08-13-2003, 11:00 AM

Hi guys,

I am starting college (doing a 3 year long degree) end of August (3 weeks ARGH!) and I am looking at buying a Mac... I have a decent(ish) P4 2.2Ghz PC but its not stable enough and having to format every 1.5 months drives me insane.

I am nto too sure what specs of machine I'm looking for but I need somethign which will run at a the same, or faster, speed than my current comp, heres the full spec of my current computer:

Processor: Pentium 4 2.2GHz
RAM: 256Mb (does me fine for most work)
Storage: 40Gb main drive and a 60Gb storage (MP3s, movies, and backups)
I have a CD-RW drive and a sperate DVD-ROM

Basically I'm looking for something which will run Photoshop 7 comfortably (i am doing a course in Multimedia Computer With Web Developemnt so photoshop's a must) but also run Dreamweaver MX at the same time with little slow-down... now I know the G5 is coming out shortly but I dont have the budget for one so I'm thinkg of a G4 Powermac. I dont need a DVD drive as I have an xBox now and that plays DVDs however i do need a CD-RW drive (I dont see the need to spend an extra $200= for a superdrive)

My budget is 1,608.75 USD (im from the UK so its £1,000 that I have to spend)

I already have a really good monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 957p) which i bought 2 months ago so i dont need to get a new monitor jsut the DVI-VGA adapter. Oh and hte video card shoudl be able to let me run at 1600x1200 @ 70Hz - 85Hz (if its definable even better)

Any help will be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Stew

08-13-2003, 10:08 PM

If you're willing to spend a littlea little more. If you don't want a SuperDrive you can get a G5 for $1,800. Other wise maybe an 17" iMac, but it might be a little slower. Maybe you can find an old dual 1.42GHz PowerMac.

08-14-2003, 06:34 AM

Originally Posted by Mike

If you're willing to spend a littlea little more. If you don't want a SuperDrive you can get a G5 for $1,800. Other wise maybe an 17" iMac, but it might be a little slower. Maybe you can find an old dual 1.42GHz PowerMac.

I had thought of getting an iMac, but I have jsut bought a 19" monitor which is fully colour calibrated so I need to keep that thus discounting an iMac.

My main concern with going for a G5 is that the first generation will undoubtly have problems and I dont want to buy another computer which doesnt work jsut right.

I dont know if I will be able to find a Dual powermac in my area (Ayrshire, scotland) and the only place other than the internet where I can buy a Mac locally is PC World (blergh!) and they over charge on everything especially the Macs.

08-19-2003, 12:01 PM

I'm in the market for buying a new Mac too. If you check out the Apple store and scroll down, you can still buy a G4 for a nice price. The 1.25GHz G4 with 512MB of RAM cost $1,424.00. Of course you can save money with just getting the built-in 256MB of RAM and it'll cost $1,299.00. OR you can upgrade it to a DUAL 1.25GHz for $300! The dual processor would be much faster than the P4 2.2GHz you currently own. Keep us posted on what you decide to do.

08-19-2003, 07:10 PM

im looking at getting the PowerMac G4 DP 1Ghz (signifcantly cheaper than the 1.25), with 256 RAM then put in a 512 from crucial.com (like half the price of apple RAM ), and i have a spare 60GB HD anyway so storage aint a problem, and minus the 56k modem looks at around £1,000ish but i should get a decent student discount... ill keep you posted.

08-19-2003, 08:27 PM

Well any new mac you can buy will be fast enough for anything you need to do (unless u get an iBook and plan on doing FCP4 work )
I think the best deal for any mac is the eMac.