Question for iMac owners. Please help.

[td2243]

Hey guys,

I'm not a techie, so alot of the specs go in one ear and out the other. I'm definitely wanting a new computer by the end of the year. Here are the tasks I do or will do that are taxing on a system:

-Video editing with Final Cut Pro 7. I do quite a bit of photo/video editing.
-I also plan on getting the Adobe suite to switch over to Premiere and After Effects.

-I do audio editing using Audition on a weekly basis. (probably the least taxing)

-I plan on getting ProTools and recording music as well.

Knowing this is what I plan to do with the new machine, do you think this machine can handle this or where would it suffer?

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
3TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5


I really use my systems for a long time without replacing every couple of years. I have a 2nd monitor with a matte finish, so the glossy finish on the iMac shouldn't be too problematic.

If ya'll have iMacs for the kinds of stuff I do, does it perform well? Thanks so much for the help.

 

[neda]

You should always buy the "most powerful" Mac. you can afford. That being said , if you can afford the most powerful 27" iMac ,I'd get that for what you need . Im a digital artists and have the 2nd most powerful one on the "tier" and get by fine using Photoshop and big files for my work . So far it's been great , oh and my Mac is less that a year old, bought last Christmas.

 

[elithrar]

For video work:

- i7 (most decoders/encoders are heavily multithreaded)
- Disk I/O (SSD/Fusion or fast external drives)
- RAM (16GB should be plenty unless you are super srs)

For sound work:

- Nothing fancy - I/O will likely be your crux. External DACs or MIDI inputs will be useful.

For Photoshop:

- RAM (16GB is more than enough unless you work on huge PSDs or multiple 36MP RAW files)
- Disk I/O (SSD/Fusion drive)

 

[Bear]

...
3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
3TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5
...

This basic configuration is good. I would suggest adding 16GB of memory from somewhere other than Apple to bring you up to 24GB. And you might want to add AppleCare since you are planning on keeping your iMac long term.