MAC purchase Help!...will need CS software, etc..

[Neuuubeh]

Oh and re: gaming machines. Video cards dont matter a hoot. Unless you do video editing or motion graphics. Even then they dont matter much.

If shes using illustrator, indesign and photoshop, then money is better spent on ram.

Photoshop has had built-in redraw acceleration via the GPU since CS4. It makes a BIG difference in my opinion. It will make an even bigger difference if she decides to mess with any heavier graphics software, be it compositing or 3d graphics.

Good thing is, after the huge race the last years, nvidia and ati both pushed the bar so high, amazing cards cost close to nothing.

I'd go with Windows, but thats me I guess. Have lots of people around me work with Macs, I simply cannot get over them, in my opinion a person has to use a PC if they really need to work.. Mac is nice, shiny and all that stuff, but is limited, more expensive AND suboptimal hardware-wise . Anyone who wants to discuss this last aspect further, please explain how a "PRO" macbook happens to overheat after any serious work is done on it (after rendering ~30mins, the macbook was pretty high stats..). Last time we had to put it on 2 damn bricks so that enough air can circulate around it. Still got too hot. Thank god that wasnt mine

PS. I wish her plenty of fun with the Macbook .

Edited June 23, 2010 by Neuuubeh

[Dudemeister]

I think the 13" MacBook Pro will give her many years of enjoyment. As Andreww mentioned, you should pick up alarge monitor for her as well. A 24" full HD (1080p), can be hd fairly cheap, about $250, and an external 500GB portable drive like the Seagate FreeAgent Go is about $85.

When you get the mouse and keyboard, do get the Apple wired full size keyboard, it's much better suited for productivity than the compact wireless. The new wireless mouse is OK.

I hope she enjoys it.

[red]

Good call on the refurb. It has the same warranty as a new one, and Apple build quality is quite good.

One more vote for an external, and can do Apple Time Machine.

[jchurch]

I love the 13.3 macbook pro I just was disappointed they didn't get the i5/i7 processors like the other pro books. I already have a core2duo with 8gb ram lol but I am waiting to see if on of the smaller i5/i7 versions come out.

Sure photo and video editing will work great on the 13 inch c2duo. It does on mine running windows 7 I have CS5 and all of the products from the suite work great on it. I also have a cool free agent go that I carry my mp3 files and some documents on to and from work. It also works great for carrying disk images around.