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Buying help needed..

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bluefox9er

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 28, 2010
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Hi guys..my 2009 27' iMac finally died..apparently the logic board had had enough.

Anyways, i need a new iMac...the buying guide here suggests to wait for a new launch. My needs are really for high end photography, i don't do anything with video. Is it going to be significantly better for me to wait for the new models or should I go ahead and get one now? Adobe Light Room and PS will be the apps that require the most grunt for my needs.

Many thanks for any assistance and advice.
 
Hi I was just faced with the same dilemma. I am a very serious photographer and use lightroom and photoshop. I decided not to wait and bought the 10 core IMAC Pro. Great computer
 
Photoshop doesn’t get any significant advantage from multi cores.
In fact adobe community is raging about it for the past 10 years or so.
Lightroom apparently (adobe community) works best 4-8 cores.
Get the highest clock you can afford and max it with good matching memory. 4 vs 16 cores and you probably won’t even notice the difference.
 
Grohowiak said:
Photoshop doesn’t get any significant advantage from multi cores.
In fact adobe community is raging about it for the past 10 years or so.
Lightroom apparently (adobe community) works best 4-8 cores.
Get the highest clock you can affor and max it with memory. 4 vs 16 cores and you probably won’t even notice the difference.
Click to expand...
Lightroom uses as many cores as you have
 
Lawrenceblau said:
Lightroom uses as many cores as you have
Click to expand...

Show me some benchmarks cause I’m looking for some (don’t use Lightroom) and can’t find any that would show advantages that justify high cost of such setup.

One of the reasons why many games still work better with high clocked i5 since the extra cores/threads of i7 don’t bring higher performance not to mention justify higher cost of cpu and cooling system to handle it.
 
Lawrenceblau said:
Do the search on this forum. There are benchmarks posted and ask Adobe
Click to expand...
I checked adobe forums and I see exactly what I wrote so give me some numbers to back your theory or stop posting information that you have no proof of cause the difference between of what the original poster potentially needs and what you suggest is thousands of dollars.
 
Grohowiak said:
I checked adobe forums and I see exactly what I wrote so give me some numbers to back your theory or stop posting information that you have no proof of cause the difference between of what the original poster needs and what you suggest is thousands of dollars.
Click to expand...
I
Grohowiak said:
I checked adobe forums and I see exactly what I wrote so give me some numbers to back your theory or stop posting information that you have no proof of cause the difference between of what the original poster needs and what you suggest is thousands of dollars.
Click to expand...
l suggest you check this forum
 
Grohowiak said:
Looking at how a poster (on this forum) is trying to push information without proof, I’m gonna stick to application specific forum. It’s called logic.
Click to expand...
I suggest you post a question
Grohowiak said:
Looking at how a poster (on this forum) is trying to push information without proof, I’m gonna stick to application specific forum. It’s called logic.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1537555682][/doublepost]
Grohowiak said:
Photoshop doesn’t get any significant advantage from multi cores.
In fact adobe community is raging about it for the past 10 years or so.
Lightroom apparently (adobe community) works best 4-8 cores.
Get the highest clock you can afford and max it with good matching memory. 4 vs 16 cores and you probably won’t even notice the difference.
Click to expand...
Check out the thread of April 4, 2018 dated IMAC Pro Lightroom 7.2. Benchmarks and lots of discussion
 
Lawrenceblau said:
I suggest you post a question

[doublepost=1537555682][/doublepost]
Check out the thread of April 4, 2018 dated IMAC Pro Lightroom 7.2. Benchmarks and lots of discussion
Click to expand...

So I did find nice detailed description (still not ACTUAL BENCHMARKS cause that’s what I’m asking and you can’t provide) and I suggest reading post #22

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-on-lightroom.2133889/#post-26390794

Now. I’m not interested in opinions. Can you provide solid numbers to justify your advice to spend a lot of money on a system that according to official forums has no real benefits over cheaper alternatives cause at this point I see your statement on par with those that 16GB is absolute minimum these days which are quite popular on this forum and show complete lack of understanding how computers work.

I might be wrong here but I can’t find anywhere that high core count has any meaningful impact vs the usual 4-8.
 
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Grohowiak said:
So I did find nice detailed description (still not ACTUAL BENCHMARKS cause that’s what I’m asking and you can’t provide) and I suggest reading post #22

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-on-lightroom.2133889/#post-26390794

Now. I’m not interested in opinions. Can you provide solid numbers to justify your advice to spend a lot of money on a system that according to official forums has no real benefits over cheaper alternatives cause at this point I see your statement on par with those that 16GB is absolute minimum these days which are quite popular on this forum and show complete lack of understanding how computers work.

I might be wrong here but I can’t find anywhere that high core count has any meaningful impact vs the usual 4-8.
Click to expand...
I don’t understand your problem nor do I care. The thread I pointed you towards has details and tests.
 
I don't expect new iMacs until 2nd quarter 2019 at the earliest (I could be wrong).

Having said that, if you're going to buy now, get a "midrange" iMac (3.5ghz) with an SSD.
Be aware (you have been warned!) that the i7 iMacs can be "noisier" due to increased fan speeds.

I see no reason to buy an iMac Pro unless you have money to throw away, or are someone who uses the Mac for income and can write it off as a business expense.
 
Fishrrman said:
I don't expect new iMacs until 2nd quarter 2019 at the earliest (I could be wrong).

Having said that, if you're going to buy now, get a "midrange" iMac (3.5ghz) with an SSD.
Be aware (you have been warned!) that the i7 iMacs can be "noisier" due to increased fan speeds.

I see no reason to buy an iMac Pro unless you have money to throw away, or are someone who uses the Mac for income and can write it off as a business expense.
Click to expand...


I have no reason to buy an iMac pro..my 2009 Mac was happily handing lightroom. SSD drives are appealing but i need more affordable real estate in terms of on board storage. Im not sure what a fusion drive is, but that seems to be the defecto hard disk for the current iMacs
 
bluefox9er said:
I have no reason to buy an iMac pro..my 2009 Mac was happily handing lightroom. SSD drives are appealing but i need more affordable real estate in terms of on board storage. Im not sure what a fusion drive is, but that seems to be the defecto hard disk for the current iMacs
Click to expand...

Fusion drive is a blend of small SSD and large spinbox.
Not worth it. Better get the 256GB SSD option and then buy external drives SSD or mechanical whatever fits your boat.
 
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bluefox wrote:
"SSD drives are appealing but i need more affordable real estate in terms of on board storage."

If you don't get an SSD in a new Mac, you're going to regret it.
You're going to be back here, asking "how can I speed this up"?
And the only answer is going to be...
"... Get an SSD".

Consider yourself as having been duly warned.

Even Apple's smallest SSD option (256gb) will "do the job" insofar as the OS, apps, and basic accounts are concerned.

If you need "more room", add an EXTERNAL USB3 drive.
It can be either platter-based (HDD) or an SSD.

The 256gb SSD adds only $100 to the "buy-in price" of the iMac.
It's the best computer-buying decision that you'll ever make.
 
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