How to pick the right machine for graphic design?

Technology is excellent, but it can be daunting as well. What is the right graphic design machine for? PC or Mac? What more gear do you need? Where do you even start?

Hardware Goods

Your basic needs can generally be met by nearly every device more efficient than a netbook and less than three years old. All here and there performs a little picture editing. To learn more about designing graphics and such, take a look at Blue Sky Graphics.

Yet you would almost definitely want to refresh your machine after you have committed to being a professional graphic designer. The right graphic design machine can differ from designer to designer, but there are few important aspects to concentrate on: processing power, memory, screen resolution, and hard disc speed, which you may not have heard about.

It is processor-intensive graphic design programme, and it just gets more so per year. You would want a processor (or “CPU”) operating at least 1Ghz for most programmes (meaning the computer can make one billion calculations per second). It is the minimum; if you can manage it, check for an even quicker processor. Yet machine speed has more to it than just the cpu.

You may wonder where to invest your money on speeding up your machine any further after you have passed these minimums. The truth is, you are unlikely to find a speed boost from having a faster processor until your CPU is above the gigahertz range. It will make your resources even more invested on RAM. 16 or even 32 gigs would certainly make the job pass past.

What type of off-the-shelf rig you might dream of is likely to have a reasonably big hard drive. However, you need not really be thinking about it, since the built-in hard drive should be used mainly to instal applications and store tasks for which you are currently operating. Old concept data, which you only need to use from time to time, can and should be saved on external drives, enabling us to…

Hard-drive drive

Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives are two types of hard drives: (SSD). On the inside, HDDs are metal discs with magnetic covering. They rotate mechanically, only at far higher levels, close to record players. A collection of memory chips are made up of SSDs, which therefore have no moving pieces.

There are positives and pitfalls of both. HDDs are easier, with the same volume of room, normally around half the price. In reality, for total capacity, HDDs have a higher ceiling; SSDs appear to top about 4 terabytes. SSDs are more robust, on the other hand, since they do not have moving pieces. You may drop an SSD into the floor from your seat, and it would usually be fine; for an HDD, it is not the case. SSDs are the way to go if you are going to switch around a lot when operating.

Yet their velocity is the true benefit of SSDs. If your internal hard drive is an SSD, your machine can boot faster and start programmes faster. Data is moved more easily from SSDs to the hard drive than from HDDs.