Is a new iMac enough for a graphic designer?

August 8, 2007 12:41 PM

New iMac: Good enough for a graphic designer? Convince me it isn't.

I'm an art director/graphic designer at a mid-size ad agency. We use Macs at the office, and I'd like to be able to sometimes take home work for myself so I'm not always stuck doing it at work. Right now at home, I have an old G4 Powerbook that I use for surfing the web and as a music player. Definitely too small and unworthy to use for the pro that I am now.

I'd primarily use it to do Photoshop work and Indesign layouts. The kind of Photoshop I do is mostly for comps, so no crazy huge files or detailed retouching work. Indesign would be used to do storyboards, and sometimes collateral stuff, though I'd like to be able to do more than just that. Realize that I'm not looking to set up a full-time professional graphic design office at home- I just want to be able to do work there, and also be able to put my book together to look for new work. I'd also be using it to do stuff for my wife's business... Signage and card layout, simple elements for web design (I don't know interactive). I also want something that will be powerful enough to not be outdated in a couple years.

So I'm looking at the new crop of iMacs. Considering what I was looking to (possibly, down the road) spend on a G5 tower and separate monitor, these seem like a great choice. I'd be willing to shell out for the 24" model, probably just the 2.4GHz and max out the RAM to 4GB. Throw in a wireless keyboard and the AppleCare plan, it puts me at $2948. I get a 10% deal on macs through work, so it'd be around $2600.

Yeah I'll have to shell out a load of cash for Adobe CS3, but I was going to anyway.

Plus, I can set it up in our spare bedroom and not take up much space. I can connect wirelessly to the net, another minor plus. I'd rather buy a couple portable drives to take stuff back and forth, so I don't need more storage.

What am I unsure of? For one thing, the graphics card. I don't really know much about these in general. It comes with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. I copied and pasted that out of their website. I don't know what it means or how it would affect what I need it to do.

Also, should I max out the processor as well, or just go with the 2.4GhHz?

What else am I missing? Is there any reason this wouldn't be a smart choice for me? Will it still be good to use a few years from now? To maybe freelance from if I lost my job? To put my book together to find a new job?

I don't want to cheap out on a computer and I don't want to just get by. But like I said, I don't need to pump out massive quantities of work on it either.

Thanks for your insights and replies. If I think of other questions about this, I'll post them here.

posted by jeff-o-matic to computers & internet (29 comments total)

What am I unsure of? For one thing, the graphics card.

I'm not sure eiher, but I don't think Photoshop and InDesign (et cetera) really make much use of the graphics card anyway. The OS does, so I guess the more OS stuff you can get off the CPU the better, but I don't think a better graphics card will affect 2D Adobe apps.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.
posted by Plug Dub In at 12:51 PM on August 8, 2007

Graphic and web design isn't going to actually tax the graphics card at all, so don't worry about it. Any modern graphics card has a hundred times the horsepower you need (slight hyperbole) for anything other than 3D modelling and 3D gaming.

2.4Ghz will probably be enough, though you will get a little more longevity with a faster processor. The question is, would you rather drop the cash now, or save it towards an eventual replacement? I'd choose the latter, but I live on my computers and get a new one every 2 years or so.

Consideration: Maybe you want the 20", and save that money for another ~20" external display?

But all told: Yes, it would be just dandy for your purposes.
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:52 PM on August 8, 2007

I can't imagine you'd have any problems with this level of work on the new iMac, especially with maxed out RAM. People swear by the MacBook Pro for all sorts of work, and I'm assuming these new iMacs will outdo those.

I don't think the video card would really be an issue for your needs, I use the now highly outdated iMac for video production with Final Cut Pro.

It's also very pretty. Sorry I can't talk you out of it.
posted by shinynewnick at 12:58 PM on August 8, 2007

I don't think you'd have many regrets.

My wife does occasional freelance graphic design with CS1 (upgrading soon, really) on a G4 Mac Mini. She gets the Spinning Pizza Of Doom once in a while, but in general she's been pleasantly surprised at how well it's held up. So a much newer, whizzier iMac should blast away.

Graphics cards. There are two schools of thought on this: 1) Graphics cards really only make a difference with gaming; 2) OS X is increasingly incorporating graphics features that make use of graphics cards, so a good graphics card may have system-wide benefits (though this is somewhat speculative).

Even if you subscribe to the latter position, the graphics chip in the iMac is not completely contemptible (not like, say, a MacBook), so you should be doing OK on that count.

I say get it and enjoy it.
posted by adamrice at 1:00 PM on August 8, 2007

You won't have problems with that much RAM. I have two iMacs (home and work) with lower specs and frequently use InDesign, often Photoshop, with no problems. I can have them open with several other programs. It works great.
posted by theredpen at 1:01 PM on August 8, 2007

I know plenty of designers doing print work - not video or dealing with enormous scans (i.e., not much over 150 megs or so) - who work with iMacs and Minis. I am pretty much only a book designer / typesetter, and don't deal with photos much aside from making adjustment to my own RAW photos in photoshop, and I've been working with an 867 mhz powerbook 12" for 3 yrs now and am happy with it, and am upgrading to a macbook when the new ones come out with the new OS in October.

I think you'd be quite happy with a new imac. Especially the one with the faster video.
posted by luriete at 1:09 PM on August 8, 2007

Thanks for the replies. I'm looking forward to more opinions.

The 24" monitor is what has me hooked. FWIW, I was able to get by using my old Powerbook in years past doing some very basic stuff. But the 15" screen and laptop keyboard were just frustrating. And because I had a hodgepodge of software of questionable origins, I was never able to efficiently get stuff to work. It got me to the job where I am now, so it did the trick when I was hungry. I just don't want to invest in something again to 'just get me by'.

Another related question: Does anyone here have experience with the CD/DVD drive on this baby? I had problems with my old Powerbook drive when trying to rip a bunch of CDs. Any thoughts on the reliability?
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:10 PM on August 8, 2007

it's got a glossy screen which will pose a color problem across varying light conditions
posted by nathan_teske at 1:12 PM on August 8, 2007

I use CS3 on a 1st gen MacBook Pro with 2 GB and it's fine, this should be a reasonably nice set up.
posted by doctor_negative at 1:13 PM on August 8, 2007

New iMac: Good enough for a graphic designer? Convince me it isn't.

I can't. The 24" iMac you're looking at would be luxurious for what you want to do with it. 1920x1200 px is quite enough to layout two 8.5x11 pages side by side.

That graphics chip - it's not replaceable - is possibly not juiced-up enough to run the cutting-edge Windows first-person-shooter games that will be released in 2009, but for your purposes you won't even make it breathe hard. It's not a cut-rate chip - it's currently ATI's middle-of-the-road offering, and in 2007 that means it's pretty darn hot stuff.

Because of Quartz, the graphics hardware actually is used quite a bit for regular rendering of windows and such - but this technology is seamless and invisible to you and when properly coded for, improves the user experience quite a bit.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:19 PM on August 8, 2007

glossy screens make color correction basically impossible, especially for print output.
posted by krautland at 1:21 PM on August 8, 2007

As for the Superdrive, the only thing I can tell you is that it's a slot-loader, so you want to clean the disc before you put it in there. If you say a bit more about the problem you were having with your old powerbook drive maybe that can be addressed.

There's a lot to be said for Roxio Toast for Mac if you're going to be using your drive a lot. It's a nice app and it's well-integrated to the OS.

I do not think I would spend an extra $500 to get the 15% faster processor. I doubt you'd ever notice the speed increase.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:26 PM on August 8, 2007

No matter what, it'll be better than whatever we purchased a few years ago. So try as I might want to, in reality I can't talk it down. I'd definitely upgrade to give the machine the highest speed & RAM possible though. Because I like doing that since I work in Photoshop so much.

I'd recommend maybe adding on an additional screen though. If you're doing a lot of design, the more screen space you have the better. Many of the agencies I work at have two screens on a desk, using one big one for working space and the other for the desktop & stuff.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:32 PM on August 8, 2007

First of all, I would never do any sort of design on a non-multi monitor setup.

The thing that bugs me the most is that the iMac monitor is useless after the machine craps out or if you decide to buy something newer and need a monitor.

I've been using my 24" display for a good 4 years now, I couldn't imagine it tethered to the machine I was using 4 years ago.

Also, 4gb of ram is overkill.
posted by mphuie at 1:47 PM on August 8, 2007

Anyone else think 4GB of RAM is overkill? I've got 2.5 at work and this machine is a couple years old. Seems like it makes sense to max it out.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:14 PM on August 8, 2007

I'm using a 20" 2 Ghz Core Duo iMac with 2 GB of RAM as my everyday production machine, running Illustrator & Photoshop CS3.

It works great. You have nothing to worry about. (Do get CS3, though. Being Intel-native makes a difference.)
posted by designbot at 2:15 PM on August 8, 2007

I'd recommend not getting your maxed-out RAM from Apple, though, as you'll be paying more than twice as much as you need be. Check dealram for prices.
posted by wemayfreeze at 2:21 PM on August 8, 2007

OK, but do you know if it's possible for the layperson to install RAM on an iMac? I did it myself on my Powerbook, so I'm not clueless, but I'm just not sure if Apple makes it impossible for a guy like me to install it on the iMacs.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:25 PM on August 8, 2007

The screen isn't the best in terms of contrast/brightness, you might be better off with a 20" and a DELL 2nd monitor.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:25 PM on August 8, 2007

As a side note, a free alternative to AppleCare is to buy the computer on an American Express card. Their Buyer's Assurance Plan automatically extends manufacturer's warranties by one year.

My iPod's hard drive crapped out recently, almost 2 years after I bought it. I mailed it into American Express and got a check for $400 a week later. Plus you get 1.5% cash back... it's a no-brainer.
posted by designbot at 2:26 PM on August 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

About installing RAM on the new iMac, you can, it's a single screw to get into it, I think it's on the bottom, but I'm not sure about that. They bragged about that a bit at the announcement.
posted by cschneid at 2:42 PM on August 8, 2007

You can see the memory panel here.
posted by designbot at 2:53 PM on August 8, 2007

jeff-o, if you can install RAM on a powerbook, you can do it on an iMac. Be very, very careful of the LCD screen, though; apply no pressure to it - I hear it's quite common to crack it with a thumb while trying to snap the backplate on or off.

4G is an awful lot. If you want to have more than 5 apps open at a time, you might want more than 2G to avoid hitting swap, but the 2G modules are very expensive yet. I would probably go for 2G with the idea that I could upgrade it later if I really needed to. If you're planning to have Parallels open all the time I think I'd probably suggest the 4G too.
posted by ikkyu2 at 3:29 PM on August 8, 2007

After some more thought, I'm sure I could go with the 2GB of RAM, and maybe upgrade it later... Maybe I'll go for the faster processor then.........


Thanks all.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 4:34 PM on August 8, 2007

You know you might want to think about a high end MacBook Pro and a nice big monitor to hook it up to. I have a guy that works for me. He does layouts for Real Estate Agents' fliers, brochures and newsletters.

In the morning he hooks it up to his 20 in monitor and uses the laptop screen for all the Adobe tools. He runs CS2 on it with Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop plus Filemaker pumpng away all day long. He claims it is blazingly fast and he likes the fact that he can unplug it at the end of the day and take it home with him.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:14 PM on August 8, 2007

I work in the advertising department of a newspaper. I'm one of the production designers.

We use Quark 6.5, and most of the Adobe CS2 suite, especially a lot of Photoshop, Acrobat, and Acrobat Distiller. We also use several supporting programs. Last year the entire department was updated with 20" G5 iMacs. The new iMacs have a ton more power. So there's no reason it can't do the job.
posted by azpenguin at 12:33 AM on August 9, 2007

Colour rendition on the glass covered glossy monitors might be fucked up. Beyond that, the iMac looks to be a beast of a machine. The Adobe CS3 applications run fine on my iMac, which is from the first line of Intel iMacs.
posted by chunking express at 6:24 AM on August 9, 2007

not sure these days what licensing is, but when i did tech for an ad agency a decade ago, some of our software was licensed such that it could be installed on a home machine that was used for work-related projects.

an iMac should work just fine for you. The only reason to go with a tower model would be if you foresee yourself adding any PCI cards down the road.
posted by kuppajava at 8:15 PM on August 9, 2007

After some more thought, I'm sure I could go with the 2GB of RAM, and maybe upgrade it later... Maybe I'll go for the faster processor then.........

note that if you purchase your iMac with 2GB of RAM--from Apple.com or an Apple Store, at least-- you will be given two 1GB sticks making a move to 4GB in the future a bit more costly than you might anticipate. A 3rd party Apple Reseller might cut you a deal on a single 2GB stick.
posted by nenequesadilla at 8:47 PM on January 9, 2008