astroboy2520
03-01-2006, 03:50 AM
I am currently a student at the local community college in their graphic design program. The lab at school has both Mac and PCs. Since I have a PC at home I tend to use that platform. I was wondering professionally which platform is more preferable? My instructor said he knows graphic designers who work on PCs, but it seems to me a majority of designers are on the Mac. I have used the Mac environment when I was in art school several years back so I am not a complete noob. And I have no trouble using CS2 on the Mac either, though I tend to get lost when it comes to where OS X puts certain computer management consoles.
This brings me to the second part of the question. If I was to get a Mac, which of the models would you people recommend. I was looking into the new Intel Mac Mini, but I am not sure if it will be powerful enough for graphic intensive uses, especially with the laptop hard drive. I also have a little problem of space if I was to wait to get the Intel desktop. We already have two PCs in the house, and another desktop, well, I will have to move some furnitures around to make a room for it. So that said, the Macbook isn't out as an option.
I am currently a student at the local community college in their graphic design program. The lab at school has both Mac and PCs. Since I have a PC at home I tend to use that platform. I was wondering professionally which platform is more preferable? My instructor said he knows graphic designers who work on PCs, but it seems to me a majority of designers are on the Mac. I have used the Mac environment when I was in art school several years back so I am not a complete noob. And I have no trouble using CS2 on the Mac either, though I tend to get lost when it comes to where OS X puts certain computer management consoles.
This brings me to the second part of the question. If I was to get a Mac, which of the models would you people recommend. I was looking into the new Intel Mac Mini, but I am not sure if it will be powerful enough for graphic intensive uses, especially with the laptop hard drive. I also have a little problem of space if I was to wait to get the Intel desktop. We already have two PCs in the house, and another desktop, well, I will have to move some furnitures around to make a room for it. So that said, the Macbook isn't out as an option.
Just somthing to consider; if you already have a decent monitor then the mini-mac can be the way to go because you can save on buying a new monitor and you can spend a bit extra beefing up the mini itself. You might also consider the 'old' iMac G5s that are going down i price.
Patrick Shannon
03-01-2006, 06:21 AM
I am currently a student at the local community college in their graphic design program. The lab at school has both Mac and PCs. Since I have a PC at home I tend to use that platform. I was wondering professionally which platform is more preferable? My instructor said he knows graphic designers who work on PCs, but it seems to me a majority of designers are on the Mac. I have used the Mac environment when I was in art school several years back so I am not a complete noob. And I have no trouble using CS2 on the Mac either, though I tend to get lost when it comes to where OS X puts certain computer management consoles.
I guess if you're more comfortable with the PC and you've invested money into software for it already, then that's what you should go with. As for me, PCs costed me hours and hours of productivity down the tube and my one at work tends to bug out now and then (despite having awesome specs) and I love working with the Mac OS, but that's me, man.
However, you may want to consider having both at some point if you're going to work around a lot of different people, you never know who has what, not to mention knowing both platforms will make it easier for you to settle in a job with whatever platform.
This brings me to the second part of the question. If I was to get a Mac, which of the models would you people recommend. I was looking into the new Intel Mac Mini, but I am not sure if it will be powerful enough for graphic intensive uses, especially with the laptop hard drive. I also have a little problem of space if I was to wait to get the Intel desktop. We already have two PCs in the house, and another desktop, well, I will have to move some furnitures around to make a room for it. So that said, the Macbook isn't out as an option.
You're right and I said this in another thread, the Mac Mini's Achilles Heel is the hard drive, my only complaint about it (I sold mine off to wait for Intel Macs). If it wasn't for that, it honestly is not a bad machine for graphic design at all despite what others - who probably only bases opinion on specs - says about it.
If you're willing to get your elbows a little dirty and have the right tool (a putty knife in this case), they are NOT hard to take apart and replace the RAM, hard drive and CD/DVD drive at all. Now I have no comment about what this will do to your warranty, and I don't know about the disassembly of the new Intel ones though....
In my opinion, I'd do this...if you're wanting to be a dual-platform house and still use the PC, go for the Mac Mini and get some sort of KVM switch box for it. That way, two units, one monitor/keyboard/mouse and one working space.
If you see yourself working primarily in Mac or spending a good amount of time of graphics work in it, go with the PowerMac, and you could technically do a dual-rig with a PC tower with a KVM as well.
There are some KVMs that do DVI switching, that'd probably be your best bet as analog VGA KVMs can sometimes introduce ghosting into the screen image. Also, some of the Mac's keyboard's proprietary controls (like volume) can be broken on some KVMs, but they can be worked around. Some Mac friendly KVM manufacturers might even have overcome this by now.