Going to college, studying graphic design. Wondering what I should buy for my laptop/desktop for the cheapest price but good for the aspects i need. like hard drive capacity, amount of ram, which graphics card to get. etc.
3 Comments to “Looking to a computer for college in graphic design, possibly a mac, how should I configure it for this?”
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Filed under Graphic Design Pricing HELP
You should go online and search graphic design programs and compare which is better throughout price, space, and so far on. Hopefully that will help you decide.
If that is your major then your should definitely invest in a MAC. As for some of the specs:
RAM: 2GB or more, no question about it, you’ll need this to make sure all of your GFX programs run smoothly, the more the better.
HD Space: I’d say go with 160GB+ because of your major
GFX card: you can get the default one but I don’t have anything in particular. Make sure it supports a good screen resolution.
If you mean a Mac laptop, then I think the only option is more memory, which is always good.
As for desktops: Graphic design programs can eat a lot of memory and processor power, but they don’t actually use a lot of graphics power (despite the name). It’s games (like Chrysis) that require huge graphics processing power. As for disk storage, there’s no such thing as too much, but put your money in the processor and memory. (Who needs a terabyte of disk?!!) Fortunately, memory and disks are dirt cheap now.
Where you should put your money is in the monitor. Graphic design has a lot of fine detail to display. You want the biggest, highest-resolution monitor you can afford. Make sure you try it out before buying; some of them flicker, have uneven colors, or other faults that will drive you crazy. (For what it’s worth, MaximumPC magazine just built their annual Dream Machine. For the monitor, they chose the Gateway XHD3000, a 30-inch, 2560×1600 LCD display.) Make sure your video card supports the resolution of the monitor you get.
If you’re just starting college, you might not need all this as a freshman. You could start with less and upgrade as you need to.