05-17-2008, 01:53 PM

hello,
i am finally ready to make the move to a mac, and i need some advice on some of the hardware i should choose.
now i am a student, a light/medium gamer, i do a good amount of photo editing, and a light amount of video editing.
i have decided to get the 24" iMac. however, i am not completely computer savvy, so i am not quite sure on whether i should get the 2.8 C2D or the 3.06. would i see a large speed difference between them?
also, i have decided to definitly get the 4 GBs of ram, and the 500 GB hard drive.
and would i see a large speed/visual difference between the ATI radeon 2600 pro and the Nvidia geforce 8800 gs?
i would like to keep the price of it down, but money is not a problem for me.
thank you for all of your advice in advance.

05-17-2008, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by CJ6446

i would like to keep the price of it down, but money is not a problem for me.

In real world terms you will not notice the speed difference between a 2.8 and a 3.0, so look at the 2.8 and save yourself some dollars

Also do not max out your ram at the apple store, it is much cheaper to buy your own ram from crucial and install it yourself.

As for the hard drive, if its not much extra and you don't like pulling computers apart then go for it

also. have a look at the apple refurbds, you can save a load and they are just as good as new macs

05-17-2008, 02:10 PM

Yer the 2.8 is best, not worth spending more when you might not notice the difference, i went for the 2.4 though.

05-17-2008, 02:21 PM

I recently switched over to Mac so I'm not very "Mac Savvy" myself. I do own a small Production company where we pretty much started with Mac Pro's and I have no complaint since day one. I can't believe I wasted so much time on Windows, I'm that satisfied.

Regarding your question or questions...the most important elements in Video Editing would be RAM and Processor speed. The more RAM, the better realtime performance you're going to get. I'm running on a Macbook Pro 2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2gb RAM and GeForce 8600M GT (256mb). I edit HD Footage as high as 720p to 1080i using my HXV200 HD camera...I have no lag during editing. Not even with a lot of effects applied on the timeline, I get no lag. Notice I could get more RAM (which I am), but I'm doing fine for now.

Games? I play WoW with no lag what so ever, so you can pretty much focus on RAM and Processor speed. Games, obviously ignore any Intel based video cards. Get something with a GeForce PCI Express. You could get 4gbs RAM and lots of processor speed, but if you got some Intel Video chip, your games won't run as good.

Hope that helps and good luck.

Originally Posted by CJ6446

hello,
i am finally ready to make the move to a mac, and i need some advice on some of the hardware i should choose.
now i am a student, a light/medium gamer, i do a good amount of photo editing, and a light amount of video editing.
i have decided to get the 24" iMac. however, i am not completely computer savvy, so i am not quite sure on whether i should get the 2.8 C2D or the 3.06. would i see a large speed difference between them?
also, i have decided to definitly get the 4 GBs of ram, and the 500 GB hard drive.
and would i see a large speed/visual difference between the ATI radeon 2600 pro and the Nvidia geforce 8800 gs?
i would like to keep the price of it down, but money is not a problem for me.
thank you for all of your advice in advance.

05-17-2008, 02:28 PM

thank you all for the quick replys
i was planning on the 2.8, so i will be sure to do that.
i do not think i need such a fast processor, but the 24" screen won me over.
and i was also thinking about installing ram myself, due to its ease on the imac, but i dont always trust myself on that; im clumsy =]
and i have also been looking at refurbs, but for some reason i dont always feel as comfortable buying something refurbished.
and about the graphics cards, i do not have a need for my games to run perfect, (right now im running Diablo 2 on a 2 year old 1.6 ghz laptop with 512 ram and an integrated graphics card, and i know it could look a lot better but i dont need the best) so would the ATI card be sufficient?

05-17-2008, 04:14 PM

From integrated graphics to an ATI, that's a nice jump. If you're not going to be playing high end games, then what you're talking about is okay. Just keep in mind people constantly discover more things and what to do a lot more with their computers. I prefer paying a little more and having a lot more than what I need, just in case.

Originally Posted by CJ6446

thank you all for the quick replys
i was planning on the 2.8, so i will be sure to do that.
i do not think i need such a fast processor, but the 24" screen won me over.
and i was also thinking about installing ram myself, due to its ease on the imac, but i dont always trust myself on that; im clumsy =]
and i have also been looking at refurbs, but for some reason i dont always feel as comfortable buying something refurbished.
and about the graphics cards, i do not have a need for my games to run perfect, (right now im running Diablo 2 on a 2 year old 1.6 ghz laptop with 512 ram and an integrated graphics card, and i know it could look a lot better but i dont need the best) so would the ATI card be sufficient?

05-17-2008, 07:08 PM

I would certainly get the 24 inch model. The screen is a better quality than the 20 inch. Proper 24-bit capable.

That said, I use a Samsung that is using the cheaper technology and I have no complaints.

05-17-2008, 08:57 PM

okay,
thank you all for the great advice
i have decided that my system should be:
24" iMac
2.8 C2D
4 GB ram (from crucial)
500 GB hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO

thank you for all the help in deciding my system.

05-17-2008, 10:19 PM

Enjoy your Mac!