Time to Upgrade my G5 Quad???

It is time to upgrade my G5 Quad. Not because it was too slow for my work, but because it's giving signs that it won't last too mush longer. It is been a great asset and I want my next one to do as good.
I had to take one of my two monitor off because the graphic card 256 MBs can no longer render motion imported simple titles mush less MB looks.
I always like to buy the best machine for what I do, but I don't want the most expensive tool money can buy, but the best tool money can buy for my kind of work.
I mostly use FC, Motion, Soundtrack and will be using color on the new Mac. I have a BM HD Extreme video capture card and a sonnet eSata card that I would be using in the new Mac. Other wise I would be getting an iMac 27" i7.
I think that a new 8 core with 8 GB Ram from Apple (add 8 GB more off brand) dual 1GB graphic card should give me the best return on my investment.
What do you gurus think? or, should I go for the 12 core?

God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
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What format will you be working on?



www.strypesinpost.com

I recently replaced my G5 quad, and faced the same questions. When I build machines for my corporate clients I tend to spec the biggest, baddest machine I can, based on the assumption that a 5 year purchase cycle will have the machine I build be an antique before it is retired.

For my personal systems, tho I can replace them whenever I want. Rather than pay a premium for the latest and greatest, I prefer to use that money for upgraded graphics, RAM and drives. Two months ago I bought a referb Quadcore Nehalem machine at a very reasonable price. I then bought a better video card, went to OWC and loaded up on RAM and drives.

[store.apple.com]

For general FCP editorial work I see no difference in speed or feel from the 8 core machines I use for clients. Motion loves all the RAM and the 4870 graphics card. Color and Soundtrack are equally happy. The one significant place I DO see the machine bog down is when compressing files. Some multi processor aware codecs like .264 would compress faster if I had more cores.

As for the iMac solution. OWC offers a modification to the newest generation of iMacs that gives you an external eSata port for a hard drive array. If you then bought the AJA IOHD box you would have a pretty nice edit system. I do a lot of remote work, and when I next upgrade my shipping system I think I may go that route.
[eshop.macsales.com]
[www.aja.com]
-Vance