Convince My Boss I Need A New Art Computer

[art120]

I work as a graphic designer and I have been asking my boss to get me new computer ever since I got this job. My current computer is a joke. It's totally insufficient for what I'm doing. It's an off-the-shelf Lenovo IdeaCenter 700-25ISH. It bogs down terribly whenever I do any complicated art procedures and my programs often crash.

Intel Core i5-6400 Processor 2.7 GHz( cache)
8 GB RAM
1000 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 730 Graphics

I told my boss that there pretty much isn't any, sensibly priced, off-the-shelf computers that will be sufficient and that he will get the best bang for the buck if he let's me build my own system. But apparently he thinks spending $2k on a computer is ludicrous.

I don't know what to do. In the past I was just like, whatever, I'll just go slow then. But I've got a new boss and he sometimes complains that I'm not being productive enough, even though I'm very fast and efficient when I have a decent machine. It's making me look bad.

What should I tell him, to convince him that I really do need a new computer and $2k is a reasonable price?

 

[Kasper Jorgensen]

Just tell him that if he wants you to be more efficient, you will need a new computer.

 

[artk2219]

I work as a graphic designer and I have been asking my boss to get me new computer ever since I got this job. My current computer is a joke. It's totally insufficient for what I'm doing. It's a $600 off-the-shelf Lenovo IdeaCenter 710. It bogs down terribly whenever I do any complicated art procedures and my programs often crash.

Lenovo IdeaCentre 710 Tower Desktop, Intel Quad-Core i5-6400 Upto 3.3GHz, 8GB DDR4, 128GB SSD Plus 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 2GB

I told my boss that there pretty much isn't any, sensibly priced, off-the-shelf computers that will be sufficient and that he will get the best bang for the buck if he let's me build my own system. But apparently he thinks spending $2k on a computer is ludicrous.

I don't know what to do. In the past I was just like, whatever, I'll just go slow then. But I've got a new boss and he sometimes complains that I'm not being productive enough, even though I'm very fast and efficient when I have a decent machine. It's making me look bad.

What should I tell him, to convince him that I really do need a new computer and $2k is a reasonable price?

For a design computer that is definitely woefully under powered, just curious what applications your using though? Maybe we can find some benchmarks with comparisons showing that even with all else being equal (it wont be) you can still extract a very meaningful increase in productivity by spending some cash, also you could look into used workstations? Finally, if they're cheap when it comes to work equipment, they'll be cheap with anything else, i wouldn't plan on hanging out there for too long.

 

[art120]

I mainly use Adobe Photoshop CC and CorelDraw 2018.
Thanks for the replies.

 

[seagate_surfer]

art120, i used to have the same problem many years ago and that did not turn out too well so I understand. Best thing you can do if it is a no with the upgrade, is to make sure you have a good backup in place because loosing any artwork and having to start over with a less than ideal unit is no fun. Tell him it is an investment. Best of luck.

 

[artk2219]

I mainly use Adobe Photoshop CC and CorelDraw 2018.
Thanks for the replies.

I'm having a hard time finding relevant adobe or corel benchmarks for you im sad to say, all of the ones using newer better parts dont include a valid reference point for you to point to so you can show them what the difference is. I did manage to find 1 page with a semi valid comparison, it has an i5 3570k, which should be about as fast, or a smidge faster. I mean if you can get them to spend even $1000 you could pickup something like whats below, add your own drives, video card, and OS, and be in a potentially better situation if you're thread limited, otherwise you could upgrade the CPU's for faster clocked ones. But then you're back to spending more money than you would have had you bought new from the get go. I mean what you currently have I would only give to a standard office worker, and even then I would want them to have at least 16gb of ram (even if its overkill now, it wont be in 3 years), and an ssd. It wouldn't be terrible to remind them that their inability to budge is actually costing them far more money than if they just bought proper equipment.

https://www.techspot.com/news/68550-how-much-faster-modern-workstation-adobe-photoshop-cc.html

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-T5600-16-Core-2-60GHz-E5-2670-32GB-No-HDD-No-OS/382390097309?hash=item590839d59d%3Ag%3A94sAAOSwSK1bBtFL%3Asc%3AUPSGround%2130339%21US%21-1&LH_BIN=1

 

[The Paladin]

all you need is an i7-8700, 16GB and B360 Motherboard and a 1060 Video card, a decent 2-4TB drive to save your data...
noneof which is 2K (the preice of a gaming system)

My wife works for a printing company, and she's uses Adobe creative Suite, ad she uses Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver, and I can tell you it she never complained about her workstation and she's runs 24GB E5520 2.27GHz workstation dual monitors and she's doesn't complain about any issue of speeds or what not you mention.

I think your complaints at best are video card related.
anyways, This is all you need... it will be better than what you have, and you won't get your boss complaining about the price.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($309.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($65.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 3GB 3GB SC GAMING Video Card ($219.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $735.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-28 18:11 EDT-0400