Which mac to buy??

gnar_kill

gnar_kill

Member
so i'm going to graphic design school in the fall, and i'm debating getting the 20inch iMac and just pimping it out with 2gig of memory, and 500gig of hard drive and shit so i'll be mad fast, that or getting the power mac G5 dual proccesor, then add another grand for the screen that dosen't come with the G5
 
buy the G5 from mac, and go outside for the displays unless you have lots of cash. That's what i did, and i saved a lot of money, but I ended up selling them and went with one big ass monitor.

Also, I'm going to school for video, and do a lot of editing, and my G5 handles it no problem with 1gig or RAM; i mean it could be faster, but it renders video fine, and never crashes. When you say "graphic design" wont you just be running photoshop and flash, and all that stuff? because i think 2gig would be overkill and a waste of $$$
 
I have G5 power mac, it rules, kinda big

but dual processor 2.3 is the fast fast. Dont get a quad core, they burn up, I just got this one for a quad core.
 
the only drawback to macs is that they don't have alot of shit available to them. so unless you know you can get everything you need for your program, you're set. i've been a mac user for all my life but was forced to pick up this pc because i needed programs like autocad and visual studio for engineering. oh well, 4 macs, 1 pc..... not gonna hurt me none, haha. macs are by FAR the more robust machine though. graphics are killer, and no viruses!
 
he was most likely using API's such as WIN32, MFC, autocad(is there an autocad api?) etc that are based on windows

plus if you are assigned a project for school and you need to hand in an .exe, you can't use mac compilers to do this
 
i wouldnt buy anything til wwdc on august 7th cause chances are things will be getting some sweet updates, and i'd buy a macbook pro instead of a g5 if i were you.. a portable is ALOT more practical than a desktop when you're in college
 
Laptops can be better but they do trade performace for weight. If you edit or have a huge hard drive then the G5 is the answer.
 
most likely they will unveil leopard or lion or whatever the hell its called(10.5), since wwdc focuses on software developpment

that being said, i agree to wait a month, as they will no doubt ship there new os installed

i dont expect any new hardware however
 
oh they'll definitely unveil leopard no doubt, but im guessing they're going to make some announcements as far as the g5's go, there's a reason why the ibook is being phased out and the g5 towers don't have intel chips in them yet.. they're about to announce something big most likely.

also, you do sacrifice a bit of performance for weight/portability, but at a college setting having a laptop over a desktop is much much more enjoyable and practical, trust me. plus, not to sound cocky but if people like berman can use a powerbook to edit his movies on then im sure it will be fine for whatever you're doing.
 
prior to the release of intel chips apple was pumping up 64-bit alot, then pretty much forgot about it with the new releases

i think for the tower they are probably working on a 64-bit chip, since they put alot of emphsis on this technology before

wait and see i guess
 
yah, im thinking they're going to make the super fast and put intel processors in the g5's, or maybe even announce a new tower altogether, a 'g6' of sorts.. but hopefully under a new name, either way, should be sweet
 
defiantly get the g5, but dont be a cheap ass and go elsewhere for a screen, mac flat panels are priced high for a reason, they have amazing clearity and performance, and since your going to design school, thats whats most important,
 
HAHAH!! such an intelligent well-supported statement coming from a kid who looks like this...

and this is his computer setup...

you and your 13 years of wisdom on this planet must be right vs. the endless amount of creative professionals using them, world reknowned tech guru walt mossberg from the wall street journal, many universities around the world, etc. etc.

but no, you're right. "mac's suck"
 
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I agree with this, I have G5 because my wife's film school recomends one but I work on a Toshiba that has an cooking AMD and it can roast the mac on everything but Final cut pro type of large file programs.
 
I'm on a 6 year old Mac right now, running 10.4 and having less problems than i did with brand new PCs. I record music almost daily and haven't had speed problems or lags or anything. Never had a virus on this in the 6 years it's been here and the apple store upgraded my memory for free when I upgraded to 10.4....but what do I know, this is just an example.
 
That's gonna work real well for "graphic design school", isn't it? Wow!

gimp does NOT equal Adobe Creative Suite, no matter how hard you try. And since creative suite is one of the things you absolutely critically rely on for any kind of design work, especially anything in regards to print, you'd be pretty much fucked on a linux OS.

If I were you, I'd wait till the last possible second to buy something. After WWDC in August. Rumour has it that WWDC will see the introduction of two things: a MacBook Pro with Intel's Core2 Duo processor, and a PowerMac replacement, also with an Intel chip. Everyone's expecting some sort of hype on OS X 10.5, but whether that be just a big show on what it's gonna do, a prerelease development version, or even a full release, no one knows except that snotty black turtleneck wearing metrosexual (AKA Steve Jobs).

One thing though, neither Creative Suite nor MS Office (which you'll be using a lot in college, trust me) have gone to Universal Binary yet, meaning that you have to run them in emulation until they do. And that means a performance hit. Not a big deal for MS Word, but a big deal for Photoshop. And if you need shit that ONLY runs on Windows, you can now boot Windows Xp (and the Vista Beta) on all Mactels, so you don't have to settle for poorly designed and poorly integrated hardware.
 
hey man

i read this article about boot camp, and they did the usual benchmarks. they reported better times in photoshop renders through boot camp than on running photoshop in mac os x on the same machine, due to the adobe suite not being a universal binary. I thought that was pretty interesting.
 
^ Photoshop performance on Mac OsX will be either slightly faster or just spank Windows when Creative Suite goes to universal binary. But until then, it'll be faster in windows than it will be in OsX on a mac with an intel processor.

All that really means is that the programs need to be optimized to run properly with the new processors that Apple is using. Give it some time and it'll all be good.
 
hey freestyle_rich can you just go ahead and admit you got owned? we've seen countless examples of how mac's are superior to your bitchin' green pc setup, just bow out with some dignity still intact
 
You do pay a premium for Apple hardware. Good industrial design isn't free, and is more than worth the 10-15% extra. One glaring example: CD trays that pop out on laptops VS slot loading ones. Or 1 inch thick desktop replacement laptops. Or even the displays that, while overpriced, are sealed and use the aluminum casing as a heatsink, instead of cooling slots that let in dust and crap and reduce the lifespan of the display.

Good design makes products more useable and doesn't come cheap. But it's worth every penny.
 
someone has probably said it but you should look into a laptop for collage because they are portable. Other then itsbackfliptime's heat problems I would really recomend a power book.
 
more portable AKA easier to lose, drop, or get stolen. If i had a laptop at school, the only thing i'd ever use it for outside of my dorm would be for taking notes in class or something...which would just result in me playing games and possibly getting kicked out of class. Unless porbablity is the main concern; get a tower.
 
true

i did not see a single person actually doing work on their laptops in class this year. it sounds like a good idea, taking notes and all this shit, but most people are too lazy

i took written notes like 10% of the time this year, and a computer would just serve as a bigger distraction
 
yup, agreed.. there's a reason colleges across the country are going 100% wireless and it's not because people are sitting in their rooms with their desktops.. you'll take your laptop out for notes, to work on presentations meeting up with groups, to present with in class if the opportunity arises, so many more reasons.. you have now 2 or 3 current or former college students telling you that a laptop is the way to go, i'd take our advice homie!
 
as far as actual work (as in 'getting paid') goes, rock a desktop for sure. i've always viewed notebooks as a means, not an end. like if you have an idea on the road that you want to do some quick concept work on, or you have to capture some footage to free up some DV tapes, use the laptop. but then take all of that stuff and do your actual work on the desktop.

that's just me though - i know plenty of people who do amazing work solely on laptops, but it can be slow and frustrating sometimes.
 
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