How to choose the best computer for graphic design

Table Of Content

• What kind of display do I need for graphic design?
• Anti-Crawler Protection is checking your browser and IP 23.158.72.219 for spam bots
• How Much Storage and Memory Should My Desktop Have?
• Best for Budget-Conscious Image Editors
• Dell XPS 8940
• Best Workstation for AI and Machine Learning Applications (Dual-CPU)
• Best Windows computer for graphic design

Chief among them is its Zero Gravity Hinge, which allows you to position the screen at an angle. Being able to adjust the screen in this manner is great for creative professionals who need to draw, but don't have a tablet. We've reviewed every GPU from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel to bring you a comprehensive list of the best GPUs for gaming. If you're considering an upgrade, make sure to read our guide on how to install a graphics card, as well as some of the most common GPU problems. Personal preference and experience dictate the operating system of choice more than anything, making it hard to recommend one over the other. The best way to tell which one is ideal for you is to try both out to see which one feels more intuitive for you to work on, and which one will work with your favorite programs.

What kind of display do I need for graphic design?

The 8-core CPU zips through common design tasks, while the 8-core GPU provides smooth graphics acceleration for apps and up to two displays. As a graphic designer, you want to have a smooth workflow, easy multitasking, and quick rendering, but without going overboard with specs or features that you might not use. You might be wondering what the MSI Trident AS is doing on this list since it’s often classified as a gaming computer. Well, it is a gaming computer, but it has features that can also fit the needs of graphic artists like you. The MSI Trident AS is one of the most compact gaming desktops on this list.

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Designers often use desktop computers for a complete workstation setup. Lastly, The Pavilion 590 micro tower design provides internal expansion capabilities for future upgrades. If you're considering getting a Mac for graphic design right now, it's an easy recommendation from me. However, the M1 chip outperforms CPUs costing several times as much in creative applications and video rendering times. The Lenovo Yoga AIO 7 4K display comes with an optional 99% Adobe RGB color gamut and 99% DCIP3 color space, which, of course, is useful for anyone who needs to optimize color accuracy.

How Much Storage and Memory Should My Desktop Have?

The screen and speakers are built-in, and you'll likely use a wireless keyboard and mouse, anyway. At a minimum, they'll have to connect to a display, speakers or headphones, and a power source. It's still possible to find desktops with only spinning hard drives, but we recommend avoiding these and choosing an SSD as the main boot drive whenever possible. Some desktops feature a single-drive combination of an SSD and a hard drive. A "true" SSD is the only way to go as a boot drive today, though, considering how far prices have dropped in the last couple of years.

The ‍Aurora R10 can also run multiple creative applications, so it will be easier for you to work with your designs. The new Apple Mac Mini comes in the same little metal box as before but with its biggest performance upgrade yet. The 5K resolution delivers stunning clarity and fine details critical for creative work.

Dell XPS 8940

HP's Z2 Mini G9 doesn't have those, but it has awesome performance, impressive connectivity, and surprising serviceability for a PC only 2.7 by 8.3 by 8.6 inches big. The latter must be a half-length, half-height GPU powered by the PCI Express slot, but the 12GB Nvidia RTX A2000 in our review system is certainly no slouch. As an upgrade on the M1 Max model, the M1 Ultra version of the Mac Studio deeply impressed us, but it's been easily superseded by its next-generation successor. It must be said first that the M2 Ultra model starts at $3,999, and the particular M2 Ultra version we reviewed cost an exorbitant $8,799 as configured.

You'll want to follow the guidance of the software maker, in that case. Google's ChromeOS is a viable alternative to Windows and macOS, but desktops running it (called Chromeboxes) are rare and best suited to niche uses like powering a restaurant menu display. A fourth option is to buy a desktop with no operating system at all and install an open-source one of your choosing, such as Ubuntu Linux. We don't recommend going this route unless you're technically savvy, willing to experiment, and okay with fixing software compatibility issues and other quirks.

Best Workstation for AI and Machine Learning Applications (Dual-CPU)

The best graphic design monitors of 2024: Expert tested - ZDNet

The best graphic design monitors of 2024: Expert tested.

Posted: Tue, 09 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It’s one of the most recommended options to go with especially if you need a compact desktop that comes with powerful hardware for content creation. On top, it comes with one of the best 5K display panels for editing your projects in high detail. Since you won’t be lugging a desktop around nearly as much as you would a laptop, it’s less important to handle the chassis and test-drive its build quality in the store before you bring it home. Still, if the desktop comes with peripherals included, it can be helpful to type a few lines and move the mouse around in the store. Setting eyes on an all-in-one desktop is more crucial than with a typical tower desktop or mini PC. The screen is an integral part of what you are buying, and eyes-on time matters, especially if you’re not well-versed, say, in the differences between a 24-inch and 27-inch panel, or a 1080p screen versus a 4K one.

These refurbished PCs are often surprisingly cheap ($150 to $250 is common), and many are desktop towers, so they're easy to upgrade or service if a component goes south. Large corporations lease fleets of desktops for a few years at a time, after which third parties refurbish them and provide them for resale on eBay, as well as via retailers such as Best Buy, Newegg, and TigerDirect. To find them, search or filter the product category pages for "off-lease" or refurbished systems. Few people will see much benefit from memory amounts above 16GB, but you'll find exceptions. Gaming PCs above the budget level should have at least 16GB of RAM, and 32GB is a prudent upgrade for esports hounds who want to play and simultaneously edit and stream in-game footage.

Here, I test and review the latest high-performance laptops and desktops, and sometimes a key core PC component or two. The best process for graphic design should have a large video memory. That will allow your computer to function smoothly and take some stress off the system. Then, I’ll share some of the top desktop computers for your graphic design work.

The HP ENVY 34 All-in-One is more affordable and one of the best such challengers to Apple's two-in-one that we've tested. In practice, our reviewer found it handled complex, labour-intensive tasks with ease, for example working on design in Illustrator and Photoshop at once while running Freeform and multiple browser tabs. The Pavilion 590 range offers various AMD Ryzen and Intel Core CPU options to fit different budgets without compromising performance. This Ryzen Edition desktop gives you the power to develop and explore new worlds with up to a 16-core 3rd generation AMD Ryzen processor.

More importantly, it's the only workstation available now with AMD's Threadripper 5000 Pro processors. You can pack in up to a Threadripper Pro 5995WX processor, which packs in 64 cores and 128 threads, along with an astounding 256MB of L3 cache. Similarly, you can add up to two Nvidia Quadro GV100 GPUs, which is powerful enough for even the most demanding tasks.

In both the US and the UK, Dell provides dozens of build-your-own options for customizing the Precision 7920. Max these out, and you can easily end up in the six-figure territory. This lets buyers tailor the system to precisely meet their performance requirements and budget.

Despite a beautifully compact and minimalist design, our testing fount it to very capable thanks to Apple's powerful M2 Pro chip, which takes performance to a whole new level. Our testing actually found it to be 10% faster than the M2 Max-powered MacBook Pro. The Mac Studio is more like the "headless" Mac Mini, sporting a compact, low-profile design that is sold without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. But, rather than the entry-level M1 processor used in the current Mac Mini, the somewhat larger Mac Studio steps up a gear, offering power-hungry creative users the choice of top-of-the-range M1 Max or M1 Ultra processors. With so many options, I hope this guide helped you narrow down your choices and that you benefited from my perspective as a fellow graphic designer. The XPS Desktop 8940 boasts its highly customizable feature when ordering, with a wide range of component options for processor, memory, storage, and graphics.

A desktop CPU gives you more power for complex content-creation work, PC gaming, or math and scientific projects. Faster processors with four, six, eight, or even as many as 18 cores will benefit software written to take advantage of the extra cores. The desktop version of a given CPU will consume more power and generate more heat than versions designed for laptops, which must be incorporated into environments that have less thermal and power-delivery leeway. A desktop CPU also has greater wiggle room to incorporate a key feature, multithreading, that allows each of the CPU's cores to address two processing threads at a time instead of just one. Multithreading (which Intel calls "Hyper-Threading") can deliver a major performance boost when engaged with suitably equipped software.