Possible New Macie

I talked to Apple Sales tonight about a mac. I am a graphic design student plus a web designer.

The sales agent recommended a mac book pro, imac or mac pro. She mentioned those because they have dedicated video card and the Adobe programs would run best on that.

The IMac would fit my budget and has the same memory, hdd, and GHz as my laptop I have now.

The mac book pro was expensive even with the student discount.

What do you guys think?

PS this would be my first ever mac.

 

If you want an Apple notebook for graphic design, it has to be a 15" or 17" MacBook pro because of the dedicated video.

 

If I do it and because of the cost, I will probably get the iMac. I would probably install Windows on it too.

Things could change inbetween now and summer.

 

The iMac is a very nice machine: it is not quite as portable as a notebook, but it doesn't get better than that for a desktop. Just make sure, if you get the 17", to get the one with a Radeon X1600, and 1GB memory. If $ allows, go for the 20" model, it is probably the sweet spot in cost/benefits and the increased HD space (more room to install bootcamp/windows), increased screen real state and resolution will help you.

 

Does the Imac have a Ethernet port for dsl? Does DSL work the same on macs?

How does bootcamp work?

The 20'' imac is a little out of my budget unless I get some major $$$ later on.

 

Yes, the iMac has ethernet, gigabit in fact. And it will work the same as DSL on Windows. Boot Camp gives you the option to dual boot, meaning you can choose to run Windows or OS X. Another option would be Parallels. It allows you to run Windows inside OS X, giving you both OS's at the same time. if you decide Parallels would be the right choice, be sure to load up on RAM. And, save for an extra month or so. The 20" is a very nice machine. I would most definitely get the 20 over the 17.

 

IMacs are by far the best unless you want portability. Seeing as you do websites, I'm guessing you are a 2D graphics designer as opposed to a 3D one? If you are a 2D designer then you wouldn't need a powerful GPU. The standard Macbook or Mac Mini would be fine.

 

Don't you get an educational discount for the iMac? AFAIK the 17" is something like $1200, and the 20" goes like $1500; with an educational discount it might come dow to something like $1350 I guess.

 

The 17'' imac I priced was $1300 with the educational discount.

The 20" imac is $1625 withe discount.

 

Where did they told you these prices? perhaps this includes taxes, I don't know. But do you pay taxes if you buy from the Apple online store? Here are the prices from the Apple online store:

17" Inch
$1,199.00

or as low as $29 a month

Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping

20" inch
$1,499.00

or as low as $36 a month

Ships: Within 24 hours
Free Shipping
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=iMac
without student discounts...

 

100% true you need atleast a !5 if you are doing design

 

I customized the Imac so that's why my prices are a little high.

 

I see. I wonder what exactly did you upgrade on the 20"? It has a pretty good config. The only thing I would upgrade was the memory, and even then I wouldn't upgrade it from Apple, they charge too high on memory.

 

I did memory and video card.

I am going to a store in town that sells macs to look at one.

 

Hmm...never thought of this question but..

Wooky, do you know if the iMac's memory is user upgradable as well or would it void the warranty?

 

It is user upgradeable just like the Macbook:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303084

 

Ah thanks, I'm a bit more informative on the notebook portion than the desktop portion.

 

Can you easily upgrade the HD and Ram in both the imac and macmini?
Are they considered user upgradable? I may in a year or so buy a desktop mac, but it will most likely be a beefy Mac pro if they get SLI.
Might as well buy one desktop for gaming and production instead of two

 

I went and saw a iMac today and it was AWESOME!!!

Now I gotta get one. haha

 

Haha, which one did you like the most? the 17 or 20?

Personally I think the 20 looks nicer, but they are great machines.

 

They only had a 20" and it was HUGE. I can't imagine what the 24" looks like, a monster maybe.

I think the 17" will suit my needs. In a dorm room you really don't have the space for a 20".

 

I would go for the 20" one. You may find that a bit after you get it, that you had gotten the 20".
the price difference doesn't seem that great. I'm sure they'll both be nice. But man... I'd love to try that 24" one out.
BTW, how loud is the Mac Pro?

 

Of course the more screen real estate and space you have, the better it will help you in graphic arts.

Anyways, I have personally played with the Mac Pro, and those things are amazingly silent, Apple prides themselves on their engineering.

My favorite was how fast the Mac pro boots, I tested the start time it was 10-12 seconds according to my stopwatch. INSANELY FAST!

 

Heh... the Mac pro is sweet. But really... It needs to have Conroe in it and it NEEDS SLI.

BTW, when I first saw this thread title... I thought it said Possible new Mackie
as in the company that makes mixers.

 

Woodcrest is an awesome platform nonetheless.

Conroe doesn't support multi-processor configurations, so it'll never happen. The high-end desktop has almost always been a multi-processor configuration. The SLi, hmm it might.

 

Hrm, I didn't really notice whether Conroe support multi cpu setups. I suppose that would be the kicker.
I couldn't imagine... 2x Conroe chips. Quad cores... the SPEED!

 

Woodcrest is just the server/workstation (Xeon) version of Conroe. It is 2 Dual Core processors, quad core.

 

The Mac Mini has no user upgradeable parts (ie, if you do upgrade anything on your own instead of with an Apple authorized service provider you void the warranty). Of course, this doesn't stop everyone - I heard of people who even put core 2 duos in their Mac Minis during the summer.

iMac has user upgradeable RAM, but not hd anymore I think (it used to be, but I think the current models aren't). This is because you access the RAM through a little hatch at the bottom now instead of having to take off the entire back plate.

 

Well, 2x a dual core chip isn't exactly a quad-core, but both Intel and AMD are marketing them that way.

 

Right, but as you said everyone is marketing them that way. My question is what do they do in a month or two when the real quad cores do come out? Ocho Core? They always set themselves up for confusing the consumer.

 

HAHAHA.

My instructor here at my college said he went to some press conference or sometype of meeting (I dont know?) but hes part of the board in the region i live, so they usually get sneek peaks or whatever. He told us that he got to see a prototype of an 80 core processor. No typo, 80 cores. I'm still having a hard time beliving him but then again he is what he said he is, (technology reviewer, head of the wisconsin's agreement party for software throughout the many state colleges we have, etc etc)

But really, 80 cores.

 

If I am not mistaken, this beast belongs to Intel and they plan to release it somewhere alongside 2012. Not that far away really. Things will be very nice then, I'll be able to play tic tac toe with one core,sokuban with another, run each dashboard widget in its own core... lol

 

Yes, apparently I forgot to mention it was from Intel, sorry about that. But yes he said that Intel called him up one day to see this in action, and he said he was rather impressed.

However, a computer is only as fast as it's slowest component, and quite frankly the motherboard industry better speed up and find new improvements to support this. We already had all the mobo manufacturers once yell out 'STOP!' to both Intel and AMD because they were going to fast.

 

Don't forget the HD. I don't think that hybrid drives will even cut it. Wonder where they'll go for better storage. Solid state?
Or maybe those new micro drives that are the size of a quarter and can hold 60 gigs. Get like, 20 of them in raid 5 or something. that would be impressive :-D