Computer Confusion

[sierng]

I need some technical recommendations/advice on the type of computer I should get for Uni, and some side work (mainly print). I'm looking for something thats sufficient at a reasonable price that will last me for the remainding 3 year duration of my course. I am doing a graphic design major with illustration and video productoin as my main electives. So besides being able to work indesign, illustrator and photoshop simultaneously, I also require that it can handle video editing/ basics of film making. ( Will be using after effects)

I will be replacing it with a new one after uni so I don't need anything fancy schmancy.

What should I be looking at when I'm looking to buy a new computer? How much ram, space, ghz or whatever do I need? What type of graphics card? etc etc. All this IT computer stuff is a bunch of jibberish to me, so some advice/ expertise would be very much appreciated.

Thank-You. :)

[hewligan]

First questions first: Is your school Mac or PC based?

Leaving aside all questions of which is better (and that's a hint for you all to leave that question aside :p ), you'll make your life much easier if you have the same as you're using at school.

[monkey900]

i kinda disagree as i'm at uni doing the same things as you and i find that having a pc and uni having mac’s i don't really find that many problems, well not ones that can be easily sorted out, the only problem I have is missing fonts which you will have weather you have a mac or not.

My computer spec is :
AMD 2.4 dual core
1.5 RAM
a single 7600GT graphics card
And then nearly 1000GB on hard drive space

[budafist]

1000GB is a little excessive don't you think?

Don't worry I'm just jealous coz I got 40GB.

[sierng]

Hewligan: My school uses Macs, and reccomends that we get Macs. I can work pretty well on both platforms, so it doesn't really matter which one I get. However I can see the advantage of getting the same computer as my school.

Monkey: Good point you raise about the fonts. Alot of students have that problem at uni.

1000gb sounds abit huge to me too.

I was looking at the basic Imac the other day on the apple store. But I'm sure there are better deals out there.
Not sure if its what I need.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/2822/store.apple.com/Catalog/Australia/Images/imac/img/product-title-20in2.gif


2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory
A$ 1,698.00

[hewligan]

Okay, when I was at school my school used Macs. The first year I was there, I had a PC, and in the second year I bought a Mac. Now, you can certainly manage working with a different platform if you know what you're doing, but I certainly found things a lot easier when I was working on the same platform at home and at school.

Honsetly, if you go Mac, the cheapest iMac avalable is plenty, and if you're short of cash, look at second hand or refurbished options. The one thing you might want to upgrade is the RAM (GD apps do tend to be RAM hogs), but if cash is tight you can get by with what they come with.

[emucru]

I'm with Hewligan... go with what you use at school. Sure you can work around it with a PC but why bother. Get a cheaper Mac finish school then get what you want.

[monkey900]

1000GB!! When you are using raw footage from a small dv camera you are using a lot of hard drive space! If you’re using HD quality footage looking at 14mb to 20mb per frame, then just say you’re running at 24fps you’re soon running out of space!

If I could go back I would buy a Mac but they are so expensive in comparison to what spec you can get on a pc. (extra £100 odd for black paint!! It’s better be some blacker than black paint)

As student you can get a discount at apple remember !!!!


What difficulties do you have with mixing Mac with PC :confused:

[sierng]

thanks for the advice guys.

Monkey: do you do video editing as a major component of your course? I'll be working with mini dvs in first semester next year.Not sure if ill be doing more of it in future.

14mb to 25mb per frame? Wow. Guess that puts it more into perspective. What program are you using to do this stuff? final cut? I'm sure ill be using final cut pro aswell.

[monkey900]

When I say 14mb to 25mb per frame I’m talking about raw HD footage which like you said you won’t me using but even mini dv’s are pretty large file sizes.

I do multi media graphic design so I study a range of different media’s, I’ve done 3d animation video production typography flash work games in director and print based work. I did it for a core module in first year too, what uni you going to and what’s your course called?

I used sony acid for some sound and sony Vegas for some video then after effects and Adobe premiere to finish. not the industry way of doing it I know but it got the job done.

[sierng]

Hey monkey,

I'm doing a Visual Communications degree at the University of western Sydney. (Illustration , and video electives). So the stuff I have to do won't be as digitally heavy (?) as your stuff. I'm thinking something abit over 500 gigs would be sufficient.

[tZ]

computers confusss me also.

See… look at that I just incorrectly spelled confuse because I'm so confused on this damn thing.

Seriously though I'd recommend 2gigs of memory and sacrifice the hard drive space if you need to. 2gigs is going to get you much farther then one and I think its well worth it if you can fit into your budget.

[Molinto]

I had a pc all through uni while they used macs. The main problem I had was with fonts. Forgetting that some i had on my pc were not available on the macs I used in the studio.

The other is my complete lack of mac knowledge. Not that its hard to pick up. I found all the jobs I applied for used macs and i think this let me down a bit in some of my 2nd interviews where i went in and did a sample brief.

For this reason I would get a mac. My opinion anyway.

[monkey900]

Yeah 500GB should be fine man, only go bigger if you want things like movies and games and music, also later through uni you might want to just back up my work. I think I do is work off a 40GB portal drive and then back up my work every day once I’ve finished, have to sets off all my work I have done over my 2 years so far.

Yeah I agree with Molinto with not getting use to using Macs but I don’t think it’s really that bad.

[sierng]

*Bump*

I was looking at getting a Macbook pro with these specs. Just as a reminder, ill be using it for Uni/ & actual design work. Adobe Creative suite, plus After effects & Final Cut Pro.

Would the 15 inch be too small? I didn't want spend another $1,000 to get a 17 inch. Maybe I could buy a seperate monitor?
I thought a Macbook Pro would be good because I could take it anywhere, and also some places I applied to do work asked if I had a laptop.


15 inch 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1440 x 900 resolution
2GB memory (two SO-DIMMs) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)
120GB hard drive ( I will upgrade this later on)
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 128MB SDRAM
Cheers.

[budafist]

15 inch is pretty small. Can you play around with it in the shop and get a feel for it?

[sierng]

Buda,

You're right. I just looked at my brother's laptop (14-15inch) which he uses for his accounting work and its pretty small.

So I might be getting a 17 inch.

Any other reccomendations?

[urstwile]

Get the 15 inch and hook a second monitor up to it. Lots less than $1,000 extra. I'm almost positive that the Macbook Pros allow for hooking up a second monitor. Even the newer iMacs do that now.

[sierng]

Thanks Urstwille :) That sounds like a better option.

What would everyone suggest for a monitor between the price range of $300- $500? I've looked at some of the older posts but they seem to be from 2006.

Appreciate the input as always.