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Last Updated: 09/22/2006
The Graphic Design department has put together some information for those students who want to buy their own computer system. I have listed them in the order of importance. The standard system in industry is the Macintosh.
- Operating System
The operating system should be the current Macintosh operating system in use at the school. - CPU (Processor)
Macintosh G5 at least 1.8Ghz and dual processor machines are prefered if you can afford it. - RAM (Memory)
You need to get the most RAM you can afford. At least 512Mb of RAM minimum. With the price of ram being so cheap right now shoot for 1 or 2 Gig , that is 2-4 512 MB sticks. - Display Card (Video Card)
While the processor and the ram are the core of the speed of the machine, the display card can be a bottleneck for the displaying of the information. Get a card that has a minimum of 128 MB of RAM. NVIDEA GeForce 4 or higher is recommended. Also consider getting a video card that supports two monitors. - Monitor
The bigger the monitor the better. You want a small dot pitch (.25). The industry uses 21” monitors but 19” or a 17” would do. Nothing smaller than 17” though. Consider getting two monitors if money is not a problem since many popular software packages support working with dual monitors. Another option is LCD monitors but they typically don't represent colors as well as CRT monitors. LCD monitors use less electricity and produce less heat. - Hard Drives
Hard drives are pretty cheap. I would get at least two-120gigs instead of 1- 250gig. That way if it crashes you won't be shut down and you will only loose half of your information. Be sure and back up often. - Removable Storage
You will need a CD/DVD Burner . The faster, the better. This will allow you to easily take files from home to school and back. USB Flash Drives are also very useful and vary in size from 32MB to 7GB.
A good place to check for current prices is www.pricewatch.com . Also check with various computer manufacturers for student or educational discounts.
Software used in Graphic Design:
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PhotoShop, Quark Express, HTML, AfterEffects and Microsoft Office. Before purchasing any software, check with a department instructor to determine the version in use at AiDallas and to determine the feasibility of the purchase. Some of the software listed above will be used on a limited or infrequent basis; therefore it would not be particularly cost effective to purchase it. To purchase software, investigate the various Education software vendors for discounted packages.
NOTE – because of the nature of the technology industry, all the suggestions made above are on the verge of being outdated as soon as they are written. Careful research is necessary before making a major hardware and/or software purchase.
