OK, VERY basic computer question

[Cleetus]

I'm a Mac guy. I have been looking in to taking the Westlawn courses and I have decided to replace my old Mac with a new PC. My issue is twofold:

First, I don't know how many of the modeling programs are opened at one time during a given work session. For instance, while doing graphic design for a webpage I might have both Quark and Photoshop open...a big drag on my system.

Second, keeping the above in mind, how much "oopmh" should my new computer have? What sized processor? I have heard it said often amongst Mac people that when it comes to comparing Macs to PCs, a gig on one is not equal to a gig on the other. Do I need a graphics card? how much ram?

Thanks in advance for any input!

-cleet

[antonfourie]

Depends on how much you want to spend

[hansp77]

Without starting another platform war...
I feel sorry for you.
I am also a 'mac guy'
and the move you are talking about sounds to me like swapping a bueatifull big sailing boat, for little rubber ducky...
Damn.
Do you really have to?
Why not just get a new intel mac?
Best of both worlds maybe.

[marshmat]

If you like Macs, do consider one of the new Intel-based ones. Spend a bit for Bootcamp or Parallels Desktop, and you'll be able to run Windows on it as well as OSX.
With Windows machines, it's best to shop by first setting a budget.... it's possible to spend five or ten grand on the computer of your dreams, but if you're restricted to, say, $2000 and know what software you'll be using... the quest becomes a lot narrower.

[SeaSpark]

A basic system would look like this:

1600 mHz processor
500 mb Main memory
128 mb Graphics card

If you want to run many programs at the same time first invest in more memory.

If you are on a budget concider buying second hand.

If you are on a really low budget pick up a 1200mh, 256mb, 64 graphics card comp second hand, this will run any software needed by a westlawn student and also quark and photoshop if the documents you want to work with are not to big. You wont be able to run many prog's at the same time in this case.


If you want a comfortable, fast computer:


2200 mHz processor
1000 mb Main memory
256 mb Graphics card

Computers with this spec also are available second hand at more than double the price of the 1600mh one.

What exactly do you mean with:

First, I don't know how many of the modeling programs are opened at one time during a given work session.

Hope this helps,

Jeroen

[SeaSpark]

A LCD Screen makes CAD work much more comfortable.

[Jeff]

Ram is not that expensive and makes a big difference... 512 MB I consider a browsing/word processing machine. 1 GB I consider entry-level now, and 2 GB is what I'd want for graphics.

[antonfourie]

Have a search on the net, for example you can get a Dell for $500 with a 3.2GHz chip with 1GB RAM it all depends on how much you want to spend, being that most design programs are RAM intensive then maybe try for 2GB or even 4GB if you are going to have loads of things open. BTW todays PC's are just as fast as a Mac if not faster if you are comparing to any Mac older than 1 year.

[Cleetus]

Wow thanks for the input everyone.

Jeroen, what I mean is, if I am working on a project, do I have three applications open at once, therefore requiring more RAM? Sometimes while doing web projects I know I move between several RAM hog apps at once and thus need more RAM

As for the intel Macs, my wife (also a Mac person) suggested that last night. Problem is, like mentioned above, a decent Dell can be had for $500 while a brand spanking new mac cost a fair amount more.

I'm going to need to be on a budjet if I am shelling out 8800 for school.

[SeaSpark]

Your very basic question is quite a difficult one.

As mentioned by most in this thread budget and memory needs are the important factors in the choice you have to make.

When you want to use several graphic intense applications at the same time 1gb of main memory will be sufficient. The 256mb main memory computer i proposed as the really low budget option will run software like Rhino, Maxsurf and Freeship comfortably if you keep your computer as "clean" as possible, with no unnecessary processes or applications running, no easy task with XP.

Most "high end" personal computers are sold to gamers, not to CAD or graphics professionals. Modern games are very demanding applications.

My advice: If you are on a budget and want the most capable computer for your money, buy a 2 year old ex "high end" PC from a gamer for 10% of what he originally paid for it. When you look on ebay or equivalent marketplaces in your area you will see you have a myriad of choices for systems like this.

New computers lose their value even more fast than new cars.

[Andrew Mason]

I would seriously consider an Intel based Mac Mini. If you are doing graphic design, web design or hull design with programs such as Maxsurf, Rhino or Freeship, the graphics will be easily good enough. The graphics power provided by the high end graphics cards is not really necessary for the sort of work you are doing as these cards are aimed at rendering high polygon count models with texture maps applied.

The Mac Mini has basically got laptop internals to make it small, but with 1Gb of memory and a reasonably big hard drive it should do all you want, and will run both Windows and OSX.

The Mac Mini also uses a socketed CPU, which means it is upgradable in the future. The Intel Merom core 2 duo chips will be available in the next 2-3 months and according to various articles on the web, will drop into the Mini for about a 20% speed increase.

[SeaSpark]

Andrew,

Do not know what the new Intel Merom core 2 duo chips are going to cost but i doubt if the 20% performance increase is going to be worth it compared to the speed potential of a good second hand PC.

Utter respect for the software you are supplying.

Jeroen

(edit)

Quote from the founder of this thread:

I'm going to need to be on a budget if I am shelling out 8800 for school.

[ludesign]

Originally Posted by Cleetus

I'm a Mac guy. I have been looking in to taking the Westlawn courses and I have decided to replace my old Mac with a new PC. My issue is twofold:

First, I don't know how many of the modeling programs are opened at one time during a given work session. For instance, while doing graphic design for a webpage I might have both Quark and Photoshop open...a big drag on my system.

Second, keeping the above in mind, how much "oopmh" should my new computer have? What sized processor? I have heard it said often amongst Mac people that when it comes to comparing Macs to PCs, a gig on one is not equal to a gig on the other. Do I need a graphics card? how much ram?

Thanks in advance for any input!

-cleet

Why change if you prefer Macs? The new IntelMacs allows you to run Windows applications at more or less the same speed as a "real" Wintel. I compared a MacBook Intel Core Duo 1.8 with my old portable, an AMD Athlon 1.4, running TouchCAD for Windows. The Mac was 3.2 times faster, running Windows under OSX / Paralells. A bit slow on the video, though Paralells says it is going to get better in the next edition. If you prefer running generic Mac applications with a real Mac feel, check out TouchCAD and VectorWorks. Both are cross platform licenses and run as generic programs on the respective platforms. Both also run the respective Windows versions under Paralells on a Mac if you prefer that.

[SeaSpark]

For most people having to live with one operating system is hard enough.

Suggesting someone should stick to the mac platform and run windows to use software that is unavailable for it is making life much more complicated than needed. It also implies you will have to buy two licences for the operating systems. I have worked for several engineering and design companies, both as a designer and as beeing responsible for the computer systems and the software running on it. Two of these companies used macs and pcs in the same network. This lead to all kinds of higher costs and people struggling with deadlines and two different operating systems at the same time.

I am not biased towards mac or windows, i hate both by now.

I agree there are many excellent software packages available for the mac, for the engineer and the naval architect the choises are limited on this platform.

On the low end side there are two good and free applications running under windows, Freeship and Maxsurf academic. Nothing like this exists for the mac.

On the high end side there is VectorWorks for the Mac but nothing that comes close to Solidworks, Catia or ProEngineer, to name a few.

Andrew, nice of you to make clear in your signature you are working for Formation Design Systems, Claes, it would be nice to do the same in your signature since you are the developer of TouchCAD. I really appreciate how far you have come with the development of this software.

Jeroen

[Andrew Mason]

Seaspark

I agree with your points, my suggestion of the mac mini could be achieved by getting a used core solo machine and upgrading it in the future - the performance improvement of the core 2 duo chip over the original core solo would be much greater than 20%. It's a cheap machine for right now with an upgrade path, so I would not rule it out.

As far as the dual OS problem goes, I agree it is not ideal. I agree that most of the available marine design software runs on the PC, so it makes sense to go that way, but if Cleetus needs to keep running Mac applications it is one way of doing so with a single computer.

Andrew