Base Model 5k Imac - Keep or Upgrade?

[grunty]

Got a hold of a 5k base model iMac at a decent price -Quad Core I5 3.3 / 8GB Ram / 1TB 7400 RPM disk.

Usually i'd have got into the house, opened the box and had it on my desk before doing anything else - this one is still in the box though.

Can't decide if should just sell it and make around £200 from it or go all in and upgrade the RAM / SSD (and in turn void the warranty).

For just under £300 i could have 32 GB Memory 512MB SSD Drive upgrade kit from OWC to get around the fan issues

and i'd be left with a 5k Imac / Quad Core I5 / 32GB RAM and a 512mb SSD (which sounds awesome.

Other option is sell it and try to get a mac pro on the cheap which will probably set me back another £1000 and then a monitor to buy..

Any help / advice? (totally prepared to take the gamble on the warranty)

Thanks..

 

[jmwagner95]

If having a 5k display is something you're interested in, then it doesn't necessarily make sense to sell and pick up the mac pro with monitor.

This 5k display from Dell floats around the $2000 price point.

What would you be using the machine for? If 5k is not a necessity, a quality 4k display can be had for well under $1000.

 

[grunty]

Hello - I'll admit to liking the 5k display but it's not something i'm hellbent on. Biggest use for me will probably be virtualisation (hence the lots of memory).

Kids are minecraft daft as well so a decent GPU / CPU wouldn't go a miss either.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Go for it that sounds like a great machine, it'll give you almost the performance of the pro for gaming at much lower cost with a great 5K screen thrown in.

 

[Dubadai]

I would sell it, because being stuck with a mechanical drive in 2015 is not going to be fun...

 

[TechZeke]

I would sell it, because being stuck with a mechanical drive in 2015 is not going to be fun...

This is literally the only that is disappointing about the new base 5K. It offers 95% of the CPU and GPU performance for $300 less but you're stuck with an HDD. It's a fast HDD, but it's a HDD nonetheless.

And it's too bad you can't spend $100 and stick a standard 256GB SATA SSD in it without a bunch of hassle.

 

[theluggage]

Other option is sell it and try to get a mac pro on the cheap which will probably set me back another £1000 and then a monitor to buy..

You've got to ask yourself: do you really want a Mac Pro? They're nice machines if money is no object, but they're only "value for money" if you're going to use them for what they're optimised for: serious video editing, rendering and other applications that require sustained heavy CPU load & can offload processing to the dual GPU.

For the iMac, remember that the RAM upgrade is an easy no-tool upgrade that won't void the warranty. Its the SSD upgrade that is the challenge - personally, I might try that on a 2-3 year old machine that needed a boost, but I'd quail at doing it on a brand new one - but if you're up for it, why not? (If you're making the effort, I'd be inclined to put in a ~1TB SSD)

Might be worth seeing how the HD performs with 32GB RAM first, though - might be good enough.

 

[hfg]

You could always add an external Thunderbolt SSD and boot/run OS X from that. Get a tiny bus-powered portable like a LaCie "Rugged", remove the orange rubber shell, and stick it on the back of your iMac stand out of sight. Use the internal hard disk for library, archive data, backup, etc. No opening the iMac and risking damage or voiding the warranty.

 

[grunty]

You could always add an external Thunderbolt SSD and boot/run OS X from that. Get a tiny bus-powered portable like a LaCie "Rugged", remove the orange rubber shell, and stick it on the back of your iMac stand out of sight. Use the internal hard disk for library, archive data, backup, etc. No opening the iMac and risking damage or voiding the warranty.

Thats an awesome idea... Thats tonights research sorted!

Thanks

 

[grunty]

You've got to ask yourself: do you really want a Mac Pro? They're nice machines if money is no object, but they're only "value for money" if you're going to use them for what they're optimised for: serious video editing, rendering and other applications that require sustained heavy CPU load & can offload processing to the dual GPU.

For the iMac, remember that the RAM upgrade is an easy no-tool upgrade that won't void the warranty. Its the SSD upgrade that is the challenge - personally, I might try that on a 2-3 year old machine that needed a boost, but I'd quail at doing it on a brand new one - but if you're up for it, why not? (If you're making the effort, I'd be inclined to put in a ~1TB SSD)

Might be worth seeing how the HD performs with 32GB RAM first, though - might be good enough.

I've ordered the kit from OWC for the HDD upgrade - fair shout if i do go ahead and do the upgrade i'd be as well making it the 1TB..

 

[warrenl]

be aware that you do not get the full read/write performance using the Lacie Thunderbolt external. The write speeds is reduced by about 75-100 MBs compared to a powered Thunderbolt enclosure.