Macbook Pro requirements for Final Cut or Premiere PLUS Adobe After Effects? Help!

[maxcady]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to buy a Macbook Pro so I can do some editing and learn After Effects as well as Cinema 4d (I think thats what it's called)

Problem is, I'm not sure what Macbook Pro specs are enough for these programs to perform well.


I was looking at the Apple Store Macs and saw these among others-



1.) MacBook Pro 2.0GHz quad-core Intel i7

Originally released February 2011
15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1440-by-900 resolution
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD 6490M

2.) MacBook Pro 2.8GHz Intel Core i7

Originally released April 2010
15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display (1440 x 900 pixel)
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory



3.) MacBook Pro 2.2GHz quad-core Intel i7

Originally released February 2011
15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1440-by-900 resolution
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500GB Serial ATA @ 7200 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD 6750M




Without factoring the price, can you guys tell me which one you would get and why?


Is option #1 for the programs that I want to run and for editing a full length digital feature film?


Thanks for your help!

[maxcady]

These Mac are awesome and I'll be upgrading from a regular Macbook to a Pro.

There is a $400 range between the 3 of those, so I just wanted to know if even the lower one is sufficient for all of my needs.

Thanks for your response!

[Marc Peters]

compared with my Dell that just died, I'm amazingly pleased.

Is this a like for like comparison? I have a two year old i7 dell laptop rinning CS5. This boots rapidly, never produces any unexpected errors, and multitasks admirably. I could quite happily render whilst surfing, but try to use the machine for editing alone.

[maxcady]

Thanks for that detailed post. It's good to see that it's working out well for you and your projects. Yeah, after being a Mac user for 5 years, pc's won't be in my wishlist anytime soon. Good tip on Q-lab!