<p>I'm going to be running final cut on my Mac, is it work the extra .27GHz I know the other one has a bigger harddrive but I have externals anyway. Or should I upgrade to a 2.66 processor with the 15 inch? What will the difference be beside 700$.</p>
<p>Subtotal $1,372.00
* 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 160GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
* Superdrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
* Accessory Kit
* AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook / MacBook Air / 13" MacBook Pro</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Subtotal $1,607.95
* 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
* Superdrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
* Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
* FileMaker Pro 10 Education preinstalled</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Subtotal $2,117.00
* 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
* Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide
* Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
* Accessory Kit
* AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/o Display) - Auto Enroll</p>
<p>Also I have a school discount, should I buy online or at a store... Which is cheaper, faster, and better for warranty/service help?</p>
<p>If you have a reason for the extra power (which you probably don’t if you’re asking on a forum whether or not its worth it) then you probably can get by with the cheapest pro. If there comes a time in college where you need a super powerful computer, you can use them at labs.</p>
<p>true true, well I’m running final cut, and the 15 inch also has a better graphics card, I don’t really think it’s worth it. I just hope the 2.26 GHz is enough to run Final Cut at a decent speed. FC doesn’t have a recommendation as to which speed to use, just says Intel Processor.</p>
<p>If you plan on customizing, do it online. They can’t always customize in-store. The warranty is more or less the same. If there’s something physically wrong with it, you’ve got to ship it out regardless (if it’s totally f’d, on occasion they’ll send you out the door with a new laptop).</p>
<p>You’ll be buying an external monitor, I assume? For a film editing major, I’d think it’d be important to have a lot of screen real estate, yet you might not want a massive laptop screen, for the sake of portability.</p>
<p>As for specs, I have no clue about Final Cut, other than it’s one hell of a program. Does your school program not have a recommendation? I’m a business student, so my school had particular recommendation based on the business curriculum.</p>
<p>The school just says get a mac and as for screen space I’m just gonna hook it up to my monitor I already have at home. As for the hard drive, I’m prolly gonna store stuff on a terabyte external. I just was wondering which would be the best to run final cut. </p>
<p>Final Cut says a 4 GB of ram should be enough to run compressed HD video. I just was not sure about the power of the processor. </p>
<p>I think I’m just gonna buy it straight online through Mac, the warranty is better than Best Buys. </p>
<p>Mostly likely getting the 13 inch with 160 hard drive. Would it be possible for me to put more RAM in that later though?</p>
<p>I don’t think you’ll notice much if any difference with the 15" because FC doesn’t use the 3D transforms which integrated graphics aren’t as good at. (The newer integrated graphics are better, but there’s still a difference.) There’s more of a problem running Motion - which has not technically been supported without a graphics card.</p>
<p>I don’t know many kids who actually use FC on a personal computer for their school films. Is this your school’s thing? One of my kids went to film school and they - like most others that I know - used dedicated stations, mostly Avid.</p>
<p>That’s another thing, the stations we have at school are the best out, but I just wanna be able to have enough power at my house in order to run FC smoothly. I don’t think Avid is gonn a get used at all, I mean all the pros use FC.</p>
<p>Now the graphic card you said about Motion, will I be able to run Motion off the 13" right after I get it or will I need to buy a card for it?</p>
<p>If you buy it at Best Buy, you still get the manufacturer’s warranty, and if you so chose, you could also purchase AppleCare. AppleCare doesn’t have to be purchased at the time you buy the computer, but if you intend on purchasing it, you must have it registered within a year of owning the computer. (Though I myself would buy from Apple directly)</p>
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<p>Yes. You’d have to buy 2x2gb, as it comes standard with 2x1gb, and only has two slots. Newegg usually has good prices. If you’re not interested in doing it yourself, I’m almost positive they’d do it at the Apple store, though I’m not sure.</p>
<p>I’m building an i7 920 system, but I don’t recommend it if you don’t know what you are doing. Right now, you need a core 2 system to upgrade Mac OS from the retail box version to support i7 before you can install it on and i7. An i7 system will be about $200 more than a Core 2 Quad.</p>