Macbook Pro for graphic and web design

Comments

• Reply 1 of 4

  nickmini Posts: 74member

  April 30, 2010 5:34PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Evoken
  
  
  I am planning to buy the base new 15" MBP. I am going to use it for graphic and web design work along with doing other stuff like browsing, email, music, watching movies, etc. The programs I plan to use are:
  
  
  
  - Adobe CS4/5 (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash)
  
  - Coda + Transmit
  
  - iMovie and GarageBand (slight movie and sound editing, nothing too large)
  
  - Windows XP under Parallels Desktop for testing pages on IE
  
  
  
  I am also planning on getting the 24" ACD to hook it to the MBP. This will also be my main and only computer.
  
  
  
  Would the base model be enough for this? I currently have an 20" iMac Intel Core 2ghz and while it feels kinda slow when working on comps and large files in Photoshop it pulls through, so I am thinking that the base new 15" MBP would very much smoke my current iMac.
  
  
  
  Thanks.
  

  
  

  
  
  Seeing as how I use pretty much the same software (well, CS3 but still) and I'm on a 6 year old PowerBook G4 1.6GHz, I would say yes, the "base" model MBP will be great as your primary computer, especially with the 24" ADC. Just Do It®!
• Reply 2 of 4

  Marvin Posts: 15,323moderator

  May 1, 2010 4:56AM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Evoken
  
  
  Would the base model be enough for this? I currently have an 20" iMac Intel Core 2ghz and while it feels kinda slow when working on comps and large files in Photoshop it pulls through, so I am thinking that the base new 15" MBP would very much smoke my current iMac.
  

  
  

  
  
  Lots of RAM helps for large files as well as a fast hard drive. 4GB should be enough but it depends on what you have open at once. You can get a 7200rpm 500GB drive for $90 vs the $150 Apple charges and you'd get to keep your old drive but that upgrade price isn't too bad and saves you opening the machine up.
  
  
  
  But it'll run those apps just fine. In fact Premiere and AE will run better than the new iMacs in some cases as they use ATI cards, which aren't supported by Adobe's hardware acceleration engine. The other apps are hardware accelerated on both though.
  
  
  
  "If you are wondering what is the real deal with GPGPU API's, there is a telling tale of why Adobe opted to base its Mercury Engine on nVidia's CUDA language. While AMD will tell you that they're all for open standards and push OpenCL, the sad truth is that the company representatives will remain shut when you ask them about the real status of their OpenCL API - especially if you quote them a lead developer from a AAA software company with 10x more employees than AMD themselves that goes something like this:
  
  
  
  "I struggled to even get ATI's beta drivers installed and working, it was just problem after problem. Maybe once ATI gets their drivers out of beta and actually allow you to install them then I will have some performance numbers. I mean at this point AMD is so far behind in development tools they are not even worth pursuing right now.""
  
  
  
  http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...uda-only!.aspx
• Reply 3 of 4

  evoken Posts: 56member

  May 2, 2010 7:06AM

  Interesting, thanks for the info! I am more concerned about the HD space on the base model...I rather have 500GB. Or I could just get an external 1T disk.
• Reply 4 of 4

  evoken Posts: 56member

  May 3, 2010 11:52AM

  I just ordered the MBP 15" 2.53 i5. I feel that it will definitely turn out to be an awesome computer. Cannot wait to get my hands on this beauty