What is the best value iMac config for hd video editing. I was going to go for i5 3.1 ghz with 4mb ram, but should I go further? Thanks!

I got the 27" iMac

• 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
• 16GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x4GB
• 2TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB Solid State Drive
• AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5

and Final Cut Pro 7 works great on it with Lion 10.7.3.

The installer for FCP 7 (FCS 3) works on Lion. It's the installer for FCP 6 (FCS 2) that doesn't work on Lion. Here is an easy work-around I found the other day; http://www.jeremyjohnstone.com/blog/2012-03-11-installing-final-cut-pro-studio-2 -0-on-mac-os-x-10-7-lion.html

You should max out the ram and get an extra HD for the video files to reside on for editing. FCPX and Motion will eat up all the ram you can throw at them. Don't go with a USB HD because it's to slow for video editing. A Firewire 8 drive is recommended. Or go with another internal HD (is faster than Firewire 8). I got the SSD and extra HD and the read and wirte speeds are 12 times faster than the Firewire 8 drive.

As for the iMac you want to get... it will work but may slow when rendering/trans-coding video files.

thanks so mch David -- hadn't been back to this site for days.... really appreciate all the input here!

Thank you David, Babowa, Eric and all. This is very helpful. We are about to buy an iMac with FCP (some version, not sure which) and I'm trying to wrap my brain around it all. David, you mention you got an "SSD" (what's that) and extra HD, and that an external HD is better for security but an internal is faster... What would you recommend for us? Thank you!