IMac Video Card Questions

[meltdown50]

OK, so I'm getting my Girlfriend an IMac for Christmas. This IMac is going to be used specifically for video editing on Final Cut Studio. It does not need the ability to play games. Just Video Editing on Final Cut Studio.

With that in mind, Looking at the 21.5 inch IMac, i have 2 choices for video cards. The Nvidia GeForce 9400m or the ATI Radeon HD 4670.

Which one of those cards would be able to get the job done? Does the video card play such a large role? or is it more ram/processor for video editing?

Thanks for all your help!

-Ian

 

[spinnerlys]

Doing video editing doesn't rely that much on the graphics card, unless there are many, many effects or even compositing involved.

The 9400m will be fine for most editing jobs outside of broadcast networks and other media outlets.
The CPU and RAM are more important.

I edited with 32MB RAM graphic cards and it was more than okay doing so, though I used Avid Media Composer and not Final Cut those times.

 

[applelicious]

Ian,

Take a look at these benchmarks. It seems as the only benefit ATI GPU will provide is in gaming. Also, 9400m is actually "modified" version for imac - it is 9400m (g). You can find some reviews/performance on it on the web

http://www.macworld.com/article/143636/2009/11/imacs_late2009_benchmarks.html