2017 vs 2019

[Nm789]

Hi guys, which specs would you chose performance wise.. I’d most likely upgrade the RAM on either model

Both 27” iMac


2019 iMac 27 inch, Retina 5K
3 GHz, 6 core Intel i5 processor
8gb DDR4 RAM (expandible)
Radeon Pro 570X 4gb Graphics
1TB hard drive capacity.

OR

2017 Apple 27inch iMac with retina 5k display ,MNED2AB/A(3.8Hz core i5 7th Gen ,8GB,2TB Fusion Drive,Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB video memory,English KB)S/N SC02XX133J1GJ

I’ll be mostly using it for running multiple live data tabs including charts, excel and browsing

thanks

 

[barbu]

I'd be most concerned with storage, avoid the spinning disks. Get the newest SSD equipped model you can afford. Or keep saving for those ARM Macs

 

[EugW]

Don't get hard drive.
Don't get Fusion drive.
2017 doesn't support streaming 4K like Netflix and Apple TV.

What do you mean by "charts"? What version of Excel do you use? If you have Office 365 then it's likely it will be available for the Arm Macs in 2021. Can you wait that long for Arm Mac? If not then I'd suggest a 2019 iMac with SSD. For your usage, the GPU and the amount of video RAM it has is completely irrelevant.

 

[yoak]

Is it possible to use "only" the SSD part of a Fusion drive? If I installed just FCX and then kept my material on an external scratch SSD disk over T3?

 

[profcutter]

You could split the fusion drive, but the smaller fusion drives have only a 32GB SSD, not enough to work with. The larger fusion drives have 128 GB drives. Both versions save a portion for wear-leveling, so you won’t get the full amount.