£180 to go the next iMac model up - worth it?

[Sheza]

Hi,

I need some real quick advice on the iMac 2017 5K before I buy it tonight.

There’s a chance my budget can stretch to the next model up + my custom 512GB SSD.

In the education store it’s £180 more, and you’re getting the i5 7600 over the 7500, and the Radeon 575 over the 570. Is this worth it, or should I spend the money on getting an upgrade from 8GB to 24GB RAM via a third party kit sooner rather than later down the line?

I’m talking objectively here - would I regret not having the upgraded processor and graphics card or are they really superficial upgrades? Is it an outstanding value upgrade or just meh?

Many thanks.

 

[Floris]

Think of it this way:

Why spend the extra money on hardware YOU can change later?
(well, it's apple, confirm the model you are buying lets you change the RAM ~ the one i got 27" i7 has 4x slots for up to 64gb)

If you have the money to spend, spend it on the upgrade of hardware you wish in 5 years you had upgraded.

 

[Sheza]

Think of it this way:

Why spend the extra money on hardware YOU can change later?
(well, it's apple, confirm the model you are buying lets you change the RAM ~ the one i got 27" i7 has 4x slots for up to 64gb)

If you have the money to spend, spend it on the upgrade of hardware you wish in 5 years you had upgraded.

Oh, can you change the processor and graphics card yourself?

 

[Floris]

Oh, can you change the processor and graphics card yourself?

"or should I spend the money on getting an upgrade from 8GB to 24GB RAM via a third party kit sooner rather than later down the line?"

I was commenting on the ram question you asked. Like i said, you can expand the ram later.
You can also use the money to get a usb-c to sata3 adapter cable and add a 500mb read/write SSD as second drive (just stick it to the back of the stand so its out of the way)

 

[Awgd8]

RAM is easier to upgrade. I believe 24GB of RAM is ideal.

I just bought my base 27” 5K iMac
I cheaped on the HDD and went for the 1TB fusion drive. I could have gotten at least a 256GB SSD (For MacOS and application and Safari) and compliment it with my current Samsung External T5 SSD 500GB. When I bought the iMac, I also ordered an extra 8x2 Gig of RAM (non Apple brand) so my current setup is now 24GB RAM.($135)

I was in the budget when I bought my IMac and didn’t expect to have an extra $300 after a week of buying the iMac.
I could have used the $300 for an Internal SSD, but here is my reason why I went for the 1TB fusion. (I still could have went for 256GB internal SSD)

I was not planning on buying the Apple care extended warranty. So I’m down to a year warranty for the iMac. If I had to buy an expensive Apple SSD 512+ GB and breaks after a year, I’ll lose a lot of money buying another parts and labor.

That’s why I could have gotten the minimum internal SSD size (256GB) enough to run the OS and application.
And then supplement it with the Samsung T5 external SSD for faster file transfer.

Right now I’m stucked with the slow 1TB fusion drive. I demount my 1TB fusion drive from the internal SSD (28GB) and used the internal SSD 28GB to store my Photo and video editing application since
the SSD internal has 400-1400MB/s speed (R&W). I just find the 1TB HDD useless since it only transfer files at 100-200 Mb/s.

I’ll use the external Samsung T5 500Gb($197) as MacOS bootable drive and frequent video and photo files transfer. (420-520 Mb/s transfer speed)

If I have to do it all over again this is what I would get.

Base iMac 27” 5K
w/ upgraded
- 256 GB SSD internal (Apple configured)
- 8 Gb x 2 (third part RAM) total: 24GB RAM
- Samsung T5 External SSD on Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) connection.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The 575 is quite a step up and the cpu will make little to no difference bless you go for the i7, if you are ordering the 512 ssd anyway it will be all about the graphics so if you game or edit 4K video you will want the improved graphics to be sure otherwise it may not be worth it but sceptical for longevity reasons or you are planned no a change in use case.