New Macbook and FCS2?

[RubberShoes]

I currently own a 24" iMac thats about a year old and it works just fine

However, I am going to college and the thought of a huge 24" computer in a freshman dorm is a scary thought lol so I'm considering selling my iMac and buy either a macbook or macbook pro with my student discount.

I have extensive use with final cut (both express and pro, currently using pro) and with the new NVIDIA GPU's I am wondering, will the new macbooks run FCS2? Under the specifications they state it requires a standalone GPU not an integrated chip, but that was stated when the macbooks were using the old integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics.

And with the 9400M being roughly 5 times more powerful, is it capable of running FCS2? Or has apple yet again limited my choices of laptops?

Yes i know it will run FCE but I've kind of grown out of that and really rely on the entire studio set, so that's why this has been bothering me because $1900 with a student discount for a MBP is still a hell of a lot of money just for a standalone GPU and FireWire 800 (which sucks because I was planning on buying a 1TB external FW800 drive for my iMac) and the macbooks are a lot more appealing to me because of their size and price.

So, any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[bigbossbmb]

As I've said in other threads on this topic...

Yes the new Macbook will run FCP and probably the other apps in FCS. However, there is no way to really edit/playback anything since there is no FW connection for your media drive. USB hard drives do not have a high enough sustained transfer rate for editing video (other than small motion JPEG proxies).

 

[Chaos123x]

The new macbook is way better then old one because they use Nvidia graphics and not the intel crap.


But the new Macbook is totally useless because it does not have firewire.

You need firewire for importing and exporting video.

If you use one of those crappy USB AVCHD camera remember FCS2 barely supports the format and you have render everything into another compression format..... So it will be like editing back in the day on a G3.

For your scratch disk you need a external hard drive that is fast enough to handle the multiple streams of video.... USB 2.0 will not cut it.


Try getting a used or refurb Macbook Pro instead.

 

[Mit59]

Amazon deal

In case you're interested, Amazon is discounting the "old" Macbook Pro for an amazing $1644 right now. Happened on it this morning. I'm almost sad I bought the new one yesterday ;-)

Tim