To make a really long story short.. For months I have been debating on what I should do:

I have a Lenovo IdeaPad™ Y710

Here are the specs on it...

ATI™ Mobility Radeon™ HD 2600 for the video card with 512 memory built in.

I have 2GB or 4GB DDR2. Not sure cause I havent opened it up yet to look.

It has the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T5550 or T5750 with dual-core,
Intel 64 Technology.

I have been told that with today you need an i7.


I have what I think is a 250gb drive.



What I got used to editing video on was my ex fiances imac 24 with what I believed to be the i7.




.....................basically what im trying to do is what everyone is trying to do. Get the best bang for their buck.

I am not currently running a RAID but I may buy one if thats going to be the cheaper route for me.



On the iMac I was running Final Cut which I loved. I have Sony Vega for this computer but it runs incredibly SLOW and sometimes does NOT run at all.

Im looking to only spend 800 on a new computer tower and processor and software and hardware. But Id like to keep my laptop if I can utulize what I have so that I can decress rendering time and get it to work without dragging on and on with my laptop.


You guys think I would be able to edit video on this or should I just either build a newer workstation or find a used iMac or a workstation Alienware or something?



Here is the link to all of my specs from my laptop:

http://www.nuxdesign.com/images/IdeaPad_Y710.pdf

You didn't mention what kind of footage you're working with, but I strongly recommend you upgrade. An i7 is preferable, but you'll be okay with an ivy bridge i5 as well.

Try putting together this and see if it fits your budget:

i5 3450
8 GB DDR3 1600
Gigabyte D3H motherboard
120 GB OCZ SSD
1 TB WD 7,200rpm drive
ATI HD 7770 ( you could get a 6xxx series card too)
Corsair 430w
Whatever case you want

Hope this helps.