Can eMac 1.42 Ghz be used for graphic design?

Design

I started a design company on a Mac Si (couldn't afford the Ci) and did stuff with files as big as 192 megs, so the easy answer is yes.

More realistically, though, you will want the fastest machine possible. I don't know what you're referring to about the iMacs, I think one would be great. Dont know if this helps but good luck!

The eMac is an awesome machine for graphic design, just make sure you feed it plenty of RAM. And graphics generally do look better on a CRT monitor which is what the eMac uses. Personally, though, I'd go for the new iMac anyday, especially with its great features and very low price point.

Just my 2 cents.

Definitely. The graphic, presentation, design guys at work have been using eMacs for the last 2 years and they do almost all of their work with photoshop, illustrator, inDesign and Quark. I'd personally want something with a bit more horsepower, but if money's a concern, eMacs will definitely do it, only a bit slower.

you will have no problems, my oldest machine I use for GFX design is a dual 450mhz powermac, and with a gig of ram and os x 10.3.9 the only app that is slow is dreamweaver 2004, photoshop cs or all the adobe apps for that matter run fine... I mean its not as quick as my dual 1ghz powermac, but will it work?..... you bet

get iMac G5 there good machines! better then any eMac for graphic design!

eMacs will be fine, it will just do what you want it to do slower, and maybe much slower, depending on the situation, than the iMac will. But it is not a bad machine at all.

If you think you posted in the wrong forum, don't just post the same thread in a different forum. PM a moderator, and they'll move it for you. You can do this by clicking on the little exclamation mark sign next to your original post.

Edit: no you can't -- you can't report your own posts. Surely there's an easy way for newbs to figure out who the mods are. Anyone?

I use a 700Mhz eMac for design, but I did notice it runs a lot smoother with 1GB of RAM. I also put a 250GB HD in it as well. Ive got almost 4 years out of her and so far she's doing fine. I am holding out for the Intel Macs to come out before I upgrade anymore. Well at least thats what I was told by the miss's.

I administer a graphic design lab at a local college, it's all eMacs.

you might want to consider that higher end emacs arent alot cheaper then rev b emacs right now id check on that if I were u

If you need to ask that question then the eMac will be powerful enough.

It's all about work flow,

HOW FAST DO YOU NEED TO CRUNCH

are you located in L.A. working on multimillion dollar contracts that require you to have stuff made up in hours for a last minute deadline before the marketing team flies out to Tokyo in the morning?

OR

are you during out folios and business cards and logo's for slight lower end clients, who's deadline is more generous?

I'm going to assume you are just starting out, which is an eMac will be fine for if that is your price range.

At home i work on a 400 mhz powerpc and still edit video in final cut pro, and manipulate my photographs in Photoshop <-- is it time consuming to render effects, or even open large files? of course it does, but that doesn't mean i can't work.

on the other hand, i'm for a student newspaper here at my university where i have a deadline and i need to crunch out those photo's ASAP, So here i run a iMac G5 with the 20 inch screen. The machine is fast enough because we put out issues weekly, if this was a daily i would probably need more power.

As far as the debate over issues with the iMacs, i've run into a few problems with this iMac at work, BUT nothing that fixing the premissions in the OS didn't solve.

go with the larger iMac if you can, the screen real-estate is well worth it

revenuee makes a good point about screen space that i did not consider, I use nothing smaller then 21...

maybe a new mini, a FW hard drive and a 21" dell LCD would set you up for starters

Hmm....I haven't had any trouble with any of the G5 imacs I've worked on. I used to get freezes all the time on the G3's and G4's but not yet on G5's.

I suppose the answer to your question lies in how patient/rushed you are. If it were me, given my experience with the G5 imacs and random emacs, I'd go for the imac. They're an awsome deal for what you get and the new releases have some nifty new features to play with

I sometimes render funky 3D animations with Bryce, or edit various things in Final Cut and use Live Type occassionally. I'll render things in Photoshop quite a bit, too. So, a faster machine is great for my impatient butt.

If you want to save a few bucks and don't mind waiting a bit longer for your work, go for the emac.

Whichever machine you go for, getting sufficient RAM is key. That's one advantage on the eMac over the new iMac. The eMac has 2 RAM slots, so you can pop in a couple of ~$100 RAM chips to get to 2 GB. The iMac has 512 MB built-in and 1 empty slot. You can go to 2.5 GB, but it will take an expensive 2 GB RAM stick. If you want to see how far your jaw can drop, see what Apple charges for this on the BTO section. Another possibility would be pick up a discontinued Rev. B iMac that has 2 RAM slots. You'd definitely have to weigh the discount versus what you would not get. (iSight, Photo Booth, somewhat weaker video card, etc.)

As to reliability, apparently, the fan arrangement is significantly different in the new iMac versus the original G5 variant. Certainly no hands-on info is out there yet, but hopefully this will address some heat issues some folks have talked about. Also, there were a bunch of bad capacitors that got into the wild. These were typically found on the power supply and would fail in a few days to months. This isn't Apple's fault and it affected several other tech companies. I have not heard of any replacement power supplies failing in Rev. B iMac G5's.

amyng said:

sorry guys about the double post, I didn't know how to move it, I'm hoping a moderator can help me on this...

I've considered buying a rev B imac, yes, but with all the horror stories out there and the percentage of failures that only shows after 6-7 months of use, I don't think it's worth the hassle..

could those with problematic iMacs rev B raise their hands please?

amy

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remember your only going to hear about the problems the people whose machines work tend to stay quiet.

I started off on a G3 233MHz desktop at Uni, and then used it for the first year or two of working as a graphic designer, until about late '01.

So yes! But the more RAM the better, for sure.

Get an iMac - you'll soon regret the eMac

Get an iMac - I'll explain in a minute but first...

I had a 700mhz eMac for several years until just recently upgrading to an iMac 2ghz. I'd hate to go back to the eMac now, but I did just about everything on that beast and it rarely crashed. Van signage, text books, complicated illustrator drawings with many layers of effects etc. That said my iMac can do sooo much more with less effort. And that's what it's all about: keeping your options as varied as possible. Why cripple yourself artistically.

So in my experienced opinion (in this matter) get the iMac - it's not much cheaper at all and it is absolutely money well spent. Don't get the wireless mouse for design as I have found it difficult to deal with (too heavy and blutooth isn't as smooth as wired) + the keyboard doubling as a hub is very useful and absent on the wireless model.

Now as far as what you have heard RE an eMac being just as fast - I think I know where they are coming from. I do find that interface-wise the Adobe Suite feel the same as it did on the eMac! - inDesign in particular is a bit laggy - I blame Adobe. With other apps everything feels faster and in particular the processing power (when you leave it computing that is) is quite impressive on the iMac. My only example of this was my 700mhz eMac converted to MP3 at 7x whilst my iMac does 18x!

Definitely the eMac because of the monitor.

I used to use a G4 500, which was the top professional graphic computer when they were released. No problems.

I've since been using a 1.25 GHz emac with 1 gig of ram and I'm very very pleased with it. So pleased in fact that I just bought a second 1.42 eMac with 1.5 GB of Ram. As I said in another thread if someone offered to sell me the iMac for the same price as the eMac I wouldn't take it. (unless I could sell it and buy an eMac)

The reason is that the crt monitor on the eMac is so much better than the iMac display. No serious designer would use an LCD.

Photoshop require RAM and all the other programs you mentioned work virtually instantaneously. I also use the eMac for ZBrush which has bigger 3D demands and it is fine, it can work with 4 million polys.

I am able to get the colours on my eMac to be as close to CMYK output as it is possible for a monitor image to get. If you get an iMac and try to do design work you will regret it.

In fact I prefer the shadow mask eMac monitor to my old 21" trinitron studio monitor. I would prefer a larger monitor but I'm not having a problem with the 17". It makes a difference to go into the geometry set up and stretch it out to fill the screen completely.

With the money you save you can get an A4 Wacom tablet which is a must.

Do not listen to those who tell you to get an iMac, they obviously don't use it for serious graphic design work. Go down to your mac shop and take some images on a CD check them out thoroughly on the eMac then have a look at them on the iMac. Also note how the colour and density of the image changes on the iMac as you move the screen or your viewing angle slightly. I use my eMac at the maximum resolution of 1280x960 and it does not flicker at all. I usually sit at the monitor for very long stretches at a time.

Simple answer Yes, it will be perfect and will run all the graphic apps that you need and use today.

amyng said:

dogbone,

You have a point there about crt displays. I'm not picky about screen sizes, and 17" is adequate for my use. I actually love CRT display, although it actually needs more space. It's good to know that I can push it around and actually touch the screen HARD. *lol*

Another question though - won't it get outdated fast or replaced by newer models with better specs to handle graphic design? I mean, I look at the imac G5, and I'm wary about it not withstanding the test of time with the host of problems out there, although it boosts a faster chip.

In my opinion, (please back me up) I'm assuming it's better to get an almost perfectly-tuned G4 chip than to get a somewhat (at the moment, in the iMac) hotter processor encased in a too-thin frame.
Can it handle dreamweaver well too?

Click to expand...

You are worrying for no reason. I can understand your concern, I thought the same thing when I bought my first computer, a G4/500 in 2000.

Yes there will always be faster computers but if you think about graphic design requirements it isn't going to matter. Your emac will be just as adequate in three years time. In fact my original G4/500 with 1.5 GB of would still be adequate today.

Look at it this way. Files from digital cameras may be getting bigger but resolution requirements for print are not going to change. 300 dpi was good enough 5 years ago, it is good enough today and it will be good enough in 20 years time.

Illustrator, quark, and inDesign files are tiny, always will be. It's only embedded photos which they may contain that have any size to them and they are not going to get bigger. People are not going to be wanting to read A0 size magazines with huge pictures in them in the future.

I look at it this way. If you could afford to get a desktop G5 and a good CRT like the LaCie then you would, (as I would have) so that must mean you are short of cash. In which case rather than getting an iMac with a crappy (for graphic design) monitor, you can get an eMac with an excellent monitor plus 2 gigs of ram plus an A4 wacom tablet.

The only way a more powerful computer is going to be any use to you is if you want to apply a radial blur filter at 100% best quality to a folder containing 20 100Mb files in photoshop and you're never going to do that.