[myles919]

We are adding sign making to our screen printing business. Our graphic artists have always wanted MACs and now our Sign guys are piling on.

Naturally, they want the latest and greatest MAC PRO, but i don't have the budget for that kind of gear.

So, i have been on Craigs List and EBAY and there are a lot of G4 DeskTops that are very fairly priced. Do they have the horse-Power to run the entire CS-4 Suite? Can we upgrade RAM and/or graphic cards to make the G4 Generation work? if G4 will not cut it, what is the lowest MAC configured PC that we can purchase. We plan on getting 3 or 4.

[Thorzdad]

I don't believe Adobe recommends using CS4 on a G4 Mac. If you can swing it, I'd look to some used G5s. Early dual 2-gig models, for instance, seem to hold-up relatively well and have the horsepower to run CS4 effortlessly. Avoid G5 models featuring liquid cooling, though.

Understand, of course, that any non-Intel Mac is going to be pretty-much a dead-end in the very near future as far as things like software upgrades go. A PPC-based Mac will run CS4, but it's doubtful future CS versions will run on non-Intel machines.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

[OreoCookie]

If you just want to run Adobe CS4 apps, you don't need a Mac Pro, an Intel-based Mac mini will run circles around it. Or an iMac.

I definitely advise against a G4.

[sek929]

Same here, dropping money on an old tower and upgrades is silly when an Intel Mini with maxed RAM will handle whatever you throw at it.

[SierraDragon]

Do not even consider G4. If you cannot use Mac Pro hardware for pro work (I recommend 2006 2.66 GHz Mac Pros for value) use newest-generation MacIntel Minis with maxxed RAM, another good value.

Although G4/G5 boxes still run some legacy graphics workflows ok, starting out with rapidly-obsoleting G4/G5 would be a very bad idea. You must run MacIntels.

-Allen Wicks

[fashizzle]

give me a friggin' break. a late model G4 is STILL a very strong machine for 2D design (especially for the screenprinting industry). CS4 is also overkill, I run CS3 very well on a SINGLE proc MDD 1.25GHz G4 with 2 GB's or RAM (yup, doing color seps for screenprinting with output to vellum on a laser for shooting screens). a new Mac Mini would blow the doors off the G4, but I've been using this machine since the day it was available and it's STILL making tons of money for us and not a single hiccup in the YEARS it's been in use.

2D graphic design does not require the latest and greatest (one of our production machines is a 933 MHz Quicksilver, still running strong, running Leopard too).

you find a good deal on a late model G4, snag it and make a ton of money with it until it blows up.

and lemme tell you something - 2 weeks ago I went into the art department of a screen printing company that has some of the best damn vector artists around here on their staff. I mean these guys are AMAZING. this particular company is well known for their work in my area. I expected to see MacPro 8 cores with 16GB's of RAM and the latest and greatest software and hardware. their fastest machine in the entire department was a 1.6GHz G5, surrounded by about half a dozen MDD's. nothing higher than CS2 in their entire department for their apps (still rockin' Freehand 11 too!).

[SierraDragon]

You fail to understand the issues involved in buiding a professional graphics workflow in 2009 starting from scratch with 2000 hardware and software. Of course many existing workflows work just fine, but intentionally starting up with decade-old hardware/software to do pro graphics in the graphics arts biz would be worse than ridiculous when competent new-generation hardware like Macintel Minis are inexpensively available.

Like I said Although G4/G5 boxes still run some legacy graphics workflows ok, starting out with rapidly-obsoleting G4/G5 would be a very bad idea. You must run MacIntels.

-Allen Wicks

[OreoCookie]

Ditto. The OP was asking about an investment now. Investing in very old, slower hardware is not a good idea.

[fashizzle]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

You fail to understand the issues involved in buiding a professional graphics workflow in 2009 starting from scratch with 2000 hardware and software. Of course many existing workflows work just fine, but intentionally starting up with decade-old hardware/software to do pro graphics in the graphics arts biz would be worse than ridiculous when competent new-generation hardware like Macintel Minis are inexpensively available.

Like I said Although G4/G5 boxes still run some legacy graphics workflows ok, starting out with rapidly-obsoleting G4/G5 would be a very bad idea. You must run MacIntels.

-Allen Wicks

I don't think I "fail" to understand anything here. We have quite the professional graphics workflow in 2009 - on decade old hardware. And your point is? Exciting new hardware + drivel artist = no money. THAT is what YOU fail to understand. If the guy could pick up a handful of late model G4's on the cheap (which is pretty much standard fare), make sure they had enough RAM in them and just used them to get his project off the ground, he would have a minimal investment in tooling at the beginning, and use those tools to make money so that he could later update his workflow with the latest and greatest. Of course the new Mini's would be a great solution, but I guess I have to dig in. I have been a graphic designer, on the Mac, since 1989. Specifically in the screen printing industry. There are people RIGHT NOW kicking ass on Blue & White G3's, and they aren't clamoring for Macintels. Do you actually work in the design field? Did you just graduate college? Are you new to the Mac platform? It's so damn elitist to have this mentality I think. It's like saying that to drive on today's roads, you HAVE to invest in a 2009 automobile. Ab-friggin-surd.

[sek929]

Cars from the 70s went just as fast as cars today, that's a terrible comparison.

What you still seem to fail to understand is you are giving us anecdotal evidence from shops that are already up and running. What's been told to you is that it's stupid to save a couple hundred bucks (at best) buying already outdated machinery. Used/Refurb/Etc. Intel Mac Minis would not be noticeably more expensive than, say, an outdated PowerMac G5. Sure if you had a shop up and running on a slew of MDDsand G5s there is really no need to revamp your entire line....but to start out paying good money for obsoleted machines is ludicrous. I recently bought my grandfather a used PowerMac G3 B&W, it was 300 bucks, a used 1.66GHZ CD Mini goes for 450 bucks.

Do I need to point out the massive difference between a 400Mhz G3 on a 66mhz system bus to a CD 1.66GHZ for a measly 150 dollar increase? Even Photoshop 7 would run filters 5 times as fast, and that's time saved that will save you money in the long run. It makes business sense.

BTW, that G5 1.6GHz you mentioned, the cheapest one I could find online was 500 dollars used. Not cheaper than the Mac Mini and, besides disk speed, an absolute dog in terms of speed. Not to mention RAM for outdated machines gets pricier by the day while I was able to get a 4GB kit for my Intel iMac for less than 70 bucks shipped.

[fashizzle]

What the frig has changed so much in the 2D design world over the past 10 years that REQUIRES a new Mac? Right, nothing. Just like nothing in the road and pavement industry hasn't changed much since the 70's. Postscript is Postscript, PDF workflow is PDF workflow, vectors are vectors.

How much money is he going to shell out for new Macs? Is it more than his budget allows? Does he have options? Of course. You act as if it's New Mac or No Mac, and that's pathetic and indicative of someone who clearly does not work in the design industry. Go to your local prepress shop and look around - chances are you're not going to see the latest and greatest. Know why? It's 'cuz platform upgrades and software upgrades wreak havoc on established workflows. If you worked in the industry, you would clearly comprehend this. Our local prepress shop here that serves for a major printer is on CS1, Freehand and really old Preflighting software, running on a G4. Go tell 'em his "legacy" hardware is not effective and efficient. Go tell 'em that the thousands and thousands of dollars he has invested in PPC apps that is required to interface with his uber high end printing equipment is useless, and that a new Mac that won't even run his software is going to save him money and time.

Older Macs still have tons of life left in them, are quite suitable for 2D design, and return on investments kinda blow chunks if you feed into this cycle of thinking that you have to invest in the latest and greatest to be profitable. These are all the things one would expect to hear from someone who started on the platform on OSX and a G5 or Intel Mac.

I say he can START his business on used G4's/G5's and save a schload of money up front while he sets his process controls in place. What if it tanks and his artists suck? What if he decides that this direction is not profitable for him? Yeah thanks buddy, you just put this guy into massive debt unnecessarily, and in a rough economy to boot.

[sek929]

I just told you that a used Intel Mac Mini is actually cheaper than most used, slow, outdated PowerPC towers. AND it kicks the sh!t out of them.

I just looked at 933 PowerMac prices and some of them are still going for 600+ dollars. That's a complete, and utter waste of money. Of course if you already owned them from when they were new then they will work perfectly but paying MORE money than a year old INtel-powered Mac is stupid.

[fashizzle]

a craigslist search here just netted over a dozen LOCAL PowerMac G4 Quicksilvers and MDDs for $300 and below, with only one asking for more than $350 for an MDD. one guy has a lot of Dual 800MHz Quicksilvers for $200 apiece if you buy all 4.

[sek929]

Again, the used Mini I quickly found was 450 dollars. That's $150 dollars more and you get a Core Duo instead of a lethargic G4. If you are starting a design company and you can't spend more than 300 dollars on your workhorse machine maybe a career in the computer design area isn't for you.

You cite shops that bought these machines brand new and have worked them hard, an entirely different scenario than starting off with second-hand, obsolete computers. Did they spend 300 dollars per machine? I highly friggin' doubt it since the Dual 800 Quicksilver came in at a whopping $3500 brand new. What were they thinking? They should've bought a used Beige G3 instead to save money

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by fashizzle 

I don't think I "fail" to understand anything here. We have quite the professional graphics workflow in 2009 - on decade old hardware. And your point is?

My point is, just read the original words: "Although G4/G5 boxes still run some legacy graphics workflows ok, starting out with rapidly-obsoleting G4/G5 would be a very bad idea." Keeping an existing workflow going as long as possible on legacy hardware makes sense (I just retired a G4 tower running CS3, etc. last year), but starting with old hardware is a cost-ineffective suggestion.

I have been a graphic designer, on the Mac, since 1989. Specifically in the screen printing industry. Do you actually work in the design field? Did you just graduate college? Are you new to the Mac platform?

Actually yes I work in the design field, received my degrees in the 1970s, started with 128k Macs, have personally owned a dozen or so and currently manage 9 Macs and a similar number of (yech) Win boxes.

If the guy could pick up a handful of late model G4's on the cheap (which is pretty much standard fare), make sure they had enough RAM in them and just used them to get his project off the ground, he would have a minimal investment in tooling at the beginning, and use those tools to make money so that he could later update his workflow with the latest and greatest.

Sorry, but that concept is very wrong because hardware cost per se is not the most important part of the life-cycle cost of starting up a new operation. Software costs and more importantly learning curves are the most significant components of the life cycle cost of setting up a new graphics operation. Newer hardware can be only slightly more expensive, and in addition to being overall stronger allows for less problems with the (expensive) modern software one buys when starting up. And the learning curves are amortized over a longer time frame when starting with competent modern hardware.

-Allen Wicks

[dimmer]

Our graphic artists have always wanted MACs and now our Sign guys are piling on.

Myles, are you sure you are committed to this direction? Your OP seems negative in tone, and buying aged hardware may be a passive-aggressive route towards making the project work, well, less well than it might.

Sure, a talented user can produce good work on anything: Illustrator'88 remains seminal. But they'll work faster and happier on a MacMini (Intel) rather than a PowerPC anything (especially with CS4). In addition, the hardware cost here really comes in second to what you'll be paying for CS4 -- why invest so much in software and try to shave every penny on hardware?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by fashizzle 

a craigslist search here just netted over a dozen LOCAL PowerMac G4 Quicksilvers and MDDs for $300 and below, with only one asking for more than $350 for an MDD. one guy has a lot of Dual 800MHz Quicksilvers for $200 apiece if you buy all 4.

What do your designers cost per hour?

How many weeks until a more efficient system generates $200 in productivity?

[angelmb]

Weird, I can agree with most of the points here:

> fashizzle, are you talking about Bob Staake maybe?, the guy has recently done cover work for the New Yorker with Photoshop 3 as main tool. You read it right, I am talking about a 15 years old piece of software, I have not mistyped the version with CS3.

> everybody else, well, I have both sides of the coin here, 2003 MDD 1,25 GHz single CPU, which I have upgraded with 2 GB RAM and a bigger hard disk, that's all. I would like to put there some GPU which could offer Core Video support, but I don't really need it cause my world is also 2D.
Sure, my Mac Pro which is the lowest model ever available, Dual 2 GHz CPU, albeit upgraded the RAM to 8 GB RAM which always matters, is tons faster but that doesn't mean I am a better designer when I sit in front of it than the MDD G4.

By using software that old the main issue here could be exchanging files with other pro-people or with a service bureau, hence a honestly priced G4 MDD which can run CS3 with no hassle is still a trusty workhorse. And by "fairly priced" I mean anything over 1/2 half the price of a refurbished Mac mini and I would say it is asking too much for it.

Let's be fair, the computer industry has created the feel that stuff must be perpetually:
- refreshed (throw good money)
- learned (throw good money)
- and reconfigured (waste your valuable time).

How much time and effort do you need to waste with InDesign CS4 trying to do the very-same-work you used to do in Quark 5 in a fraction of the time?, that's when it gets stupid, most new software is just a bag of useless and niche features you have to pay for and you are not going to use, ever. I can understand some people working e.g. with video, do really need faster computers every four years but it doesn't seem to be the case here but again that doesn't mean you want to pay for a six years old computer more than what makes sense Vs. getting a new one which comes with a warranty, is quieter and you are not going to have a hard time to find a mere RAM stick or an internal hard disk drive compatible with it.

But the fact remains: it's not the tools that make an artist, it's the artist's skills.

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

...
Let's be fair, the computer industry has created the feel that stuff must be perpetually:
- refreshed (throw good money)
- learned (throw good money)
- and reconfigured (waste your valuable time)...

I just have to jump in here and say how much I agree with this observation. The almost yearly upgrade cycle reminds me a lot of the way Detroit used to market cars. Adobe, especially, gets my goat over this. For instance, this week I needed to grab an Illustrator .eps file from a company website. I got it and tried to open it in CS1. It wouldn't open, of course, because, as it turns out, it was created in CS3. Now, it's a simple, flat-color, vector logo. No bells-and-whistles. No CS3-specific effects. Just a dog-basic, standard .eps file. There's NO legitimate, technical reason that file shouldn't open in any app that does .eps. Other than that's the way Adobe wants it to work. It's one of their little ways of pushing people to upgrade.

And, yeah, I'm still working in CS1. On a G5. I don't have piles of money to burn on constant upgrades and I've not seen anything in either CS3 or 4 that I need in order to do my work better/faster/more creatively. CS4, especially, looks to be a major mess, IMHO.

[CharlesS]

I'm typing this from a 1.33 MHz G4. The G4 cannot even properly play Flash video these days. It is almost completely useless even for casual use. Trying to use one for professional work would be short-sighted at best.

[angelmb]

The funny thing is that nowadays 'casual use' usually requires more resources and horse power than what classic 2D design may ever need, as your reference to Flash seems to prove.

[SierraDragon]

Let's be fair, the computer industry has created the feel that stuff must be perpetually:
- refreshed (throw good money)
- learned (throw good money)
- and reconfigured (waste your valuable time).

But the fact remains: it's not the tools that make an artist, it's the artist's skills.

Such comments distract the thread. There is no discussion about upgrading an existing workflow. The question is whether a pro graphics operation should start out buying current generation Mac hardware or start out buying decade-old Mac hardware.

-Allen Wicks

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by fashizzle 

What the frig has changed so much in the 2D design world over the past 10 years that REQUIRES a new Mac? Right, nothing.

Of course folks running legacy workflows with no intention of moving to modern tools can still be creative with those tools, but it is wrong to suggest that nothing has changed:

• Today handling large volumes of ever-larger digitally captured image files is becoming more and more commonplace; a totally different "2D design world" than a decade ago. E.g. a decade ago I dealt with a very few 30-60MB scans that took ten minutes each to digitize from (finicky, expensive) film; today I acquire multiple 20 MB Nikon RAW files in one second, 5-10 GB total in a day. Latest version apps and hardware are mandatory for such modern workflows.

• Apps like Aperture and CS4 need modern graphics power for full functionality and CS5 will be even more demanding.

More will change soon with Snow Leopard, and hardware continues increasing in performance per dollar.

-Allen Wicks

[Salty]

I'm gonna say if cash is an issue the mini is the best option. You get recently upgraded hardware, you can still spec out the RAM and add bigger HDs or externals if you want, and most graphics workstations have no need of other sorts of expansion.

I agree with the comment about buying 5 year old hardware for your graphics pros. To be honest I'd feel like it was a slap in the face is I was working at a shop like that.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I recently bought my grandfather a used PowerMac G3 B&W, it was 300 bucks, a used 1.66GHZ CD Mini goes for 450 bucks.

Eeek. It's been a couple years since I bought and sold old Macs, and even back then I NEVER spent more than $75 on a B&W G3, even fully decked-out.

[sek929]

It wasn't my money, but yeah, it was way overpriced. Works great though.

This was about two years ago, not that 300 bucks for a B&W 400mhz was any better then.

[Andrew Stephens]

Surely if you are worrying about the price difference between a $300 G3 B&W and a $450 Mac Mini, you have more problems ahead than what hardware you want to use.

It should be (as you yanks like to say) a "no brainer" The mini is superior in almost every way. I can understand that you might look at an existing shop that is still running older kit just fine, but that's a false economy. Those machines have long since earned their keep, any work they do now is just gravy. As a new business you need to be getting through stuff as fast (cheaply) as possible.

A MacPro may well bit a bit too much though. A screen printing shop is not likely to stress a MacPro enough to make the extra cost worth while but a 20in iMac or a mini (if you have the screen already, hell yes. Get those over a G series every day.

Or buy an old G3/4. And another one soon after once some component fails, or some more drives when their small ones fill up. Pretty soon a mini will start to look cheap.

[angelmb]

And don't forget the other side of the equation… software is going to be more expensive than any of the aforementioned hardware purchases being discussed here.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by fashizzle 

What the frig has changed so much in the 2D design world over the past 10 years that REQUIRES a new Mac? Right, nothing. Just like nothing in the road and pavement industry hasn't changed much since the 70's. Postscript is Postscript, PDF workflow is PDF workflow, vectors are vectors.

How much money is he going to shell out for new Macs? Is it more than his budget allows? Does he have options? Of course. You act as if it's New Mac or No Mac, and that's pathetic and indicative of someone who clearly does not work in the design industry. Go to your local prepress shop and look around - chances are you're not going to see the latest and greatest. Know why? It's 'cuz platform upgrades and software upgrades wreak havoc on established workflows. If you worked in the industry, you would clearly comprehend this. Our local prepress shop here that serves for a major printer is on CS1, Freehand and really old Preflighting software, running on a G4. Go tell 'em his "legacy" hardware is not effective and efficient. Go tell 'em that the thousands and thousands of dollars he has invested in PPC apps that is required to interface with his uber high end printing equipment is useless, and that a new Mac that won't even run his software is going to save him money and time.

Older Macs still have tons of life left in them, are quite suitable for 2D design, and return on investments kinda blow chunks if you feed into this cycle of thinking that you have to invest in the latest and greatest to be profitable. These are all the things one would expect to hear from someone who started on the platform on OSX and a G5 or Intel Mac.

I say he can START his business on used G4's/G5's and save a schload of money up front while he sets his process controls in place. What if it tanks and his artists suck? What if he decides that this direction is not profitable for him? Yeah thanks buddy, you just put this guy into massive debt unnecessarily, and in a rough economy to boot.

I occasionally run money-making events and I don't really want old technology to be at the core. Yeah, a G4 might be able to do it, but my MacBook Pro is so much 1) faster 2) reliable 3) has a warranty if it isn't. You don't wanna start a business on something that has no warranty or support coverage at all.