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johnnyturbouk

macrumors 68000
Original poster
I finally pulled the trigger and ordered my Imac: 27
4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Skylake, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 512 SSD, AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB
I went with the trackpad 2, apple care, and a thunder bolt cable, and apple care.
Total Price £2617
Price I paid £2229.40 for educational discount
5% AMEX cashback
= £2117.93 a whopping £500 saving

If i waited for next year, I would have lost the education discount and my AMEX 5% cashback for a new platinum cashback card.


The dilemma is whether TB3 and DDR4 were enough of a reason not to upgrade. The main perks of TB3 was TDM, as this gives the possibility of using my imac as an external display, if apple were to contemplate allowing this option again. After a lengthy discussion with apple, and after reading countless articles on the subject matter, i felt the discount i was getting was to great.

My question, would DDR4 and TB3 make any other real word differences.

My uses include opening safari 5-10 tabs, chrome several tabs, word, excel, powerpoint, light moderate gaming. For my work i do some gpu intensive tasks that my poor ol 2013 rMBP struggles with, hence the need for a desktop. I am well aware the imac i went for is in far excess of my current needs, but thought it would most likely future proof my machine.
 
Dude, there is going to be absolutely zero noticable difference for you getting ddr4 memory. You can look up tons of youtube videos of guys running tests and while theoretical benchmarks make it seem slightly better, the actual changes are next to nothing.
Here's a link I had bookmarked. You will get a SLIGHT performance increase when working and editing say 4k video but you are not that guy. Gamers? pft, they blow money just to feel special, numerous tests have showed ram speed makes zero frame rate differences past about 1333mhz.

TB3 would be awesome for sure but we aren't losing anything with ddr3 ;)
 
Agreed with user iemcj. TB3 would have been nice but waiting another year for getting an iMac is going to be hell.
 
Thanks, i knew this, but for some strange reason I strongly value the opinions of those on these forums, and the collective knowledge gathered.
£500 or $800 saving if i purchased my rImc now as opposed to waiting for next year [loss of education discount + 5% amex cashback] made it an easy decision. Estimated delivery date is 20th Nov, not bad!
 
Last edited:
I finally pulled the trigger and ordered my Imac: 27
4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Skylake, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 512 SSD, AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB
I went with the trackpad 2, apple care, and a thunder bolt cable, and apple care.
Total Price £2617
Price I paid £2229.40 for educational discount
5% AMEX cashback
= £2117.93 a whopping £500 saving

If i waited for next year, I would have lost the education discount and my AMEX 5% cashback for a new platinum cashback card.


The dilemma is whether TB3 and DDR4 were enough of a reason not to upgrade. The main perks of TB3 was TDM, as this gives the possibility of using my imac as an external display, if apple were to contemplate allowing this option again. After a lengthy discussion with apple, and after reading countless articles on the subject matter, i felt the discount i was getting was to great.

My question, would DDR4 and TB3 make any other real word differences.

My uses include opening safari 5-10 tabs, chrome several tabs, word, excel, powerpoint, light moderate gaming. For my work i do some gpu intensive tasks that my poor ol 2013 rMBP struggles with, hence the need for a desktop. I am well aware the imac i went for is in far excess of my current needs, but thought it would most likely future proof my machine.
Thunderbolt 3 supports display port 1.2 -- so, you will likely NOT see TDM next year. If you are a RAM junkie, you can run RAM speeds up to 2100 in the current iMac, but as someone pointed out, you won't be able to tell the difference except in some benchmarking program perhaps. You can also go up to 64GB with the current configuration, but why the hell would you need to is beyond me. This is the perfect time to purchase an iMac! BTW, I have the same configuration and I love it.
 
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