I am thinking of buying a new mac. I need a new one for running Final Cut on, my G3 isn't powerful enough. At first, I was thinking of getting a mini mac, but they don't allow for much expansion. The G5s and iMacs are too expensive.
So I thought of looking at some used ones. What's a mac that's cheap, but very good with video? Between 400-800 dollars.
The g4 towers are great. I have a sawtooth(agp graphics) that i use for video/music/photo editing. It serves me well and I have about $1200 in it (computer + upgrades)
They are going for fairly cheap nowadays, but if you can wait a couple of months for the mac mini to take off, the prices should drop significantly (just my opinion)
hope it helps
CM
I was first considering the mac mini for Final Cut, since I do have enough money for it, but it doesn't look like you can put much ram in it. It WOULD be really nice to buy a new computer. I've never bought a brand new one before. HOw much lower could the price drop on those?
"If you don't like my products, don't use them."
- Bill Gates
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Get yourself a reasonable AGP video G4 tower, then have a look at the CPU upgrades available at http://eshop.macsales.com, or this guide. There's your future-proofing right there! The G5s can't be CPU upgraded, I hear.
The PCI video Yikes! G4 takes the same CPU upgrades as the earlier G3s - pricier and not as fast as the ones for the AGP towers. It's crippled in a bunch of other ways too that the last link will describe to you.
As to what is reasonable, that's between you and your wallet. The machine profiles at Low End Mac should help, as will the G4 Model Guide, and the articles here and here.
If you can afford it, get yourself a tower with a 4x speed AGP slot, so your video card options are future proofed as well.
go for a graphite g4 theyre about 300$ now they work perfectly fine.
i had the same dillema. i bought an emac used on ebay. paid 500 dollars for a 1GHZ 2003 emac with combo drive. i added 512 megs ram for a little under 100 dollars. i am waiting to get my copy of final cut this coming week. That seems like a good out of the box situation. i am assuming the 32 megs video ram is not the best thing, but for the price...
oh also there is video spanning hacks so you can expand your desktop by addding another monitor.
Quicksilvers have very good video and are cheap as dirt