Tech Need Apple Laptop Suggestions for Running Labor-Intensive Design Programs!

deleckidesign

Member
Oct 23, 2008
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I've owned a couple before, but don't have a ton of cash to go out and buy a new one...so I need to purchase from eBay.

A friend is buying my PC for $250, and I may be able to spend $100 on top of that for a total of no more than $400.

My current PC is 2.0 GHz, 2.0 RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive.

I don't necessarily need that large of a hard-drive, but need a decent amt of GHz and RAM to run these 1-2 of these programs simultaneously – Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator.

It's been too long for me to remember what it was liking having Indesign and Photoshop running on anything slower than my imac G5, which is 2.0 GHz and 1.5 RAM.

I'll likely install the CS2 versions of the above programs. I'm just not sure how much RAM is needed to run these programs without lagtime. Can anyone help?
 
I can't believe this....I just typed this long detailed response and this stupid forum just erased it all and i couldn't post it....now i have to type the whole thing again! NOT IMPRESSED!

I run all three programs, but on a new macbook pro (damn expensive)

so in very brief points:

go to a MAC or Adobe forum or chat or discussion room and ask what experiences people have running CS2 on a computer that is similar to the one you are considering to purchase....you can get better info than from this forum on MACS etc....you need to go to a techie website. google some.

get the minimum requirements specs for CS2. sometimes minimum req is not good enough, sluggish performance, can only run one of the programs at a time, depends on which operating system you have...keep in mind you have to import documents back and forth between P, IND, Ill.

i bought an external hard drive so that i can save large graphic files in it and back up my computer....saves some memory. 1TB hard drives are getting cheaper, you may not need 1TB, 500GB might be good enough and those are much cheaper....portable HD are more expensive than desktop HD, and you don't have to get one that is compatible with MACS....the standard ones come with software that is only compatible with PC's but you can reformat them to work on MACS and they are cheaper....talk to a computer associate.

hope that helps. i am not a techie, but those have been my experiences.
 
You'd be better off upgrading you RAM and CPU instead of buying a Mac for 400 bucks. The Mac you can get for 400 bucks will be rather old and rather slow (as evident from your example..your current PC is faster).
You want at least 4 gb of RAM and a Quad Core Pentium or AMD processor.
 
Gah I was going to say that too. If it's expandable you can always add more ram but still.

I literally should receive my new iMac tomorrow. I am SO glad I bought it because my TiBook died the other day. Well I think the screen died, not the machine. But I had a really old one, I was stuck on Tiger, and couldn't go above CS2. BUT I was able to run progs, just slowly.

I timed my dream machine (only 7K for the tower...) one night using some of my big files from work and I think my new iMac might work pretty well.
 
Yikess..so what did you do about the one from eBay? I hope you didn't get screwed over and got your money back.

So, a new Macbook? How much was the SW? I bet you could have just bought new PC compatible SW and came out cheaper. :smile:

Can you tell I'm anti Mac?
 
Yikess..so what did you do about the one from eBay? I hope you didn't get screwed over and got your money back.

So, a new Macbook? How much was the SW? I bet you could have just bought new PC compatible SW and came out cheaper. :smile:

Can you tell I'm anti Mac?

I filed a Paypal claim and am in the process of getting my $ back. The seller has been very accommodating, thankfully.

Software was at a student discount...only $100 for Creative Suite 3 Design Premium.

I've been needing (wanting) a Mac laptop for a while. Mac is all I use :smile: With some inheritance $ coming in, spending the money wasn't a huge deal. ;)
 
I just bit the bullet and bought CS4 for my PC at home - was wanting to wait till i was able to buy a mac later on in a couple of years but i wanted to get the software at the student discount and my options of students to purchase it for me are all about to graduate!

isn't the adobe student discount INSANE!? It felt like christmas when i received my cs4 the other day.

If you bought a new macbook you should be ok with those programs. you do not want an old Mac with CS3. I had CS3 at work with an older IMAC (probably 2-3 years old) and the programs were sooooooo slow, it was beyond annoying. We just got new imacs this past year and it's amazing with CS4.
but i've always been told by apple friends that even with new macbooks you should still go out and buy more RAM because it's fairly cheap and easy to install.
 
I've owned a couple before, but don't have a ton of cash to go out and buy a new one...so I need to purchase from eBay.

A friend is buying my PC for $250, and I may be able to spend $100 on top of that for a total of no more than $400.

My current PC is 2.0 GHz, 2.0 RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive.

I don't necessarily need that large of a hard-drive, but need a decent amt of GHz and RAM to run these 1-2 of these programs simultaneously – Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator.

It's been too long for me to remember what it was liking having Indesign and Photoshop running on anything slower than my imac G5, which is 2.0 GHz and 1.5 RAM.

I'll likely install the CS2 versions of the above programs. I'm just not sure how much RAM is needed to run these programs without lagtime. Can anyone help?

I think everyone has missed the original ask!

I have several Macs. I have just re-installed CS3 Premium on an old iBook G4 with several heavy applications. The rendering time is a little slow but all programmes run fine. Two other posts with image files to come.:biggrin:
 

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