB ram
PMG4 D1.0 1Gb ram
PB17" 1.5 1Gb ram
Mi G5 is the fastest by far!, but between my PB and PMG4 there is not big difference, my G4 do some renders faster, just the ones optimized for DP.
I have a friend who has the same imac as you, and my PMG4 is faster than his Imac, in any FCP task, and my PB is a little slower.
I think the Ibook is not gonna handle that well the software, no only because the 1.33, because the bus is only 133mhz, and the hardrive is very slow.
So the aplicattion will launch and perform slower.
Ram could help.
Remember Ibook is a student computer, for normal use, not task intensive work, its not a PRO computer.
Get a Powerbook (refurb maybe, used) you will gain more power, and a 5.4k rpm HD worth the money.

Luck!
=)
 
Can.t do the wall mount for the G5...in my space it.s just not going to work...Is the difference is bus 167 to 133 that big of a differnce...I understand the jump from 533 on the iMac...but between my old powerbook and the iBook...do those numbers add up...or is it like MhZ...1.2 compared to 1.33 or some other small number.

Christien.
 
Well if your trying too get the most for the money and the iBook is the way you are going to go then the 14" might be for you as well as the slight extra space of the display (helped me with Flash over the 12"). The iBook 14" is 1.42 FSB but has the slower HDD (hard drive). For realworld test speeds you may want to try MacWorld and see what they have listed or due a Google search as I can't think of the other sites that have done this as of late.
Have you looked in the video forum here as well to see if someone else has a similar post? Just a thought since I really don't do a lot of video for anyone other than me :eek:
 
There are some other things you need to consider, also.

1. Will you be burning DVDs after you edit them?
If so, the render speed of an iBook is way slower than your iMac. A 10-20 minute video in iDVD on an iBook could take a couple of hours verses 30-40 on the iMac. (This is just an example, the times will vary for each machine and project.)

2. Hard drive Storage space...I've been using PowerBooks for 5 years now to edit on. My biggest problem has been the small hard drives my PBs have (10 and 12 gig). I now have an eMac and G4 Tower but I still use the PBs for quick edits and do the transition rendering on the eMac, I use a LOT of external drives. These things take up space too. You can only stack them so high...

3.What kind of video projects are you going to be doing? Editing on a PowerBook/iBook is fine for short projects, but after a couple of hours you are going to want to put it on a table or desk or something. If you have room for that, keep the iMac. If not, would you like to sell it?????

Remeber, speed is everything when it comes to video. FSB, HD and Processor all work together to make a project fly. Now that I have the eMac, it's hard to sit down and edit on the PB especially at 2:00 am and the art director wants to see the DVD at 9:00am.
 
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