HS Graphic Design purch. advice?

[archosage]

At the moment, my friend and I are Editors of the Contact Book for our school and the elementary school in our area, and we are as of now using a 3 year old Dell with,

2.4GHz
512mb
100GB ( Which is enough for what we do )
Stock Graphics Card

And we've just come to the conclusion that we need a new computer to run Adobe CS2 and Contact Sheet Pro properly. We've opted for a Mac

512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256 ( extra RAM from 3rd party later)
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
ATI Radeon X850 XT w/256MB DDR SDRAM
AirPort Extreme Card
16x SuperDrive double-layer (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)


But the administration of our school really doesn't like Macs, and says that they will not approve of this purchase because more people use Windows and it would take too long to train the next editors of the Contact Book to use the new computer, but this argument makes no sense since we will be spending just as much time teaching them Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign anyways no matter what OS it is on.

Therefore, we are looking also at any Window PC Options, we are considering a Top of the Line Dell XPS or Alienware or something very expensive and that will last maybe 3-5 years, if anyone could help us convince our Administration of the Apple than we would be immensely happy. The Video Yearbook of our school convinced them to purchase the same computer we are opting for but with 4GB of RAM to do their video editing on, so we might possibly convince them.


Longevity, upgradability and expansion matter a lot to us, but since it is Graphic Design, I would think it isn't as necessary for expansion/upgradability as video editing. Is the set up we are requesting overkill? If so, what should we opt for? Also, we have a 19" LCD Screen right now and are thinking of getting another identical 19" LCD and span them. What are your suggestions on the screen? CRT or LCD and size. Thank you guys for your insight and suggestions.

 

[ouphe]

A great argument you can use in favor of a Mac setup is one for expandability. I've upgraded my PM several times already, and I've only had it for a couple of months, and it is by far the easiest machine to upgrade ever. A ten year old could look in the manual and install new RAM in 30 seconds. Even upgrading or installing new harddrives and video cards is ridiculously easy.
Here's another argument: I've got a pretty solid PC setup, loaded with design software (I'm a graphic designer), but I still prefer to use my Mac (similar to the setup you are looking at..it's in my sig). I think I read somewhere once that Adobe plain and simple builds their software with Apple computers in mind, and this is clear when you are familiar with both versions of their software.
Everything is more clean-cut, easy to use and more reliable on a Mac: hopefully they will see this and get over the PC-bias that is instilled in most of us from our early years.
Good luck!

-Colin

 

[chaosbunny]

Well most people use Windows, but with graphic design it is actually the other way around. I'm a freelance graphic designer/illustrator and I know no one in the business who uses a PC. I asume the contact book project is something for students who are interested in design and want to work in this area later, so it would be very good to provide them with the platform everyone in the design business uses.

Maybe this helps as an argument.

 

[archosage]

Thanks guys for your help, I'm pretty sure we'll have a sound argument, but we found a (pretty costly) PC solution as well, at least for the time being until the administration changes it's view. My friend, the editor of this, is in Graphic Design also and only uses Macs at school and work, so it does make super sense to get a mac, but until the Admin realizes it...then we'll have to do with a PC.

 

[archosage]

We've tried and tried for a mac, but the administration just doesn't want to change, so instead we've come up with this solution for the time being and hope that it will last until a new administration gets us Macs.


Dell XPS 400

Pentium® D Processor 830 with Dual Core Technology (3GHz, 800FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 4DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
48x CD-RW Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ double layer write capable
256MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory

and
Adobe Creative Suite 2

2 x 19" Dell LCD Screens ( we have one already )

Do you think that this would give us to have a fairly decent computer for Graphic Design that would last at least 3 years?

 

[ouphe]

That kind of setup will last you for a while. Three years? Hard to say...Moore's law being what it is, I'd say it will be pretty bottom of the barrel in three years.
It's too bad they won't listen to arguments about Macs, since they retain their value and usefulness better. Then again, maybe there is certain sense to spending a bit less on a PC at this point, seeing as how the MacIntels will be out by the time the school is ready to get a new setup....
In any case, enjoy whatever setup you end up getting. The Adobe CS2 Suite is amazing, in my opinion...all the software works really well together. Very clean.

-Colin