Graphics Design Newbie - Need assistance with current PC Specs

ColinGillic

New Member
Hi Guys,

Firstly let me start by saying that I am new the the community so please bear with me. As a web designer, I have dabbled with Photoshop and Illustrator in the past but am now embarking on a series of courses for the CS6 Creative Suite to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the applications with a view to being able to offer design and print solutions to my clients (which I am been increasingly asked for and currently have to outsource).

I know the debate about which is better (mac vs pc) is still ongoing but I personally don't want to move to a mac and from what I have been reading, there really isn't a performance gain over windows nowadays.

I currently have two systems each of which I use for my web design.

The first is a Dell Optiplex 755 small form factor desktop.

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66Ghz
RAM Upgraded to 8Gb
1 Tb sata h/d( I have been reading that you cannot add drives to this machine)
GPU - Ati Radeon 2400 HD Pro video card



The second is a Dell Latitude e5530 Laptop (for which I have a docking station and dual monitors)

CPU - Intel Core i3 3110M 2.4Ghz

RAM - 4Gb - Maximum memory: 16384MB according to crucial.com

298Gb H/d

GPU Intel HD Graphics 4000

I am using Windows 7 on both systems but as you pointed out, my Windows Experience scores are average.

Here is the E5530 Latitude Laptop

LATITUDE.jpg

I cant get a screenshot of the optiplex at the moment but as the hardware is older (it originally shipped with Vista) I can only assume the score would not improve.

I suppose my question for you all is which (if any) of these machines would be most suited solely for my studies and what would I need to upgrade (if anything) to achieve my goal. I am open to upgrade advice and once I get more proficient with the products I will be looking for advice on a more graphics orientated machine but I want to make sure I will "get to grips" with the software before been out the price of a complete new system.


Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this post
 
Either should be fine. For years, I was working on a well out of date PC, with much worst specs before I got my first iMac this year.
 
I agree, your specs seem ok. I was running a vista 2 gig pc with CS4 and although it wasn't great at loading, it worked ok when up and running.
 
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