2014 iMac 5k in 2019?

[AOMG]

Hello, I was wondering if a iMac 2014 5K with the following specs is worth 1400.00?

• 4.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 "Haswell" processor with Turbo Boost Speeds up to 4.4GHz
• 32GB Apple 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM (4 x 8GB modules)
• 3TB Fusion Drive (Which combines a 128GB PCIe-Based SSD and a 3TB 7200RPM HDD)
• Radeon R9 M295X Graphics card with 4GB dedicated GDDR5 Memory

It is a bit out of budget, so another option for like 700 would be this:

• 3.1GHz Intel Quad Core i7 processor with Boost Speeds up to 3.9GHz
• 16GB of 1600MHz RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB Dedicated GFX
• 512GB Apple SSD hard drive
• Razor thin, all-aluminum casing
• 21.5" 1920x1080 LED-backlit 16:9 widescreen IPS display

I want a machine that's able to last me years to come. I do a lot of UX Design if that helps.

 

[disssenter]

I can’t say for price, probably it’s OK for such a specs for 2014 5K iMac.
I have one with such i7-4790K processor and Radeon R9 M295X Graphics card.
And what I can say w/o any doubt it is very HOT machine, so you need keep it as cool as possible (and with low lightning conditions as well)) ). During casual workflow with Autocad, temperature outside little bit warmer than 22°C, the sun glowing through your window little bit, so your automatic brightness control will turn brightness up to 100% and after a little while your GPU will be as hot as 110°C and your machine will be switched to sleep mode again and again to preserve it from overheating — very frustrating when you need your work done as soon as possible.
It is just one example, but there a lot of scenarios when it will be as hot as frying pan: a lot tabs in Safari living their lives, picture in picture plus editing photos, etc.
So take it into consideration. With that machine your must have AC and decent pair of curtains or live up to the North with windows opposite the Sun side.
But it still decent powerful machine if aforementioned conditions are fulfilled.
Or mine requires little bit maintenance since 2014)) but definitely I don’t think that it is the cause of the problem.

 

[AOMG]

I can’t say for price, probably it’s OK for such a specs for 2014 5K iMac.
I have one with such i7-4790K processor and Radeon R9 M295X Graphics card.
And what I can say w/o any doubt it is very HOT machine, so you need keep it as cool as possible (and with low lightning conditions as well)) ). During casual workflow with Autocad, temperature outside little bit warmer than 22°C, the sun glowing through your window little bit, so your automatic brightness control will turn brightness up to 100% and after a little while your GPU will be as hot as 110°C and your machine will be switched to sleep mode again and again to preserve it from overheating — very frustrating when you need your work done as soon as possible.
It is just one example, but there a lot of scenarios when it will be as hot as frying pan: a lot tabs in Safari living their lives, picture in picture plus editing photos, etc.
So take it into consideration. With that machine your must have AC and decent pair of curtains or live up to the North with windows opposite the Sun side.
But it still decent powerful machine if aforementioned conditions is fulfilled.
Or mine requires little bit maintenance since 2014)) but definitely I don’t think that it is the cause of the problem.

Thanks for the heads up for the heat issue. Guess this machine isn't for me cause I live in California with no AC

 

[disssenter]

You are welcome, but I forgot to mention that I have very hot HDD (~52-53°C at aforementioned conditions) inside of mine, so may be it interfere with heat balance and iMac would have been cooler without this HDD, btw not so much I think, because I read that previous 2013 non-retina Nvidia-based ones had their GPU as hot as 80°C or something like that. So, this “rollout” for brand-new lineup model as always ended up as a tradeoff: in that case you’ve got retina display for the first time, but they did not have cool and powerful enough hardware at that time to power it, so you loose in heat performance and your machine either throttle itself down or just switch off display when it little bit warmer than 20°C and you are working with GPU intensive software, not just checking Macrumors forums)).
I think that following 2015, etc. models much better at that aspect.

 

[AOMG]

You are welcome, but I forgot to mention that I have very hot HDD (~52-53°C at aforementioned conditions) inside of mine, so may be it interfere with heat balance and iMac would have been cooler without this HDD, btw not so much I think, because I read that previous 2013 non-retina Nvidia-based ones had their GPU as hot as 80°C or something like that. So, this “rollout” for brand-new lineup model as always ended up as a tradeoff: in that case you’ve got retina display for the first time, but they did not have cool and powerful enough hardware at that time to power it, so you loose in heat performance and your machine either throttle itself down or just switch off display when it little bit warmer than 20°C and you are working with GPU intensive software, not just checking Macrumors forums)).
I think that following 2015, etc. models much better at that aspect.

Okay sweet, I'll look into the 2015+ models. Thanks for mentioning the heat issue btw, no one else has talked it about that in the other forums beside fusion drive and stuff lol