[RC23]

so im faced with a decision.. I need something to run Final Cut Pro HD for school.. it'd be nice to have the new G4 Powerbook. (for the mobility) but its more cash.. and im not sure about the performence difference is between a

iMac 20" 1.8ghz G5 with 512ram, vs a
Powerbook G4 1.67 with 1Gb Ram

comparable in performence or is it just idiotic to get a g4 purely for mobility?..
and does final cut hd do realtime on the g4s?

[MCQ]

No clue on performance comparison.

With regards to real time effects, it's more than capable.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/specs.html

- For RT Extreme, single 500MHz or faster PowerPC G4 (550MHz for PowerBook G4) or any dual PowerPC G4 and 512MB of RAM

[RC23]

well, thats good..
i wonder how the batterly life really is with the 1.5ghz 15"..
anyone?

[Brad]

Speculation and Rumors? This belongs in the Apple Products forum because that's the place for "Discussion of all existing Apple-branded software and hardware products."

Moving...

[julesstoop]

It's not like the minimum configuration does al of the realtime effects. The faster your computer, the less rendering is needed. I have found my 1 GHz PowerBook considerably slower than for instance a single 1,25 GHz G4 desktop. For editing I would strongly recommend the iMac (or any recent desktop except for the mini) over the powerbook. Besides: the iMac screen is much better.

[RC23]

yikes..

well, maybe a 1.67ghz with a gb ram would be close to a 1.8 with a gig ram?
wish someone would benchmark it..

and about the imac... i dont know if the display is really all that good.. 350:1 contrast?
thats a bad contrast for things that came out in 2002 even.

now im considering a dual 1.8 powermac.. with a thirdparty lcd..
my true want is the powerbook..
i could get that for $2,250 (student dev discount)

[JayReding]

The bigger amount of RAM is far more important than the CPU speed. Video editing requires an insane amount of RAM - the more you can add, the better. 512MB is probably on the low side of what you'd need for Final Cut Pro. 1GB will make a noticable difference.

Personally, I'd go with the option with more RAM rather than the faster CPU, especially if you need the mobility. The iMac is not exactly portable.

The new PowerMacs should give you enough horsepower to run Final Cut HD, especially now that they've increased the drive RPM to a more acceptable 5400RPM. An external FireWire drive might also be a sound purchase if you're planning on storing large amounts of video as well.

[RC23]

true, thats why its such a hard decision.. i could get the imac with 1gig, or the powerbook with a 1gig of ram.. and i could care less for 5 percet faster etc.. but if its waaay faster in fcphd then im sold on the imac..

oh, and i have a 7200rpm 16mb cache external hd 250gb maxtor.
so for video ill probably be using that.

[lewd0006]

Definitely get the iMac for the faster HD. It's essential. Start with 512GB of ram, but a GB or two doesn't hurt. Don't expect to run something like Motion on an iMac without a huge performance hit though. My dual 2.5 G5 has 2GB of ram and the 6800 GT card and it still struggles with multiple effects. I have a powerbook also though, and I will say I can definitely edit on it. That said, I'm not going to be rendering any Magic Bullet filters with it, that's for sure

[julesstoop]

In my experience with FinalCut, CPU-speed, RAM-size and HD speed are about equally important. And - also in my experience - a 1 GHz laptop renders a lot slower than a 1Ghz desktop with an equal amount of memory. This is largely CPU bound and leads me to the conclusion that a desktop will provide you with a much faster platform.
I agree that 1 GB compared to 512 MB makes a no-match out of your dilemma, but RAM can easily be upgraded.