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Can Mini run Photoshop CS5 and Final Cut Pro?
- Thread starter larry9511
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Yes, but you might have a not so excellent experience with Motion or Color, as the rely on the GPU.
CS5 will be fine, although you will want to make sure you have at least 4 gb ram.
Final Cut really requires a dedicated graphics chip to run effectively. You probably will be able to do basic things on the mini, but motion graphics added to the video or any complicated editing will not work very well.
Final Cut really requires a dedicated graphics chip to run effectively. You probably will be able to do basic things on the mini, but motion graphics added to the video or any complicated editing will not work very well.
Do you mean Final Cut Studio or Final Cut Pro? FCP still relies on the CPU and does not take the GPU into account, thus FCP will work with a non-Intel IGP. Motion and Color are the applications in FCS that need the GPU for their tasks.
in my experience Photoshop CS5 runs fine on a recent Mini (2009) with 4GB RAM. If you can find the spare cash, to increase performance you could invest in an external FW800 disk to hold your images and a separate (small) one for use purely as a scratch disk.
I meant final cut studio, and was referring to doing motion graphics. Sorry for the confusion. Final cut pro is not going to work that great either on the cpu that comes with the mini in my opinion however. Dedicated graphics memory is necessary for doing longer film clips.
As I already mentioned twice, Motion and Color need the GPU, but FCP can work with that CPU, it even worked with slower ones (G4 1.25GHz, editing broadcast SD footage, G5 1.8GHz, editing broadcast SD footage). Not everyone is rendering all the time, unless the source footage is not in compliance with the formats FCP accepts. I worked with a lot slower machines to edit long pieces and they worked just fine, as edits are not really CPU intensive and if the footage is in the right format, the footage will work too.
A Mac Mini is a good choice for small editing jobs, and with "small" I don't mean short videos or such, just not overly complicated effects editing, but the CPU will even do that, you just need to wait longer for the rendering to finish. Motion and Color will be the only applications, that will stress the GPU, thus the IGP might be a bit slow, but the OP didn't really state the purpose of the editing business s/he is going to continue.
iMovie 09 stresses the CPU and GPU just as much as most editing tasks done in FCS. It's pure FUD as far as the mini not being able to handle FCS. Sure it won't be as fast as a Mac Pro or even a newer iMac but it's totally doable. Just double up on the ram and use a fast external source drive. I mean most of us would love a Mac Pro for video editing but until Apple gives us a cost effective desk top comparable to PC offerings, then the mini is a practical choice. It's damn sad that one can buy a souped up i7 Dell desktop for $1,000 but a Mac Pro with similar power costs almost triple that. 
Yes, the Mini can "run" PSCS5 & FCP.
How patient are you and how much work do you need to get done in a day?
How patient are you and how much work do you need to get done in a day?