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Retina iMac: Upgrade GPU or Processor?

BJB Productions

BJB Productions

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2008
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I'm a photographer and do occasional video work on the side. What would be more beneficial for me to upgrade :: Processor to 4.0GHz i7 or GPU to M295X?

- I'm not a gamer
- Mainly using Lightroom, PS, and other adobe apps.

Thoughts?
 
Pressure

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
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Denmark
It largely depends on your workflow.

What applications do you expect to use? Besides those 3 you mentioned.
 
BJB Productions

BJB Productions

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2008
1,314
136
Pressure said:
It largely depends on your workflow.

What applications do you expect to use? Besides those 3 you mentioned.
Click to expand...

I work with 1000s of RAW files with PS and LR mainly. I do (some) video work. Usually not 4k.

Lightroom
Photoshop
Illustrator
Bridge
Premiere Pro
Audition
iTunes
Chrome
Spotify
Billings Pro
...and some other random apps that probably don't matter...
 
Georgio

Georgio

macrumors 6502
Apr 30, 2008
369
38
Essex, UK
BJB Productions said:
I'm a photographer and do occasional video work on the side. What would be more beneficial for me to upgrade :: Processor to 4.0GHz i7 or GPU to M295X?

- I'm not a gamer
- Mainly using Lightroom, PS, and other adobe apps.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Assuming you're upgrading to at least 16GB of RAM, which you should do, I would actually go with the 295 GPU as the display really needs something with a bit of power to drive it effectively.
The CPU is already pretty good, though as an icing on the cake I would really try and get the i7 upgrade as well.
 
J

JediFragger

macrumors newbie
Oct 21, 2014
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0
Personally I'd go with the cpu upgrade if it had to be one, power increase all over then (and not gpu/software dependant)
 
Pressure

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,040
1,381
Denmark
Well, most of those tasks will benefit from the faster processor and it's higher single core performance.

The M290X is adequate, despite what others may say. However, I would definitely get both upgrades myself.
 
BJB Productions

BJB Productions

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 10, 2008
1,314
136
yjchua95 said:
Well, I guess you'll have to save up more then. Because if you're already going to spend this much on the retina iMac, you might as well as save up a bit more and max it out.

Keep in mind that the i7 has hyper threading.
Click to expand...

I have no need for a maxed machine. Good note regarding the i7.
 
F

forg0t

macrumors member
Aug 13, 2014
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0
BJB Productions said:
I have no need for a maxed machine. Good note regarding the i7.
Click to expand...

According to iFixit, the processor is user upgradeable. If you're feeling ballsy later on. I usually spend my money on things that cannot be user upgraded first, like the gpu, and then if I decide I need the other stuff I'll install them myself later.
 
B

Bryan Bowler

macrumors 601
Sep 27, 2008
4,024
4,347
BJB,

I too strongly recommend upgrading both, but if you absolutely positively can't, then I would probably go ahead and upgrade the CPU since it will enable hyper threading.

My first choice however, would be to save for another month or two and upgrade both, especially with the work you do.

Hopefully you're only ordering it with 8 GB of Apple RAM and then adding Crucial RAM to bump it up to 16 GB, right? I certainly don't know what your plans are, but if you're thinking about buying Apple's RAM for either 16 GB or 32 GB, then that would be money wasted that could go towards covering the cost of upgrading the GPU. Food for thought...

Bryan
 
jji7skyline

jji7skyline

macrumors 6502
Aug 10, 2011
302
0
CPU all the way. For non-gaming purposes the M290X is more than enough power. After all, all it needs to do is a little pixel pushing, and a little 2D/3D composition for the OS. It's the actual rendering in games that get graphics cards going.

In fact, modern integrated graphics cards in Intel chips can support 4K even on the cheaper Haswell motherboards.

With the programs you mentioned, the higher clocked and hyperthreaded CPU will be a bigger performance increase.

Make sure you get an SSD, and upgrade the RAM yourself with either an 8GB or 16GB kit.
 
H

hyune83

macrumors member
Sep 19, 2008
71
0
Probably CPU for photoshop. But who knows in the future as adobe is getting more gnu dependent?
 
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