To be honest with you, I'd have to agree with the Mac-Rep, I believe
that the alotted memory in the graphics card, the chip, and the CPU
speed needs to be much higher than the minimum requirements,
especially for HD video shooting. I have configured a system that I
believe will be adequate and barely within your budget, and I'll
explain why.
First off, when it comes to apple products, it's very hard for any
third party vendor to sell overstock inventory at a reasonable price
because their profit margins are already too low. That's why, when
apple unveiled the new Aluminum Displays and discontinued the old,
vendors such as MacWarehouse can only sell the older displays for $200
less than the new products. As a Mac owner, my benefits have always
been that my depreciation of my computers overtime is incredible low
comparatively speaking, thanks to apple for diminishing the markup on
their products as much as possible. As a student, much like you are an
educator, there are no third-party vendors that can match the prices
we get using our education discounts.
The minimum requirements on Final Cut Pro is a G4 or G5 running @
least 350Mhz or faster. A system running OS X 10.3.2 or later,
soundtrack which is indeed a vital tool requires 500mhz single or
450mhz dual w/ 512MB RAM Minimum. DVC Pro requires over 1GHZ and each
of these additions total require 15GB's of Space, so let's look at my
affordable system that meets each of these requirements and includes
all the absolute necessities into this package. $4000 leaves very
little room for accessories.
In order to get an affordable high-performance system, you should
first consider a G4 tower rather than a G5. The Velocity Engine in the
G4's is sufficient enough to withstand your resources without the need
of the G5 architecture. I Picked the Single Processor 1.25GHZ PowerMac
G4 for $1199 base. I configured the system to contain 1GB of Ram
(judging by the configuration specific 2 DIMMs, you'll receive two
512MB Sticks) for an additional $202. I have NEVER seen anyone
practically use over 1GB of ram, while I'm sure this is possible, I
don't see too much more ram overly necessary. I stuck with the
standard 80gb Hard Drive and kept the standard ATI-9000 64MB Video
Card. The upgraded Nvidia GeForce 4 Titanium would run $90 more, and
while I would recommend it, there isn't any room in your budget for
it. The main reason why the budget has no room is the fact that you
simply must have a 23" HD Display. I'd find it quite ironic for you to
be using Final Cut Pro HD without a High-Definition Display. It seems
however there is no getting around the Education $1799 price for the
aluminum 23". Mind you, you can pay the same amount for the older
displays that match your computer with third party vendors as apple no
longer sells them. It matches your system and does the exact same
thing, it really depends where you choose to spend your money, apple
or third party, whichever suites you. Now, we have to move on, Apple
Care for the Desktop is $199.00, no getting around it. The Office 2004
Student/Teacher Addition is $149.99, and as you mentioned, the Final
Cut Pro HD is $500. Here's the invoice for the configuration:
Power Mac G4 Z082 1-3 bus.days Remove $1,401.00 $1,401.00
Accessory kit 065-4385
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro dual-display w/64MB DDR 065-4390
Optical 1 - Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW) 065-4392
Optical 2 - None 065-3389
1.25GHz w/ 1MB L3 Cache 065-4391
80GB Ultra ATA drive 065-4389
56K internal modem 065-3138
1GB DDR333 SDRAM (PC2700) - 2 DIMMs 065-4434
Mac OS - U.S. English 065-4386
Apple Pro Keyboard - U.S. English 065-4388
Apple Cinema HD Display (23" flat panel) M9178LL/A 2-4 weeks
Remove $1,799.00 $1,799.00
APP for Power Mac (w/ or w/o display) - Enrollment Kit M8850LL/A
3-5 bus.days Remove $199.00 $199.00
Office 2004 for Mac - Student and Teacher Edition T9188LL/A 1-3
bus.days Remove $149.95 $149.95
Final Cut Pro HD Academic M9153LL/B 1-2 bus.days Remove $499.00
Subtotal Please note that your subtotal does not include sales tax or
rebates. $4,047.95
This configuration is for brand new products only. Apple is offering
a special Deals section that appears to be exempt of Education
Discounts.
The only other option is a preconfigured discontinued 1.6ghz
refurbished PowerMac G5 that will in the end run you close to the
same. If you choose to recieve the matching G4 display, they are
selling a refurbished model for $1699. This doesn't sound like a huge
savings comparatively speaking to the education discount, but the
retail list price of $2000 knocks of $300 on this baby, that's
actually a great deal. If you went with the refurbished monitor, I
could get this package for $3947.95 + Tax + Shipping( I see no
information for free shipping on orders over a given amount, and in
order to calculate, I must checkout).. Hope that helps, any questions,
feel free. |