Newbie question / Final Cut-iMac

I have the following early 2008 Imac with these Specs: The iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 20-Inch Aluminum (Early 2008/Penryn) features a 2.4 GHz Intel "Core 2 Duo" processor (E8135), with two independent processor "cores" on a single silicon chip, a 6 MB shared level 2 cache, a 1066 MHz system bus, 4GB of RAM (800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, PC2-6400), a 250 GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive, a vertically-mounted slot-loading DVD±R DL "SuperDrive", ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics acceleration with 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, a built-in iSight video camera, and built-in stereo speakers underneath the 20" glossy TFT Active Matrix LCD (1680x1050 native) display.

My question is what version of Final Cut Pro can i successfully operate? Will the graphic card in this unit affect the quality of videos edited in Final Cut? Will images from Atomos Ninja be to large to process on it?
I also see that Final Cut X requires a later graphics card then what is built in, what effect will this graphics card have on editing in final cut X? One other side note, I have an exeternal monitor (HD TV) attached to the i mac, will that remedy the early graphics card?

I don't actually know what happens if you try running FCPX on a system with a non-OpenCL graphics card (which is what you have). I suspect it'll simply refuse to launch. If by some miracle it did open, I fear you'd find performance to be lacking to the point of it being unusable.

Since the graphics card in an iMac is not upgradeable, there's nothing you can do to help the situation. Adding another monitor will make things worse since what graphics resources you have are then shared between the displays, which typically leads to reduced performance.

However, there's no need to theorise about any of this: simply download the trial version of FCPX and see if it works for you. You might also wish to try out the latest version of iMovie , which shares many of the underpinnings of FCPX.

My hunch, however, is that the best you'll be able to do is the earlier Final Cut Pro/Final Cut Studio. Sorry.