What is the ideal (affordable) system for graphic design??

[tommyboy®]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum thing and I find it very useful and even more now that I have a question for you. I'm thinking of giving up PC's and get into a Mac environment but I don't know if a Power Mac G4 (Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 • 2MB L3 cache/processor • 256MB DDR333 SDRAM • 80GB Ultra ATA drive • Combo Drive • ATI Radeon 9000 Pro • Mac OS 9 boot supported) for $1,600 is a worthy investment. Don't even think about a G5!!!!!!!!!

I also would like to know whichCRT monitor gives the best color fidelity at an affordable price (less than $200) I'm really on a very low budget and don't want to spend my little savings on something useless.
I can get a PC for $600 but it seems that the macs are the standard for graphic design.
What do you guys recommend?? what is the ideal system for me??
P.s. I will be running Photoshop, Illustrator, Quarkxpress and maybe 3D and video editing

[D-Frag]

Hey man, if you put 'Affordable' and 'Mac' in the same sentence...your speaking giberish. Bottom line, I run 10 foot mural panels at 200 dpi on a $600.00 PC. I can do twice the work with 2 of those compared to the price of one mac....easy math. Everyone else here will tell you its industry standard to use a Mac, but I have always gone against the grain in life, that is what makes me unique and an artist, so let them have at you with there silly mac talk hehe.. Plus I get braggin rights cuz im on at 1 in the morning answering 2 questions in 5 minutes now : )


http://gallery.cybertarp.com/albums/userpics/13115/Profile_2.jpg

[PrintDriver]

D-Frag - show off!
LOL.

He's kinda right.
How much do you have invested in your PC software?
What you describe for a Mac is a very good machine. It is about about what I started with at home before I added the bells and whistles.
If you don't have old Mac software, the dual boot OS9/x thing won't be much use to you though it can be handy to have if you pick up some old peripherals real cheap.
You will need: more ram(at least a gig) definitely, a DVD burner at some point (the unit you describe has a combo drive not a superdrive), Eventually a USB 2.0 pci card and/or a Firewire 800 card (it's equipped with USB 1.0 and Firewire 400), a USB hub perhaps...
And software. $$$

As for the Monitor, opinions vary. I use ViewSonic at home and love it. Not so happy with the Sony's we have at work.

As for Mac being industry standard, it is. But any vendor worth doing business with can handle PC files as long as you are very careful with file formats and fonts. Having a good vendor relationship where you can ask questions before you start designing a piece will save you money all around.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

I do freelance on an Imac 600Mhz G3. So I say you can go with an Emac 1Ghz G4 and it won't break your buget at $799.00. Oh and it includes a 17' monitor.

Heck here is a photo:

http://a816.g.akamai.net/7/816/51/22cabe08d76ecc/www.apple.com/emac/images/specstop10222003.jpg

Oh and it's industry standard. LOL!

http://www.cbcamerica.com/images/webshots/banner-design.jpg
'Adventure, Excitement, A Jedi craves not these things.'
'Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they.'

[LTG]

I agree with D-Frag - a PC will do the job just as well and for a lot less money (use the xtra money to buy more RAM!) but I have found to be true what PD said also - you gotta be careful with fonts and file formats - if you have a good printer they'll let you know what they need from you.

If it wasn't for the last minute nothing would ever get done.
(When I grow up I want to be just like Keyare! He does excellent work - even when he's trying to not to.)

[D-Zine]

LOL@ Benjo! We have 4 of those damn eMacs here at work! They would be fine to work with and affordable or you can go with the PC...which is affordable too and you get lots. You just have to decide what platform you wanna go with and then shop for the affordability. You can get the price you want with either but getting what you want inside the machine for the money you wanna spend is the trick! ;o)

http://coastalcarousel.com/GDF/metatag3.jpg

Who says doodling isn't constructive?!

Tommy I found a good deal for you man.

www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=568151 (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=568151)

Quick Specs:
1.25GHz IBM Power PC G4 processor, 256MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 32X10X32 CD-RW/12X DVD-ROM, 56K, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, Mac OS X 10.02


Oh and it's only $1,295.00

http://www.cbcamerica.com/images/webshots/banner-design.jpg
'Adventure, Excitement, A Jedi craves not these things.'
'Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they.'

[Debz]

if your a student.. apple gives discounts to students!! :) and studentdiscounts.com has a LOT of great deals on software!! all u have to do is fax your Student ID to them!!

[Silence04]

you know all that maintanence stuff you have to do on a pc, well mac's osX does it all for you.
but pc's are def better if you don't have a big budget. :)

its almost like trying to decide if you want to buy a regular car vs. a bmw... they will both get you to from point A to point B, the bmw just allows you to do it in luxury (and they cost a butt load more...lol)

Taylor

[PrintDriver]

ooo, I don't know about that BMW comparison.
My mac doesn't spend nearly as much time in the shop as my buddy's beamer.
LOL.

Benjo, that unit you found is only a single processor. If you're gonna do the Mac do the dually.
Call CDW and MacMall and ask them if they have the dually still. I got a sweet deal on mine and it wasn't advertised. $90 toward free shipping, 560mb ramstick and a 3.5 floppy drive for free (what I'll put in that, I don't know).

silence04 - mac does it all automatically except for updating permissions. That sucks.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

Post Edited (PrintDriver) : 3/31/2004 11:57:04 PM GMT

[casedsgn]

I've used both platforms...and they'd both work for any type of design. But if you're not a big computer geek, you'll have a much easier time on a mac. Windows is a pretty complicated and unstable operating system that's highly vonerable to a lot of 'user error'. On all the PC's I've had it seemed I spent more time trying to fix slow running apps, or hunt down and remove files that were spread out all over the place, or find the latest driver for a scanner or digital camera that wouldn't mount, etc. With a mac, everything just seems to work...and work well.

- There are NO known viruses for the current mac platform, and over 80,000 virus for the current PC platform.

- Macs have TRUE plug and play

- Macs have a longer life cycle than PCs, sort of like investing for the future.

Like I said, you could do the same design work on either platform and it's all personal preference...but I'm a big advocate of 'you get what you pay for'. It's worth it to me to spend a little more and have equipment that's stable, reliable, and always just works....(and I like my CDs showing up on my desktop when I stick them in)
/emoticons/smile.gif

[PrintDriver]

LOL! ^what Case said^.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

[tommyboy®]

Hi guys, like I said, I've had it with PC, it's too unstable!!!!
I think I'll wait a couple of months until the mac prices lower down a little.
I'm going with a G4 dual 1.25 processor and then add more memory, the problem with the emac and imacs.. only expandable to 1gb and they have asingle processor.

Thanks for everything guys..... anyone from Jersey?????

[PrintDriver]

Careful how long you wait if you want that dual boot 0s9/x machine. Hard to find.
Also I've noticed the G5's are coming down in price.
Finally.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

[D-Zine]

Guys seriously since I put XP on my PC I have had no stability issues or 'blue screen of death' issues and I run all my apps on it. It's only an 866 with 256 megs of ram. It feels faster to me than my G4 dual at work and its running 768 megs of ram. I have always used the mac at home and work until a year or so ago. I WAS sooo anti-PC but not anymore. I like and use both platforms and think that both platforms do the job :o) Depends on what the user is comfortable with I guess. It's good if you are good with cross platforming tho bc you never know what crap you will get from your clients! Haha! I got a crappy ad done in WORD PERFECT the other day...I was like WTF??? Everyone is a designer these days ;o)

http://coastalcarousel.com/GDF/metatag3.jpg

Who says doodling isn't constructive?!

Post Edited (D-Zine) : 4/1/2004 1:46:25 PM GMT

[style]

i also work on pc .. toshiba sattelite... pent 4 etc etc
and it works perfect. (most of the time)
but then again which computer is perfect?! and dont say mac!! bc wen i learnt on them they kept crashing!!!
but i guess mac is industry standard
anyways good luck with the hunt.. and go with your budget!!
welcome to the gdf

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/instyle/sigi.jpg

[Ryan8720]

I bought a new HP pavilion notebook a few months ago and it came with XP. Very stable. Just make sure you get all the updates immediately.

And check these prices (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=6).

http://edgewebdesign.org/ryan2.gif (http://www.edgewebdesign.org)

C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
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