Switching for Graphic Design

Hello Everyone,

First of all I wanted to say Hi because I have been a lurker here for about a week and everyone seems so nice and it seems like a great community to be a part of.

Okay now onto my question. I am in my second year of graphic design and I am looking for a new computer. Since most jobs require knowledge of Macs I thought it would be beneficial for me to buy one. In school we use all of CS 2, Studio 8 and Quark for various big projects. I was looking at the powermac's but I wanted to know what your opinions are on that or if I should just wait till the powermac's switched to Intel later on.

Thank you and I appreciate your time and help in the matter.

-Erik

I personally have a powermac quad and I love it, its an amazing peice of machinery, and I think you would love a powermac, It seams like it would fit your needs. I am in school and once I got the powermac, my teacher was impressed with what I was doing in FCP because I did nto have to render as often or as long to see what I was doing, and this benifitted my work because I could fix things that I did not like and make things i liked better. Powermacs are amazing for that kind of work and I say if you have enough money buy the best system you can afford,

I would wait for the switch to intel if you can do with out it.
If your using Macs a School u dont need a Mac as you already know how to use a Mac and CS 2, Studio 8 and Quark work the same on the PC.

The Dual G5's are very nice machines, we have dual 2Ghz ones at my school and they will still be fast in years to come.

When the teacher asked who had a Mac in our class only 2 people raised their hands(including me) so that makes 2 people out of 24, that near 10%.

I really thought alot more students in the design, multimedia field would have Macs.

The only reason i say get wait for the intel PowerMacs is because its a huge investment and to spend all the money now on what is basically Apples old hardware systems (ie. G4s,G5s) will be great in the short term, but i bet When the intel macs comes out you will wish you would of waited.

Maybe you wont care at all but it would bug me.

If you can wait i would go for the intel power Mac, but if you can hold on till the end of the year 3 years down the track u will be glad you have a intel mac

I say wait for the new machines, once universal code comes out they should really be flying (not that G5 powermacs arn't already). When I first got my hands on a G5 powemac, I jumped into illistrator straight up, the end resault was an image with over 100 layers and overlay maps, sure the machine was struggeling but compared to how my PC took to it, it was screaming fast!

So if you need one now go for the G5 other wise you can wait right?

Thanks for the input guys. Since money is a big issue I do want this to be a purchase that would not be obsolete in a year so after reading all the pro's and con's I think my best bet would be to just hold off until the new powemacs come out.

Thank you again for all your help

Erik