New iMac - which one?

clancy said:

Hi all...any help here would be appreciated.

We are about to buy our first ever iMac. A couple of questions for anyone...

1. We will be doing some minor HD video editing with a Sony HD Handycam that has AVCHD files in the .mt2s format. They are pigs that jerk along in our old P. The question is will the entry level iMac do the job of simple editing? Do I need to move up to the next level i3 that also has a 512 mb ATI discreet card?
Video editing is more RAM and workstation GPU dependent. The base iMac should be able to handle everything just fine. And all of the GPU's on the iMac's are dedicated, not integrated. Well, they're dedicated cards, but still on the mobo.

2. Sandy Bridge is coming. Do I wait altogether for it or is that more for the GPU on the CPU (ie at the lower end)? Will Sandy Bridge really matter if I am getting a machine with a discrete graphics card like they have now anyway?
Sandy bridge is "coming". Apple is usually a year behind the technology because they want all the bugs to be worked out (look at the iX series. One year later than PC's. And if you wait for Sandy Bridge, then you might as well wait for Ivy bridge and so on Don't wait, if you need it now, get it now. If you can wait, wait.

Once again any thoughts here would be much appreciated....

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clancy said:

Thanks for the reply...just to take it one step further though, if HD editing is GPU dependent should I not move up to the i3 3.2 so that I can get the better graphics card with 512 MB memory as well? or will that not make that much difference? It really comes down to the entry level i3 or moving up one level to get the better graphics card...

Once again thanks for the response and I agree with you on the Sandy Bridge wait but I also think it won't make much difference with a dedicated graphics card, it will only matter for the cheapest GPU on CPU integration.

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