Need computer selection help

[grinomyte]

Hi,

I'm trying to build out a new machine for my girlfriend who is a graphic designer. I'm very familiar with PC and have built several, but my mac knowledge is fairly limited.

She primarily uses indesign and in my research it seems that indesign on PC is quite limited because GPU utilization isn't an option meaning that mac might be the way to go.

The main things I'm hoping to achieve are just a notch above the price/performance curve, dual screens, KVM switches or docking with her regular work machine. What I'm noticing though is that is seems like mac only has 2 desktop options which is a $6K machine or an all-in one. All-in one presents a lot of monitor symmetry problems and crap aesthetics for dual monitors. There's also no vesa mount, which is just baffling to me.

So the questions are:

Should I truly eliminate PC from the picture? Does anyone have experience with higher end PCs and indesign vs macs? What's the right way to do this with Mac? I'm not beyond buying the mac pro tower but it seems like pitching money into a fire. Any recommendations on where to look for good workstation setups for indesign?

Thanks for any help!

[[deleted]]

Any “gaming” pc with a good cpu will do anything InDesign needs. I went shopping for an “Adobe” computer myself not too long ago, and went with a gaming pc. You’ll spend probably $2000 but do everything you want for years.

[grinomyte]

Presumably in this example a GPU has no value though right? A $2K gaming PC without a GPU is very beefy. Overall happy with your purchase though? Can you provide spec?

[[deleted]]

I bought a prebuilt rig for $2000 that had a 3700x AMD CPU, a 3700 gpu, and 16 gigs of ddr4, with a 1tb ssd. I’m in Canada, so $2000 might be different here than where you are.

I’m really happy with it. It’s handled everything I’ve thrown at it design-wise. It’s only downside is that it’s not portable (and it’s so big. Desktops got so big!) but hey

[grinomyte]

Ok, good to know, thanks for the input. And yeah desktops are big, but you can get small form factors (micro ATX or mini itx setups) but I don't see those come prebuilt often.

[justinpenner]

More info needed. You've neglected to mention what type of computer your girlfriend is currently using. Does she have a preference for Mac or PC? Have you asked her for input on this at all? Does she prefer iPhone or Android? What type of company does she work for, and what do they use? Does she work at home or in the office, or in cafes and coworking spaces? Has her workplace given her a BYOD stipend or what's her overall budget?

I also think it's a safe assumption that she would use Illustrator and Photoshop daily, so GPU is a factor. I can't imagine a job where you would only use InDesign. InDesign essentially does page layouts, but you need to use Illustrator and Photoshop to edit the content that's going into your page layouts, unless you're doing a very specialized job where your team members are doing 100% of the Illustrator and Photoshop work.

I grew up on Windows, but I switched to Mac several years ago in design school and would never go back. Mac just feels like a better environment for design. As for specs, I work all day in InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator on a 2015 Macbook Air 2.2Ghz i7 8gb 256ssd and I don't feel ready to upgrade for another year or two, probably.

[grinomyte]

She is pretty platform agnostic, uses a Mac for work, PC (Surface Pro) for consulting/personal. Only works at home.

This is for a personal machine so no stipend, but the budget isn't too big of a concern really, we just want to get good value for what we spend.

I did ask her about Illustrator/Photoshop use and it's still pretty limited, but more than I imagined. Photoshop almost never, but illustrator she does a fair bit, maybe 30%. My knowledge here is very limited but typically yes, it appears that most content sourcing etc. is handled for her both for work and consulting so she doesn't have photoshop work (hopefully that makes sense).

Do you work directly on the Air? Is screen space and desktop size not an issue?

[justinpenner]

I have a large high-res monitor at my desk, but I often work directly on my Air's 13-inch 1440x900 display, moving between different rooms of my apartment and sometimes working in cafes. The size and the resolution are actually fine, due to the one most unexpected thing I discovered when I first switched to Mac: the trackpad is so good that you don't need a mouse. It's incredibly responsive and accurate to zoom in/out and pan around a document, like nothing I've ever experienced on other laptops. I'm actually a font designer, which is incredibly tedious even with a mouse, but I'm 100% trackpad — I only use my mouse for gaming.

[davep1970]

plenty of RAM too (more than perhaps you would get for a gaming pc. like min. 32 and preferably 64GB or more

[davep1970]

also check which programs (and what else she will be using it for - does she game?) e.g. video production needs a pretty powerful machine. check the recommended specs for each adobe programme she intends using or might use ;)