[dantewaters]

Ok will be getting the 2.3 dual core...
Why do I get the feeling that the Geforce 6600 is not a great card??

Lateralus
-n-
mduell

I'm of the impression that you don't want to get $2500
And pay off your powermac instead $2800 or enough for
lets say 2gigs of ram, apple care, and maybe a video card
upgrade?

My questions though is what's a decent amount of ram to start with
so you wouldn't need to wait on a final cut to render (SD format), So you
wont see a slow down while capturing video from my dv cam. Just a good start.

[hldan]

Originally Posted by dantewaters

Ok will be getting the 2.3 dual core...
Why do I get the feeling that the Geforce 6600 is not a great card??

Lateralus
-n-
mduell

I'm of the impression that you don't want to get $2500
And pay off your powermac instead $2800 or enough for
lets say 2gigs of ram, apple care, and maybe a video card
upgrade?

My questions though is what's a decent amount of ram to start with
so you wouldn't need to wait on a final cut to render (SD format), So you
wont see a slow down while capturing video from my dv cam. Just a good start.

Final Cut doesn't rely totally on the graphics card for rendering. The Nvidia 6600 will work just fine. For that type of program it's always ram, ram ram. As a matter of fact for overall best operation ram is the most important. 1GB of ram will suffice for most apps however 1.5-2GB will do your computing a world of justice.
If you like 3D gaming like Unreal or Doom3 then the graphics card may need changing.

[dantewaters]

Well thanks for the update... I'm glad that 2gigs will get that machine flying...
However I will be using Motion and whatever I can to enhance my video work.

So I guess I should ask: outside of gaming what are the limits of the 6600?

And who do guys recommend for ram

Crucial

or

Ramjet

[idyll]

I have the Dual 2.3 and it's a great machine. Don't know how much Crucial is charging for ram, but I got mine from newegg.. $120 for 2GB, now I've got 2.5GB total. I feel like my computer is invincible now, running 10 apps at a time including Aperture, Photoshop, and Illustrator. I have never experienced a slow down thus far, can't believe how good this computer is.
Sorry I can't help much with the graphics card decision as I don't run Motion, but from my understanding it relies heavily on the video card so I would suggest the next step up from the default one. If you want, get the dual 2.0GHz G5 and the better graphics card for the price of a 2.3GHz dual G5 and a worse graphics card, as you won't notice the extra .3 in comparison to the better graphics card. But then again you can always upgrade the graphics card later on but not the processor..

[dantewaters]

WOW... thanks man. It's always good to hear from someone who has the exact machine you're planning on getting. Can you provide the link to that 2gigs on newegg?

Do you have finalcut? How did you know which ram would work with your 2.3?
Which mac did you have before the 2.3. I'm ready to make this purchase just gotta
start raising the money.

[dantewaters]

Found this on newegg by patterning the same specs from crucial:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145527

crucial link (had to shorten the address)

http://tinyurl.com/cmzlq

[mduell]

6600 is a good card in general; it won't be great in Motion or some games but otherwise it will be fine. The 6600LE is the poor card, since it's "really" a 6200 with different labelling.

2GB may be fine; it depends how big your projects are and how much other stuff you have running.

[jebjeb]

I have a DC 2.3 at work and a Quad at home. The 2.3 has the stock 6600 and my Quad has the 7800GT.

The work I am doing in Motion involves huge amounts of objects and layers but is of more simple shapes rather than particles and filters. I find that the 7800 is of course faster but the 6600 is fine. What I do notice is how RAM hungry Motion is. The 2.3 has 4.5 GB RAM. My Quad has 2.5 but over the Christmas break I have had 4GB from the work machine in the Quad, taking it to 6.5GB. It is not hard to fill that up with RAM previews. I could honestly say that 12-16GB would not be wasted! However, I just find myself doing Exports rather than RAM previews for any longer scenes.

Get the 6600 in your 2.3 and get either two or four 1GB RAM sticks. You can always chuck a 7800 or equivilant card in there in the future as well as adding more RAM.

[idyll]

Originally Posted by dantewaters

WOW... thanks man. It's always good to hear from someone who has the exact machine you're planning on getting. Can you provide the link to that 2gigs on newegg?

Do you have finalcut? How did you know which ram would work with your 2.3?
Which mac did you have before the 2.3. I'm ready to make this purchase just gotta
start raising the money.

For the memory I looked up the specs of the memory Apple uses in their systems on their page and looked for them on newegg. You are supposed to use "240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 533 (PC2 4200)" in the new systems.


Here is the memory I purchased. $26.50 per 512mb and the shipping is cheap too! I got four sticks and will probably get two more. Since I do not use Motion I do not really need more than 3GB or so.

I do have Final Cut, but I do not use it professionally, as I do graphic design. I had a number of G5 Macs before the dual 2.3: PowerMac G5 1.6GHz, iMac G5 1.8GHz, and PowerMac Dual G5 1.8GHz. This PowerMac definitely blows them away, but it also has the most memory of the systems I have had in the past.

[dantewaters]

mduell

Thanks for the input... to answer your question. I'd say the majority of my work is about 2hrs long, (about 13gigs) and I tend to switch back and forth between FCP and motion (since I don't yet have Final cut studio). I also use Photoshop while final cut is open as of lately.

I do feel that the 6600 will be good, but I just wanted someone's opinion. As far as RAM I just want a great boost in encoding times, and importing in final cut, compared to that of my 1.5ghz Powerbook.

Jeb

I feel that the 2gigs will be fine. I will add more ram as time goes on though.
Thanks all, and keep posting.

[jebjeb]

Sounds good. As I said, I normally have 2.5 GB in my Quad so you hould be cool.