latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

Hi everyone,

New systems time here at the studio and the good old question come back: Apple or PC?
We make weddings, promos, shorts, you name it... so we need computers that cut and play HD (and potentially 4K soon) like hot knife through butter if you know what I mean.

So last time (4-5 years ago) we spent quite a lot Windows and it's gone relatively well. This time we are ready to re-consider a Mac, we however don't have the budget to splash out on two maxed out MacPros so potentially looking to get two maxed out iMac i7 with 32gb RAM and NVIDIA cards for Mercury Engine etc....
We also like the iMac option in terms of studio design, compactness, etc....

Now, the question is: are we being blinded by the shine of good old Apple? will an iMac suffice? do we need more horse power? we occasionally work with After effects but not on a daily basis.

Anyway, let us know!!!

thanks in advance

Re: latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

Works great for me. I have two of them and would do it again, you can't beat the value of the all-in-one design. That's a nice 27" screen.

Re: latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

BRilliant Nate, do you use external HD for extra storage? Is that usb3, thunderbolt?

Re: latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

Yes, the iMac is very capable, and it's rumored that new ones will be announced tomorrow.

Be sure to get the best video card you can with the most VRAM.

I use cheap external USB3 boxes for backups, and a Thunderbolt RAID for the Project/Media storage/work drive/scratch disk (whatever you wish to call it).

Fast storage access and good video cards are probably more important than processor speed these days.

Re: latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

THIS ▲▲▲

Pegasus RAID and USB for backups.

Re: latest iMac good enough for HD editing
 

Im definitely waiting for todays announcement before i purchase the new iMacs. I have however read somewhere on the internet that the generation iMac will come with AMD graphic cards which basically means, the iMac wont be able to use the CUDA mercury engine at the heart of Premiere CC 2014?
Would that be the case? would it matter?

thanks