which imac

[Jeremiah McLamb]

I'm editing DSLR and HDV footage. Would an iMac 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 do the job comfortably with Premiere?

[Bill Pryor]

I have a friend with the 21.5 iMac but he got the 2.7 and i7 processor version, which is around $500 more, I think. He said it's fine with PP, but FCP was unstable on it. I think you can edit with PP on most any Mac, but if you get frustrated by slow renders and things like that, it would be better to spend a little more and get the faster processor and better graphics card, I think. I'd also want more memory.

[Jeremiah McLamb]

I just bought the 27" 3.4 i7.....i'm just looking for another (cheaper) imac for a second editor to do some smaller projects on. I'm looking at getting the 21" i5 and maxing out the RAM. Picking the i7 puts it a bit out of what I want to spend.

My questions is just that will what I'm getting be able to handle the work load.

[Chris Hurd]

What do you guys think about the iMac refurbs on the Apple site?
They have a few 27" models that are i7 from July 2010 that they're
selling for $1600 to $2000, and some 21.5" i5's for less than $1300.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...co=MjEwNTcwNzQ

[Jeremiah McLamb]

thats where i picked up my 27" 3.4 quad i7 (2011). Got it at $1800ish (tax free weekend). Should show up at the office Monday.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah McLamb

I'm editing DSLR and HDV footage. Would an iMac 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 do the job comfortably with Premiere?

Sorry, but it will be sluggish in Premiere Pro CS5.x. None of the iMacs are available with any Nvidia GPU at all; in fact, the only GPUs available on any iMac are all from AMD (formerly ATi). And none of AMD's GPUs are supported at all in MPE's GPU-accelerated mode (this means that all operations in Premiere will be software-only, which can perform as much as 10 to 20 times slower in some operations than MPE's GPU-accelerated mode, which supports only Nvidia CUDA GPUs).

In addition, the i5 is significantly slower than an i7 in Premiere because the i5 supports only four threads (in this case, the i5 in question is an i5-2400S that performs quite a bit slower than an old i7-920 because the i5-2400S has four cores with no HyperThreading) compared to eight threads on the LGA 1155 i7 CPUs. Worse, its internal expansion is severely limited, and it does not support any additional hard drives unless you choose to connect an external hard drive via USB 2.0 or Thunderbolt (but as we all know the USB 2.0 interface is extremely slow and Thunderbolt external hard drives are still rare). Because of all that, you'd end up with a system that is more than 20 times slower than even a properly configured Mac Pro, let alone a properly tuned Windows PC.

In other words, an iMac is great for entertainment but sucks pretty badly for video editing. In fact, it basically delivers mid-range laptop-class performance in a very large, tethered and stationary package.

[Patrick Janka]

The other problem is the monitor, which is far too vivid and contrasty (not to mention the gloss screen) for proper color correction work.

[Charles Mabry]

I too was thinking about purchasing an iMac. I currently use a Macbook Pro with absolutely no problems editing anything.... problem is the Macbook Pro isnt mine :( So I must look for my own editing station when I move on. If the iMac isnt a good choice.... what would be a good replacement?

[Randall Leong]

There is no good replacement besides switching to Windows, I'm afraid. The iMacs all deliver roughly MBP-level performance in a large package that's way too big to be even transportable and must be tethered to an AC wall outlet. The only Macs that are even suitable at all for video editing are the full-tower Mac Pros. Too bad; all of the iMacs and Macbook Pros fall short on connectivity and fall below Adobe's minimum hardware requirements - which means that two or more separate very-fast-performing hard drives configured as two or more separate volumes are required - but current Macbook Pros and iMacs cannot accommodate more than two hard drives (one internal hard drive plus one Thunderbolt hard drive since both the FW800 and USB 2.0 ports are slower than the average sustained transfer speed of most hard drives these days).

[Chris Hurd]

You can configure a build-to-order iMac with both an SSD (for the operating system and apps) plus a 1TB or 2TB internal 7200rpm hard drive (for a scratch disk) and still have the Thunderbolt port going to an external RAID for video storage. But the price for an i7-equipped 27" iMac with that extra SSD drive puts you near the $3,000 level... kinda high.

[Chris Hurd]

Also, the current 27" iMac has two Thunderbolt ports (there's only one on the 21.5" iMac). As long as you're not using one of those Thunderbolt ports for an external monitor, then you've got the ability to connect two more external drives in addition to the internal drive, so you could do without the expense of an internal SSD -- that is, assuming you don't need a second monitor.