Technology is great, but it can also be overwhelming. What’s the best computer for? What other equipment do you need?? Hardware — Via Virtually any computer more powerful than a netbook, and less than three years old, will probably serve your basic needs. Everyone does a little photo editing here and there, even if it’s just adding a sepia tone to your baby’s pictures. But once you’ve committed to becoming a serious, you’ll almost certainly want to upgrade your computer. The best computer for graphic design will vary from designer to designer, but there are some key things to focus on: processor speed, memory, screen resolution and, something you might not have heard of, hard disk speed.

Are you searching for the best graphic design programs on the market? Look no further, here we uncover the And with such a large variety of free and paid graphic design programs, it can While Sketch is only available for Mac users, the vector editing interface is becoming increasingly popular in.

Graphic design software is processor-intensive, and it only becomes moreso every year. For most programs, you’ll want a processor (or “CPU”) that runs at least 1Ghz (meaning the computer can make one billion calculations per second). That’s the minimum; look for an even faster processor if you can afford it. But there’s more to computer speed than just the processor. There’s also Random Access Memory, or “RAM,” or sometimes just “memory.” (Not to be confused with storage memory. Easy, right?) RAM is kind of like short-term memory; it’s the stuff that your computer keeps at the forefront of its mind. The more RAM you have, the more things you can process at once, because it’s faster than going to the hard drive for the files in use.

You’ll want, at minimum, 8Gb of RAM; more if you can afford it. (You’ll find “more if you can afford it” is a pattern.) Once you’ve passed these minimums, you might wonder where to spend your money on speeding up your computer even more. The fact is, once your CPU is past the gigahertz range, you’re unlikely to notice a performance increase by getting a faster processor. Your money would be much better spent on RAM. 16 or even 32 gigs will definitely make your work fly.

Any sort of off-the-shelf computer you’d be considering is likely to have a fairly large hard drive. You shouldn’t really be concerned about that, though, because the built-in hard drive should primarily be used for installing software and storing projects you’re currently working on. Old design files, that you only have to access occasionally, can and should be stored on external drives, which brings us to Peripherals — Hard drive There are two types of hard drives: Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD). On the inside, HDDs are metal disks with magnetic coating. They physically spin, similar to record players, only at much higher speeds.

SSDs are made up of a series of memory chips, and thus have no moving parts. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

HDDs are cheaper, usually about half the price for the same amount of storage. In fact, HDDs have a higher ceiling for total storage; SSDs tend to top out around 4 terabytes. On the other hand, SSDs are more durable, because they don’t have moving parts. You can drop an SSD off your desk onto the floor, and it’ll probably be fine; that’s not the case with an HDD.

If you’re going to be moving around a lot while working, SSDs are the way to go. But the real advantage of SSDs is their speed. If your internal hard drive is an SSD, you’ll notice your computer boots faster, and programs launch faster. For your external drive, data transfers more quickly from SSDs than HDDs. If you decide to go with an HDD, the hard disk speed is something to pay attention to.

The hard drive on which you install the software should spin at 7200rpm. This speed is less important for your external storage; as long as you’re only storing files and not actually running software on the external hard drive, 5400rpm is fine. As for storage space itself, is a good place to start, and 2TB wouldn’t hurt. You’ll be constantly expanding your storage space, but according to, it’ll get cheaper every year, so don’t spend all your money now. Monitor For your monitor, ensure the resolution is at least 1280 x 800. Again, higher resolution is better, if you can afford it.

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