I'm preparing an exhibition of montages, which involves regular chopping on very large files for print: 300 ppi 3 feet wide PSDs with tons of layers.

So far I have a lousy PC that doesn't allow me to do anything so I need to buy a mac soon

What is th emodel I should choose ?I'm broke, I need one; I was aiming for the imac 2ghz 20", but maybe a powermac G5 mono 1.6ghz could be already very good.or maybe an older generation power mac G5 biproc ? please help me choose one, based on your own experience of macs.

thank you .

Don't have the need for a new computer, but if I were looking for a Mac I would go to a USED G4 .Check out Google for used Macs, you will be surprised at their price. Also Commercial printers are constantly upgrading, you might want to see if they could give you a deal on what they will get nothing for anyway.

Cheers :shock:

Ledirio,
I work every day on files like that with a g5 Dual 1G proc with 2.5 Gb of ram. It smokes through those files fast. (that's at work) At home I do the same on a G4 power Mac with dual 800 MB proc. and 1.5 GB of ram. Ram (memory) is very important. Whatever Mac you buy. Make sure it has plenty of memory. At least 1 GB. Also you need scratch disk. An empty drive with nothing on it that PS can use to work on. In PS you need to go to preferences and pick how much memory will be dedicated to PS. Also in preferences you need to tell PS where your scratch disk is. You can have up to 4 scratch disks. I have one that is 20GB and it is plenty. Memory and scratch disk are VERY important. It sounds like a lot but it is actually pretty simple and well worth the effort. By the way CS2 is awesome! Good luck.
ReyRey

buy a dual P4 for half the price

thx .....I'll go for the PMG5 dual 1ghz if I can.I guess I can find a not too expensive second hand one.my focus is : to be able to use 2500 px soft brushes on huge , full of layers files in CMYK or LAB.

BTW, right now I'm on a pc athlon xp 2400+ with 1g of ram......sucks big time.Nothing possible on it.

and yes, CS2 is very good (warp thing)

I'm trying it : http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5253136349

........more opinions please

hi led, newbee here, i know nothing, but wont you have to re buy all your adobe and macrmedia software to run on a mac, i'm guessing you have PC versions now, maybe you can do a deal with the seller, if they have a mac they should have a copy PS on it

oh most have one splodge

mor emore more please :)

I worked on a montage display thing that was 3 pieces, 3'x6' each, at 300 dpi to be printed on glass... it was massive. I worked on a pretty fast G5 laptop at my old office, but it was still pretty slow. I have one suggestion only. Patience.

led i use a mac everyday at work as well as at home....i've been a windows user my entire life up until last october when i took a new position at work. i had to learn how to use and troubleshoot macs for several depts at a large university.

to make a long story short.....i haven't gone back to windows since then. for someone who uses the iMac everyday, i would have to say it's a great computer, and it would be a great choice. i have not had any problems w/ mine. i have PSCS2 on it, and have many applications open all day. it has 2GB RAM. i use a wireless mouse w/ it.

i took this the first day i got my 20 - inch widescreen iMac....if you look close enough, you can see conch shells, and a sand dollar?
yes it's true...i'm a beachcomber



good luck

thx all, robin what you said scare me ! I'm lost in benchmark tests and catalogs now.It looks like I need a biprocessor at least.I wonder if a biproc. amd bits wouldn't be better .....oh shit

Hey Nicolas, you know what i think about it !

AAAAAAARG, everything started when I saw it at your place Thierry !