macgeek2005 said:
For instance, before Intel came along, people bought G4 powerbooks, and used them for Final Cut Pro and intense video editing. Now people say "Don't buy an iMac if you'll be doing any serious professional things... but the iMac is twice the speed of the G4 Powerbook or more!!!
I know its not a huge point- but a few people want high-speed scratch disks.
It's really bad in terms of performance to use a FW400 or USB2 bus, or even your internal drive for your media. If you can wing using SATA externals at with the expansion of the PCMCIA/Expresscard or PCI/PCIX/PCIE slots, then you see a significant advantage.
The difference between an iMac Intel and a MBP for video editing is small- the only real thing i notice is the lack of a SATA speed scratch disk.
- I think a lot of the reason that people tell people not to get the consumer models is because in the past; they have gotten the consumer models and felt limited, or wished that they had bought the pro model... Me for example- I'm typing from a iBook G4 1.33Ghz.. It's nothing great in terms of performance- and not worth the thought of editing HD on.
FYI Apple classes the Mac Mini, MacBook and iMac all as consumer products. They MacBook and iMac are better value for money, the Mac Mini is pretty much the runt of the litter serving as a barebones machine.
The MacBook Pro/PowerMac G5 are the Professional and Prosumer machines simply because they (sometimes) are faster, and (always) are more expandable.