After using FCE on a Mac Mini for four months, I've ordered a dual 1.8GHz PowerMac. Only real complaint with Mini is waiting for rendering and building DVDs. Not burning DVDs, but building them in iDVD. Really slow process if you use fancy menus and have close to an hour's worth of video. We're talking hours.

Machine is coming with 80GB internal drive. I have a 240GB firewire drive. I ordered 2GB of RAM. Is their any reason why I shouldn't be happy with FX5200 Ultra graphics card? I'll have twice the video RAM as the Mini (64MB).

I play no games. Can barely use LiveType (not exactly an intuitive app, if you ask me). No plans for Motion. I do hope to upgrade to HDV by this time next year. I'm thinking if I really want to spend any more $$$, I should go for a second serial ATA drive & use the firewire drive for backups & not active video projects.

Any suggestions?

I searched DV Info & found a few threads that touched on video cards, but not much in the way of advice. Found two pertinent threads on Apple's web site:

A better video card?
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@650.dYRQaUd3Upc.3@.68b3455e

video encoding - video card or cpu ?
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@650.dYRQaUd3Upc.3@.68b294e5