System Recomendation For Shake 4 And Final Cut Studio

[user_deleted]

I have been using a PC currently for my computer animation course at university. Along with 3D interests I have decided to head for a career in compositing and Shake seems like that best option to me with it becoming the industry standard.

I am looking at buying a Power Mac G5 with about 4Gb RAM 7800 GT 256MB 500Gb HD but I'm a bit lost as to what processor to buy that would suit Shake 4 and also Final cut studio and Photoshop cs 2. I am between the dual core 2.3Ghz and the dual core quad 2.5Ghz.

I have heard of bugs in Shake with the Quad and genral instability without plenty of RAM. Is the CPU speed cruitial for these programs?

Any help would be great!

Thanks

Steve

[user_deleted]

eh, i'd take the extra money you'd spend on a quad core and put it towards a 2nd monitor

and a tablet....if you're going to be doing this a lot you'll thank yourself for having that 2nd monitor....

and just make sure you go w/nvidia for a graphics card shake works much better w/nvidia....

i also wonder what type of footage you plan on compositing with? film? HD? DV?

if you're going to be comping film or HD size stuff be prepared for your HD to fill up quickly

[user_deleted]

Yea I thought I would go for a second monitor anyway and go with a different brand than apples steep prices - possibly Viewsonics 20" vx2025 or 19" vx924 and then i'll be able to use them with my PC's aswell for my other work.

I was going to go with the Nvidia 7800 GT and currently i'll be using some film and DV but i'm sure i'll be using HD in the near future so I was going to go with a 500gb HD and then upgrade later on.

Does the shift in speed between the 2.3 dual core and 2.5 dual core quad make much of a difference with Shake and final cut? I would imagine it would make most of a difference when they are rendering than genral working with the program.

Thanks for your help