mac pro or new imac?

hay hope this is the right forum for this. im in need of a system to do some pretty hard core video editing and graphics and everyone in the industry whos given me advice at the mo is using macs. which is understandable, i was having a pc built but then realized that it was all well and good until i get a virus that ruins twenty hours of editing just safer with a mac i think. anyone on here using mac for commercial video editing?

im useing adobe prem and final cut on my mac pro 17'' laptop at the mo its 2.8 ghz intel core 2 duo processor and 4gb memory was even wondering if i should just get a mac cine screen ad hook it up but this isnt really designed for that kind of work. i have a loan to invest and i know that the mac pro is more easily updatable but still not sure.

cant decide which is better for money the mac pro or the new imac?

any advice gratefully received.

If you dont need to move the computer around get the iMac although personally I would built my own PC install win 7 with Microsoft security essentials and if you don't download things from random websites (also goes for the mac) its pretty unlikely you will ever get a virus.

If you are only using this for video editing and work stuff, then you can easily go with a PC.

But if your also using it for leisure you will have to watch what sites you go on, what you go on etc. but that also applies with a mac too. Also make sure you have a good anti-virus installed I have sophos installed and i've only ever had 2 virus's over 3years and i have been able to clean them up straight away so they haven't damaged my PC (and i download a lot of crap).

One thing for sure you will be able to get a way more powerful PC for the price of a iMac or Macbook pro especially if you built it your self.



Ok so a iMac is about £950 (at its cheapest) and has a 3.06GHz dual core processor with 4GB of memory and pretty bad graphics.

If you were building your own PC you would be able to get:

a 2.8GHz intel i7 processor (this has 4 cores opposed to the iMacs that only has 2)
A kick ass Nvidia 280GTX 1GB graphics card
4GB DDR3 memory (you could get more easily)
and a kick ass motherboard + a 500gb and a 250gb hard drive + you could splash out on a cool case if you wanted.

however that's if your building it yourself (or a friend could do it) if you don't want to tackle doing that check out some of the lower end alienware PCs and Laptops http://www.alienware.co.uk/main.aspx there pretty customizable and should kick the crap out of the iMac/ Mac pro performance wise.

You're better off waiting until November for the £1,599 27-inch, Quad core iMac.

It has identical specs to the Mac Pro (which is £1,899), and you get a 27-inch screen with that, which would probably cost an additional £500-600 if you were to get the Mac Pro, as you only get the tower and keyboard/mouse.

Also, there's no point suggesting PCs really, he needs Final Cut, it's only available on Macs.

(I would choose to build my own PC though guys, that's a good call )

weetanhops says:
You're better off waiting until November for the £1,599 27-inch, Quad core iMac.

It has identical specs to the Mac Pro (which is £1,899), and you get a 27-inch screen with that, which would probably cost an additional £500-600 if you were to get the Mac Pro, as you only get the tower and keyboard/mouse.

Also, there's no point suggesting PCs really, he needs Final Cut, it's only available on Macs.

(I would choose to build my own PC though guys, that's a good call )

Ahh, didn't know final cut was only for mac.


Yeah if you want the best go for the Mac pro but then again it isnt really cheap or portable although neither is a 27" iMac. Although if you were going for the new 27" iMac you may aswell just get the best and go for a mac pro....


So i guess the final line is:

Portability: Macbook Pro
Power: Mac Pro/ iMac

Although im sure a Macbook pro would be more than fast enough for most video editing...