dual core or dual core quad g5 for shake 4 and Final cut

[Mr Steve]

I'm currently a second year Portsmouth University Student studying BSc Computer Animation. My interests have gone towards compositing. I have been using After Effects and Combustion on the PC but I want to take a large step this summer and move over to Shake 4 as this seems to be the industry standard now.


I have been looking at buying a PowerMac G5 and I am stuck between the 2.3Ghz Dual Core and the 2.5Ghz Dual Core Quad. I have read reviews on the G5 Quad and Shake. I am in no means worried about the price difference however I want to be sure which system Shake as well as Final Cut Studio and Photoshop would work best on because i have heard of instabilities. I was going to put around 4GB of RAM on either system as well as a 500Gb Hard Drive if that helps.


I would really appreciate if someone could help me with this.

Steve

[a2visual]

Go for the Quad, it's an enormous leap in power!

[fredriksson]

I work daily on the Quad, and on heavy jobs it seems to scale linearly compared to the dual core. I'd prefer faster storage to more CPU though, depending on the job. If you can have both, good for you. I'd hold off until the Intel based powermacs enter the market (Soon<tm>) to see what they have to offer in performance.

My $0.2.

[jamboree]

i wish i could get a laptop that quad dual core processor-hyper thread processor with 4GB of ram, nastiest video card around... and... and... the list goes on...

go for the quad. if you need to edit/make videos, you need more processing power. rule of thumb. my $ 2/100 worth

[ianbai]

If you can wait until August (or possibly September) you should be able to get your hands on the G5 replacement - the Pro Mac. Do I hear the words 'baddest Mac ever'? I think I do...

Rumour has it the top of the range will be an Intel Quad. In theory, it should give you a wider choice of graphics cards.

[Sevak_Sinani]

quad for sure!

[SalaTar]

wait...dont buy the outdated hardware(ohhh wait an apple is outdated on release)

[3dfx]

Go with the quad. Also in 2007, intel and amd will come out with a quad core cpu. That's when I'm going to build my new system, hehehehe. Can you imagine a dual cpu and each is a quad core, that's an octa-core. Awesome!!!!!