[flatcatch]

My sister in law (well, "in law" in the next couple years) is a film student and is getting ready to put a DV editing system together. Her university is big on FCP so as the computer guy in the family she needs me to put together a system. I love buying Mac systems with other people's money!

Anyhow, a couple questions if anyone can help with my shopping list:

* I'm recommending a DP 1.0Ghz G4 with 160GB (80x2) Ultra-ATA HD. I'm only getting 512MB RAM from Apple, but additional 512K DIMMs are cheap. Is 1.5GB RAM going to help FCP a lot more vs. only 1.0GB of RAM?

* If her budget is tight how much slower would a 933Mhz G4 perform with FCP? I think she'll want to start doing DV editing for other people down the road so I figured a DP G4 would give her a bit more of a lifespan. Also, is real-time editing coming to a future version of FCP? If so, should she definitely get the DP to handle that?

Thanks for the help!

(PS - I know MWNY is just days away so I'll wait for any long-shot G4 updates and subsequent price drops, but she needs it soon and can't wait "4 to 6 weeks" for Apple's speedy rollout of a new model <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> )

<small>[ 07-10-2002, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: flatcatch ]</small>

[msuper69]

Go with the dual 1Ghz and max out the RAM.

The current version of FCP already supports some real-time effects out of the box providing you have a fast enough G4 and enough memory (which you will have with the dual 1Ghz).

That will be one sweet Mac!

[scottiB]

If she can, see if she can wait till August when (it's rumored) that new PowerMac will be introduced.

Max the RAM and install a second, large HD for FCP projects--better performance due to less fragmentation by using the system hard drive.