Computer for Website Design

fuzzball172

I don't want to start a PC / Mac war, but you are still paying a premium for the Apple styling. Yes Macs are good and have been seen as the standard platform for design work, by the design people. But as far as the technology goes there is very little actual difference between the two. The Adobe suite runs just as well on both systems (I use both) and as long as you throw as much RAM as your system can take at it, they will run well.
Laptop's are great if you freelance on the move, but if you are desk based then you are just paying a premium for the mobility, which you won't be using.
One aspect of web design I find very useful from my desktop is to run 2 monitors, that makes designing a little faster as I can have the second screen show online reference manual, my webserver, photoshop... the list goes on.
As to the Vista element. Out of the box, on a well built machine it's fine, if you stick to signed drivers and don't install any junk its as stable as the next operating system.
To save quite a bit of cash when buying your Adobe software, sign up to your local college for a course in web design. Once you have a student ID card, you qualify for Adobe's student discount which works out to over 80% discount on the CS4 Web premium suite which normally retails at over £1500.

Lee

stphnstevey

Desktop it is then, I works laptop if portability needed.

I think I will go for a normal desktop rather than a Mac, as I have a budget and I am just looking for workability rather than it being seamless.

I am looking between £200-£350 and don't mind installing the RAM myself it's cheaper.

Seen a few things here from budget end to quite a good spec

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161926
£200 AMD Sempron 4GB

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-3585.aspx
£220 AMD Sempron™ Dual Core processor 2gb

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/449937/dell-vostro-220-desktop-base-unit-e/showthread.php?p=5994079&posted=1#post5994079
£223 Core 2 Duo 1gb (Windows 7 upgrade)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167286
£235 Pentium Dual Core 2gb

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/449940/dell-vostro-220-desktop-base-unit-e/
£270 Core 2 Duo 2gb(Windows 7 upgrade)

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-6261.aspx
£300 Intel® Pentium Dual Core 4gb

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167289
£350 Intel Core 2 Quad 4gb



Any thoughts appreciated

jweb2k

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1236075562.1250024930@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdfadehmjmjlfkcflgceggdhhmdgmj.0&page=Product&fm=1&sm=3&tm=6&sku=589577&category_oid=-26387#productInformationSection

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1236075562.1250024930@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdfadehmjmjlfkcflgceggdhhmdgmj.0&page=Product&fm=1&sm=3&tm=6&sku=833578&category_oid=-26387#productInformationSection

To think about

jweb2k

stphnstevey wrote: »

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161926
£200 AMD Sempron 4GB

Old processor, doesn't include windows so you'll be buying that on top. I'd avoid.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-3585.aspx
£220 AMD Sempron™ Dual Core processor 2gb

It's alright but you'll be upgrading the RAM yourself before you start. Good price for a basic no frills PC.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/449937/dell-vostro-220-desktop-base-unit-e/showthread.php?p=5994079&posted=1#post5994079
£223 Core 2 Duo 1gb (Windows 7 upgrade)

Pile on a 4GB of RAM instead of the default. A bigger HD needed, and also a graphics card as it's just got an onboard one - no good for anything!

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167286
£235 Pentium Dual Core 2gb

Cheap E2220 processor, no graphics card

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/449940/dell-vostro-220-desktop-base-unit-e/
£270 Core 2 Duo 2gb(Windows 7 upgrade)

As above on Dell one

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-6261.aspx
£300 Intel® Pentium Dual Core 4gb

No real issues, good price

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167289
£350 Intel Core 2 Quad 4gb

Any thoughts appreciated

Integrated graphics, so you'll be buying a graphics card, but not bad apart from that.

Take a look at the currys ones I posted too.

bazster

I can't believe people are telling you that you need 3 or 4 Gb of RAM and God only knows what else.

Just buy a computer. Anything will do, it'll be fine. You want cheap? Buy the cheapest you can find. Anything you can buy new will be more than up to the job.

The cheapest new PC on the market will run Dreamweaver and Photoshop just fine. You can buy a Mac if you want, but only if you like the way it looks. It's a total waste of money otherwise.

Laptop or desktop? Whatever. Do you want it on your lap? The train? A plane? Then buy a laptop. You only want it on your desk? Go figure...

I used to buy big fat desktops for the upgradeability. And you know what? I never upgraded them. My work computer (I'm a freelance) is now a Dell Vostro laptop, the cheapest in the range.

jweb2k

bazster wrote: »

I can't believe people are telling you that you need 3 or 4 Gb of RAM and God only knows what else.

Just buy a computer. Anything will do, it'll be fine. You want cheap? Buy the cheapest you can find. Anything you can buy new will be more than up to the job.

The cheapest new PC on the market will run Dreamweaver and Photoshop just fine. You can buy a Mac if you want, but only if you like the way it looks. It's a total waste of money otherwise.

Laptop or desktop? Whatever. Do you want it on your lap? The train? A plane? Then buy a laptop. You only want it on your desk? Go figure...

I used to buy big fat desktops for the upgradeability. And you know what? I never upgraded them. My work computer (I'm a freelance) is now a Dell Vostro laptop, the cheapest in the range.

Good stuff. Now, recommended requirements for Dreamweaver and Photoshop as follows:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/systemreqs/
http://webdesign.about.com/od/dreamweaver/a/aadwsysreqs.htm

You want at least 1GB of RAM at an absolute minimum, but as you're considering this as a job, you'll want a good enough PC to handle anything a client asks of you, even Flash:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/systemreqs/

Latest Windows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7#Hardware_requirements

Unfortunately cheap PC's just won't do as some people will have you think, but nor do you need to go out and spend £1000 on a gaming system. There's definitely a happy medium, and your price range reflects that - just go for the best you can get within your budget

bazster

jweb2k wrote: »

Good stuff. Now, recommended requirements for Dreamweaver and Photoshop as follows:

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/systemreqs/
http://webdesign.about.com/od/dreamweaver/a/aadwsysreqs.htm

Exactly. Buying a brand-new PC which didn't massively exceed those requirements would be virtually impossible. My bargain-basement Vostro exceeds them several times over, I do this stuff day-in day-out, and my bank balance is looking good. There's no mystery or hocus-pocus here, just get on with it.

chunter

If you're going to be designing websites, get a big screen with high resolutions so you can look at different things at the same time.
More options on views, etc.
For that reason, don't even go near a laptop.

You don't need a spectacularly powerful computer because you're objective is to keep file sizes as small as possible.

Even with Photoshop you'll spend more time thinking than crunching processor time.

Even if you're batch processing photos, Photoshop will still shoot through the images at ridiculous speeds.

bazster

chunter wrote: »

If you're going to be designing websites, get a big screen with high resolutions so you can look at different things at the same time.

Now that I DO agree with. Although, of course, you can plug your big screen into your laptop when you get home.

fuzzball172

The reason we are saying 3-4Gb of RAM is because RAM is cheap and you will need it when you start getting into some of the stuff the adobe suite does... One of my web clients phoned me today asking to scale up his web site banner for a print advertisement, without 4gb of RAM there was no way photoshop was going to entertain a 1m x 2m 300dpi image. Ok so this is an unusual job, but it will bring in a lot more than my 2gb RAM upgrade cost...
Lee