Confused about what iMac to get...

[gnasher729]

I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that all of the OS resides on the FD, no matter what? Even little-used portions of it?

A Fusion drive doesn't put OS here, apps there, and data somewhere else again. It looks at which _parts_ of which file are used a lot, and automatically moves things that are used a lot to the SSD part, and things that are used little onto the spinning hard drive.

So all the parts of the OS that you use a lot are on the SSD drive. All the parts that you don't use are on the spinning drive. If you start iTunes, it displays all the album art. So the parts of your music files containing the album art move to the SSD, the parts with actual music stay on the hard drive. You have a huge folder with fonts including huge japanese and chinese fonts - the ones you use are on the SSD drive, the ones you don't use are on the hard drive.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

A Fusion drive doesn't put OS here, apps there, and data somewhere else again. It looks at which _parts_ of which file are used a lot, and automatically moves things that are used a lot to the SSD part, and things that are used little onto the spinning hard drive.

So all the parts of the OS that you use a lot are on the SSD drive. All the parts that you don't use are on the spinning drive. If you start iTunes, it displays all the album art. So the parts of your music files containing the album art move to the SSD, the parts with actual music stay on the hard drive. You have a huge folder with fonts including huge japanese and chinese fonts - the ones you use are on the SSD drive, the ones you don't use are on the hard drive.

wrong, the whole OS is always kept on the SSD, along with other critical documents. The rest of the SSD is used for your data until it is filled. When the SSD is filled it will automatically offload 4gb of data to keep a 4gb buffer zone on the SSD where incoming data can be quickly written to. If you are writing a block of data larger in size than what is left on the SSD it will seamlessly shift to writing the rest of the data onto the HDD and then demote 4gb of data off of the SSD for its "buffer zone"

 

[ioannis2005gr]

Still won't have dedicated graphics. Is the HD5200 fast enough for your needs? Maybe, but I would rather have the extra oomph but for graphics and Open CL apps like FCPX, Aperture, and Photoshop. iMac panel might not be the best, but it's surely better than what you'll find at the local box store.

True.

BUT,
this is the one side of the coin.

A full i7 BTO Mac Mini with your own "good" IPS monitor may save around 700-800$ (maybe more?) from a full i7 BTO 21.5'' iMac....correct me, if I am wrong.

Also, you can fix it easier and you can upgrade it whenever you decide.

For home users and daily use, how much different a dGPU can make for your eyes?

PS: If you are a fanatic gamer, find a good and cheap PC...

 

[BayouTiger]

True.

BUT,
this is the one side of the coin.

A full i7 BTO Mac Mini with your own "good" IPS monitor may save around 700-800$ (maybe more?) from a full i7 BTO 21.5'' iMac....correct me, if I am wrong.

Also, you can fix it easier and you can upgrade it whenever you decide.

For home users and daily use, how much different a dGPU can make for your eyes?

PS: If you are a fanatic gamer, find a good and cheap PC...

Actually, I am a big fan of the Mini and own 5 of them! But I maintain that for many of us having a dedicated GPU can make a pretty big difference. The OP mentioned that he was doing Video and FCPX certainly does use Open CL and more and more apps will as well.

If I am buying a PC I tend to buy "just enough" since I upgraded them frequently, but with Macs I keep them many many times longer and as such prefer to future proof them as much as possible.

 

[ioannis2005gr]

...but with Macs I keep them many many times longer and as such prefer to future proof them as much as possible.

I agree!