The New Hardware Horizon
I just bought CS3 requiring a minimum of 1GB RAM. I also have two 19″ LCD monitors that I want to start using, so I’m looking for a new computer. I’ve wanted to switch to a Mac for a while now, but their relatively small product line doesn’t seem to have anything that fits my needs very well at this point. None of the laptops suport dual monitors- and I’ll probably just continue using CS2 on my current laptop when I need portability anyway.
Mac Minis don’t fit becasue of a lack of support for dual monitors-and weak processing power.
The iMacs don’t make a whole lot of sense, since I’d be paying for a monitor I don’t need, and don’t really want.
Finally, there’s the 8 Core Mac Pro. It would be great if I had $2,500 burning a hole in my pocket for the base model. I don’t.
So, it looks like I’m back to considering another PC. Any suggestions?
3 comments
Not that I’d really advocate using a Mac, but iMacs do support external monitors. So you could get a 20″ iMac, hook up an additional 19″ LCD and be set.
The 8-core macs actually start at around $4000, the base systems are still only quad cores.
I recently got a nice Dell XPS 410, final price was $2394, but that was loaded. 4GB ram, and upgraded almost everything else.
You could get a really decent Vista system for under 2 grand.
If you really want to go Mac, there are devices that let you plug in dual monitors to the laptops, iMacs or whatever. But those run a few hundred bucks too.
Actually, you could easily run dual monitors off your macbookpro with the CinePort by CineMassive Displays. It lets you use desktop caliber graphics cards to power additional external displays so all the pixel processing doesn;t clog your laptop. Pretty awesome. It’ll let you run up to 4 additional peripheral displays – so that’s a total of 6: your laptop’s screen, one off the macbookpro’s dvi port, and then four more from the cinport. Worth a look. Its Mac and PC compatible.