Stuart Richardson
Active member
Just to play devil's advocate, but are you sure you need all that power? What types of files are you editing and in what volumes? Do you use lots and lots of layers when you edit (like more than 5, not including adjustment layers)?
I use a quad core mac pro from early 2008, I believe with 4 or 6gb of RAM and the stock video card, no RAID and I have never for one moment felt like I had to wait an unreasonable amount of time for any given task. Things open extremely quickly, filters are very quick. I would never dream to say that you can't make it much faster, but the question is whether it will matter for you. I mostly work with 22mp digital files and several hundred meg Imacon scans. My volumes are fairly modest. But anyway, just laying that out there. I am not sure if you are a professional or an amateur, but if you are not coming home from work with 300 39mp files every evening, the stock systems go a long way.
Then a caveat to my caveat , my power mac system before this lasted me six years, mostly because I bought one of the highest end models. Right until I replaced it, it chugged along quite well. One of the nice things about the Mac Pro's is that they have so much room for expansion, you can buy a good processor set, and then add components as you see the need.
I use a quad core mac pro from early 2008, I believe with 4 or 6gb of RAM and the stock video card, no RAID and I have never for one moment felt like I had to wait an unreasonable amount of time for any given task. Things open extremely quickly, filters are very quick. I would never dream to say that you can't make it much faster, but the question is whether it will matter for you. I mostly work with 22mp digital files and several hundred meg Imacon scans. My volumes are fairly modest. But anyway, just laying that out there. I am not sure if you are a professional or an amateur, but if you are not coming home from work with 300 39mp files every evening, the stock systems go a long way.
Then a caveat to my caveat , my power mac system before this lasted me six years, mostly because I bought one of the highest end models. Right until I replaced it, it chugged along quite well. One of the nice things about the Mac Pro's is that they have so much room for expansion, you can buy a good processor set, and then add components as you see the need.