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bender0069
2008-06-06, 08:08
My husbands ancient windows machine just crashed and he's toying with the idea of getting a Mac. I'm just curious about which new iMac we should be looking at (or if we should even be looking at another machine.) He is a general contractor, so he does estimates and drawings on his computer. He uses a program called Turbo Cad mostly, and the last time I was at the Apple Store, I noticed they had Turbo Cad for Mac. So I guess my first question, if he buys a Mac and Turbo Cad, would he be able to open the drawings he did on his windows machine in the Mac Turbo Cad program? If not, then I'm aware we may have to do Windows via boot camp for him to open those drawings or use other cad programs.

So, I was thinking an iMac with a 24" screen. I just didn't know if we need the the core extreme, or if the other would do OK for his use. He has external drives to back up and store some drawings, and extra RAM would be bought 3rd party. A huge internal hard drive would be nice, but not absolutely necessary with the externals. Any thoughts, or should we be considering a different computer all together.

Robo
2008-06-06, 09:04
I'm not superfamiliar with AutoCAD, so I'll leave those questions to someone else. But to answer the rest of your questions:

The iMac is a great computer. It's powerful, and beautiful. What more could you want? (OK, it could be cheaper... :p)

I think you're right to look at the 24" model, because the screen is not just larger - it's much nicer, too. (And, of course, there's moar powar.)

You're definitely right to buy third party RAM. Apple, like all OEMs, charges you through the nose for it.

I don't think you need the Core 2 Extreme. Like all top-of-the-line stuff, you pay a huge premium for it and it usually isn't really...worth it. I know it's the big Three-point-Oh Gigahertz, but $200 for 260 MHz? It's not going to make your computer feel ten percent faster, or last ten percent longer, so why pay ten percent more for it?

Depending on the nature of AutoCAD, you might want to think about upgrading the graphics card, though. The GeForce 8800GS isn't quite top-of-the-line, so you aren't paying that huge premium for it, and it might improve your graphics performance quite a bit. Again, someone who knows more about AutoCAD would be the best to answer that question, because I don't know how graphics-card-intensive AutoCAD is compared to other design apps.

Hope that helps!

Boomerangmacuser
2008-06-06, 11:12
What Roboman said...

I bought the 20" and occasionally feel a tinge of regret that I didn't get the 24". That screen is teh beautiful!

Wait for someone to chime in about your CAD app. Not sure how processor/graphics intensive it is.

TurboCad (http://www.turbocad.com/TurboCAD/TurboCADforMac/TurboCADMacv3/tabid/587/Default.aspx) can handle standard AUTOCAD files so I don't see why it can't handle it's own PC version files.