5K iMac 2015 (i5) or 2012 Mac Mini i7

[MarvinHC]

I admit, at first sight this might be a bit of a strange comparison...

Here's the story: I had my eyes on a used late 2015 5k iMac (i5 3.3 GHZ with 2TB fusion drive). Now I just ran into a cheap 2012 Mac Mini (i7 2.3 GHZ) and now I am hesitating:

Do I buy the iMac or upgrade the Mac Mini (easy to put in a 2TB HDD + SSD as a home made fusion drive)?

Surprisingly, the GeekBench scores are very similar (with slight advantages to the newer iMac of course), they both have the same ports.
The two major differences I see are the GPU (Radeon R9 M395 vs Intel HD 4000) and of course the screen itself - the mini can only do 2560 x 1600.

I want to use this as my main machine. What do you think?

Side-note: how much do you value a two year old iMac 2015 5K 27" with 2TB Fusion drive and 8GB RAM?

Looking forward to hearing some opinions to help my thinking

 

[Luxtrau]

I just sold my Mac mini 2012 to get my iMac 5k 2017.

My Mac mini had a 512 GB SSD and intel i7 2,3 Ghz. It never was slow, it's a config you can work with.
Big downside is of course GPU, the HD 4000 is outdated, you can forget about everything that requires GPU Power. No gaming, no rendering.
So it's important to know what you want to do with your Mac?
And what are prices of the Macs you are thinking about?

 

[MarvinHC]

Thanks for the quick feedback. The machine will serve for a bit of everything, the more demanding tasks being photo editing (quite big files from DSLR) and some video editing.

I got the Mini for about $300 - so I can always sell it on without loss or use it for something else.

The iMac in question has a price of $1300. So even after fully upgrading the Mini and buying a nice screen or two, there is quite a big price gap.

The iMac I mentioned is a 3.3GHZ i5 late 2015 27" model with the 2TB fusion drive and 8GB RAM. It has about 15 months Apple Care left.

 

[Luxtrau]

Thanks for the quick feedback. The machine will serve for a bit of everything, the more demanding tasks being photo editing (quite big files from DSLR) and some video editing.

I got the Mini for about $300 - so I can always sell it on without loss or use it for something else.

The iMac in question has a price of $1300. So even after fully upgrading the Mini and buying a nice screen or two, there is quite a big price gap.

The iMac I mentioned is a 3.3GHZ i5 late 2015 27" model with the 2TB fusion drive and 8GB RAM. It has about 15 months Apple Care left.

Sounds quiet good. So I think your right: with 1300 you won't get a computer PLUS 5k display like the iMac and the only big difference is GPU. The remaining specs will result in a similar performance I guess. But you have to consider that the iMac 5k has a lot more pixels to render, so its GPU won't be a lot more faster in tasks that are depending on display resolution. AppleCare is nice to have, too. Perhaps I would go for the iMac if you want a Mac right now and won't be able to afford a high-end Mac later. Indeed, a new iMac 5k would cost a lot more.

 

[Fishrrman]

The iMac sounds good for $1,300 - IF it's in good shape and everything's functional...

 

[jksu]

iMac