What to get?

[Bryson]

Ok, here's my choices.

I run the Technical side of a Dance Theatre/Studios. We run a professional development programme, a degree, an MA, and various arts events. I need to get some Macs for the following:

I need two machines to run Web Surfing / Final Cut Express / Adobe CS2 for our Resource Room (Think: Library). It'll be primarily for students to check e-mail, surf the web, edit photographs and do small to medium edits of videos of themselves dancing.

I need a bigger machine for me to edit videos and create DVDs of professional dancer's performances. It will also have CS2 and this'll have Entourage on it for my Exchange e-mail etc.

I have a budget of £6500, ex VAT and I qualify for educational pricing. The CS2 software and the FCP/FCE software will cost me £1550, (Charity pricing) so I have £5000ish left for hardware.

So, here come the questions:

What machines for the Library? I'm looking at: iMac G5 17"s or maxed-out Minis. The minis are slightly cheaper (once I've bought some Acer monitors), but are a fair bit behind in specs. Basically, if I get the Minis, I get slightly more to spend on the main machine.

So, the main machine: I'm obviously tempted by the Quad (In fact, I very nearly bought one today, but changed my mind at the last minute) but I'm not sure If I should divert the cash saving to the dual 2.3 and more RAM and a bigger screen.

Screens: I'm looking at 2x20" screens (no reduction, boo!) but I was wondering about getting 1 23" and 1 20". In the UK, buying Dell or Samsung doesn't provide any savings (stupid, I know.).

So, opinions please!

[Bryson]

So, my basket looks like this right now:

2x 17" iMac G5 1.9GHz PowerPC MA063
7 - 10 days

Remove £719.00 £1,438.00
160GB Serial ATA drive
SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW)
512MB 533 DDR2 SDRAM - 1x512MB
Country kit
Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X

Power Mac G5 Quad 2.5GHz Z0AW
3 - 4 weeks

Remove £2,128.93 £2,128.93
500GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm 065-5979
16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW) 065-5180
2GB 533 DDR2 Non ECC SDRAM - 2x1GB 065-6066
Country kit 065-5185
Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse 065-5178
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB SDRAM 065-5181
Mac OS X 065-5187
2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5 065-5183

2x Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel) M9177
24hrs

Remove £430.00 £860.00

Subtotal £4,426.93

[Axl]

I need two machines to run Web Surfing / Final Cut Express / Adobe CS2 for our Resource Room (Think: Library). It'll be primarily for students to check e-mail, surf the web, edit photographs and do small to medium edits of videos of themselves dancing.


Shouldn't iMovie be able to capable of handling this instead of FCE? You could even spend a tad for plugins. Save yourself more money with this route.

[Bryson]

I agree in principle...but FCE is £67 educational pricing. Hardly seems worth it not to get it.

[jer2eydevil88]

Don't waste money on the apple keyboard and might mouse, you can find a cheaper solution on newegg.com that will give you better precision over the mighty mouse.

Also consider buying 24" dell widescreen displays for the g5 towers as they cost less, give you nearly the same quality and have more features.

[torifile]

Don't waste money on the apple keyboard and might mouse, you can find a cheaper solution on newegg.com that will give you better precision over the mighty mouse.

Also consider buying 24" dell widescreen displays for the g5 towers as they cost less, give you nearly the same quality and have more features.
I think they're included with the iMac.

[PB PM]

Since an iMac is an all in one yes they are, but he is talking about if the fellow gets two PowerMac G5s, not iMacs.

[Robo]

The G5 comes with a mouse and keyboard, too. You know, just like...well, every computer except the Mac mini. :D

[mattf]

Don't waste money on the apple keyboard and might mouse, you can find a cheaper solution on newegg.com that will give you better precision over the mighty mouse.

Also consider buying 24" dell widescreen displays for the g5 towers as they cost less, give you nearly the same quality and have more features.

newegg.com isn't a lot of good for somebody based in the UK. Also, as Bryson mentioned in his original post, Dell and Samsung don't provide a lot of savings over Apple displays in the UK.

Bryson, the Apple refurb store had a bunch of 17" G5 iMacs yesterday. Obviously not the new ones, but it doesn't sound like you would really need things like the built-in InSight, Front Row, remote control and mighty mouse or even the extra processing power. The price was £720, which is the same as your educational rate, but these obviously include VAT, and since you're exempt (I'm assuming) the cost would be £720 *40/47 = £613. Worth calling Apple to see if they can provide you with any refurbs.

On top of that, you could save a small amount (ca. £50) buying 2GB of RAM from crucial. The other benefit to that is you'd actually end up with 2.5GB of RAM. It all helps!

Now, you're slowly working to the point where you can afford 2 x 23" cinema displays (Not sure what the educational pricing is on these. I know the Retail difference between the 20" and the 23" is £400). :D

[staph]

On top of that, you could save a small amount (ca. £50) buying 2GB of RAM from crucial. The other benefit to that is you'd actually end up with 2.5GB of RAM. It all helps!


While you're at it, you'd probably save a bit by sticking with the stock HDD and just buying the extra capacity from wherever. The upgrade cost to the 500GB (gaining you 250GB extra capacity) is actually more than the cost of buying an entire 400GB drive.