Advice: Graphics Uni Student on Mac Setup!

[Simplesimon101]

i'm studying Graphics at Uni and have finally saved up the funds for a new Mac (my 800Mhz G3 iBook is looking throughly tired!)

anyway i was wondering what to get... i have about £1000 (approx $2000) and a %15 HE discount... but i could fairly easily spend more if i thought it was worth the investment (like up to £500 i guess?)

i would also like to buy the adobe master collection on eduaction (i want to go legit) which i also have the money for, as i want to be able to train myself up in mutiple disiplines, so the machine will need to be powerful enough to run those programs (after effects, photoshop, premier, etc) without too many problems.

portability is not that big a deal for me (i think performance is far more important) plus i can give my ibook a spring clean and use that if i need for presentations or whatever.

so i guess i'll probably wait for the next iMac revison but i also thought about the possibility of going for the Mac Pro for the performance and the ability to somewhat future proof myself (not having to make another big investment in 3 or so years when i'm graduated and working).

any advice would be great! thankyou

 

[yagran]

i'm studying Graphics at Uni and have finally saved up the funds for a new Mac (my 800Mhz G3 iBook is looking throughly tired!)

anyway i was wondering what to get... i have about £1000 (approx $2000) and a %15 HE discount... but i could fairly easily spend more if i thought it was worth the investment (like up to £500 i guess?)

i would also like to buy the adobe master collection on eduaction (i want to go legit) which i also have the money for, as i want to be able to train myself up in mutiple disiplines, so the machine will need to be powerful enough to run those programs (after effects, photoshop, premier, etc) without too many problems.

portability is not that big a deal for me (i think performance is far more important) plus i can give my ibook a spring clean and use that if i need for presentations or whatever.

so i guess i'll probably wait for the next iMac revison but i also thought about the possibility of going for the Mac Pro for the performance and the ability to somewhat future proof myself (not having to make another big investment in 3 or so years when i'm graduated and working).

any advice would be great! thankyou

get a low end mac pro, if you have a screen to hand? if not im selling a 19" samsung tft for £110...

 

[0098386]

I went through a design course like so-

1st year- PowerBook G4 12" with a 300gb external drive. Some okay (and very cheap) graphics tablet - Medion effort, don't know the actual size but it's between an A4 and A3.
2nd year- Added a 20" Widescreen display (also ditched my TV and got an EyeTV).
3rd year- added an iMac C2D, which is now using the external 20" display. PowerBook for lectures and writing (love the keyboard).

Ideally keep the iBook and use it for travel use, for the library, on the road work. And get a 20" iMac, or 17" and external display. You won't need the greatest machine for uni, in my 2nd year I edited a 5 minute HD stop motion video on my PowerBook G4 and it wasn't too bad! A C2D of any speed will suffice I reckon.

 

[Grunze]

I'm using a 24" c2d imac, and it works pretty well.
Once after effects cs3 is available, comebine that with 2gb of ram, and you should be A-OK.

Currently I'm using after effects 7 with 1gb of ram, and it works well, but i can see it being better once I upgrade my RAM.

 

[Simplesimon101]

cool thanks for the advice guys... so a iMac will do the job fine then... that's good! i guess i'll go for one with a bigger screen (20") and i'll definatly up the ram (if they don't do that the next update anyway?!)

thanks.