Exchange 2017 27" i5 iMac for 2019 i9 model

[nihil0]

I currently have 2017 27-inch iMac with i5-7600K, R580, 2 TB Fusion drive and 24 GB RAM. I am a photographer and mostly shoot weddings so for batch RAW exports (around 1000 unedited photos) I use Lightroom. I also use Photoshop and Luminar 3 for post-process (retouching, color grading, etc.).

My question is whether it is worth selling it and buying top tier model with i9, 512 GB SSD and R580X. Will this save me time with LR exports and if yes, how much? I know that in benchmarks the i9 beats my i5 because of cores and threads but I would like to justify the buy for myself (and my wife) and maybe even save money if it is not worth replacing.

 

[AlexJoda]

I currently have 2017 27-inch iMac with i5-7600K, R580, 2 TB Fusion drive and 24 GB RAM. I am a photographer and mostly shoot weddings so for batch RAW exports (around 1000 unedited photos) I use Lightroom. I also use Photoshop and Luminar 3 for post-process (retouching, color grading, etc.).

My question is whether it is worth selling it and buying top tier model with i9, 512 GB SSD and R580X. Will this save me time with LR exports and if yes, how much? I know that in benchmarks the i9 beats my i5 because of cores and threads but I would like to justify the buy for myself (and my wife) and maybe even save money if it is not worth replacing.

To give you some hints I found a review with benchmarks comparing different CPU's/# of cores with Lightroom:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

Especially in the last graph with the actions sets you see that the number of cores does't really matter if you have at least four (only JPEG exports improves with the number of cores. If that is your main job go for the i9). Enough RAM and a quick storage is more important. That fusion drive is really a performance killer. If you work with big RAW images the internal drive might be too small anyway so you should invest in a fast and big external Thunderbolt 3 SSD/NVME drive or at least a USB3 SSD drive.

You should also put the camera RAW cache on the SSD and set it large enough. You can find some hints is this document:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

If exporting JPEG images is your main job the i9 iMac might make sense, otherwise upgrade your existing iMac....

 

[nihil0]

To give you some hints I found a review with benchmarks comparing different CPU's/# of cores with Lightroom:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

Especially in the last graph with the actions sets you see that the number of cores does't really matter if you have at least four (only JPEG exports improves with the number of cores. If that is your main job go for the i9). Enough RAM and a quick storage is more important. That fusion drive is really a performance killer. If you work with big RAW images the internal drive might be too small anyway so you should invest in a fast and big external Thunderbolt 3 SSD/NVME drive or at least a USB3 SSD drive.

You should also put the camera RAW cache on the SSD and set it large enough. You can find some hints is this document:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

If exporting JPEG images is your main job the i9 iMac might make sense, otherwise upgrade your existing iMac....

From this article most useful for me is chart 2 - Export to disk. I see that with 8 cores it would take half time to make half the time than with 4. Adding SSD instead of Fusion would help as well. But the question is whether it is really worth it. In real world I export 1000 photos around 90 minutes so with 8 core it would take around 45.

 

[AlexJoda]

From this article most useful for me is chart 2 - Export to disk. I see that with 8 cores it would take half time to make half the time than with 4. Adding SSD instead of Fusion would help as well. But the question is whether it is really worth it. In real world I export 1000 photos around 90 minutes so with 8 core it would take around 45.

How do you export your images to disk? Did you convert them to JPEGs or to DNG? JPEG esports are benefiting from more cores a lot, RAW conversions not so much...Another idea might be also to do these exports to a NAS on a separate computer (might be a powerful but cheap Windows PC as a kind of render server) and work in parallel with the iMac on the already exported files....

 

[nihil0]

How do you export your images to disk? Did you convert them to JPEGs or to DNG? JPEG esports are benefiting from more cores a lot, RAW conversions not so much...Another idea might be also to do these exports to a NAS on a separate computer (might be a powerful but cheap Windows PC as a kind of render server) and work in parallel with the iMac on the already exported files....

I import RAWs to Lightroom, do some edits and then export them to JPEG using resize to lower px count and 70% quality.

 

[AlexJoda]

I import RAWs to Lightroom, do some edits and then export them to JPEG using resize to lower px count and 70% quality.

If you need to edit the files before exporting them and you do a lot JPEG exports a new i9 iMac makes sense (if you can "sell" the earned 45 minutes...). But go only for a SSD/NVME, no spinner or Fusion drive. It is a shame that Apple still offers that in 2019! To save some money you can choose a smaller internal one (maybe at leat 512GB also for the Photoshop and Lightning caches) and buy an external bigger SSD/RAID/NAS.

 

[nihil0]

If you need to edit the files before exporting them and you do a lot JPEG exports a new i9 iMac makes sense (if you can "sell" the earned 45 minutes...). But go only for a SSD/NVME, no spinner or Fusion drive. It is a shame that Apple still offers that in 2019! To save some money you can choose a smaller internal one (maybe at leat 512GB also for the Photoshop and Lightning caches) and buy an external bigger SSD/RAID/NAS.

Alternatively, I was thinking of keeping my current iMac and buying Samsung X5 TB3 external SSD for system and Ps/Lr and current project files and using internal drive as library but I don’t know whether it will make such difference.

 

[AlexJoda]

Alternatively, I was thinking of keeping my current iMac and buying Samsung X5 TB3 external SSD for system and Ps/Lr and current project files and using internal drive as library but I don’t know whether it will make such difference.

The X5 is a very good external drive as it is using TB3 and not only USB. You can buy it and try how much your performance will improve. If you think you need the i9 regardless you can still use it with the new iMac....

 

[nihil0]

The X5 is a very good external drive as it is using TB3 and not only USB. You can buy it and try how much your performance will improve. If you think you need the i9 regardless you can still use it with the new iMac....

So I checked the same webpage and differences between SSD, NVMe and spinning drive were negligible so its either upgrade if time saves is justifiable or leave everything as it is

 

[AlexJoda]

So I checked the same webpage and differences between SSD, NVMe and spinning drive were negligible so its either upgrade if time saves is justifiable or leave everything as it is

Even when exporting the files are limited by the CPU the whole handling of that many images (e.g. importing...) is much quicker with the NVME. You will notice it immediately. Changing to an SSD/NVME will improve the performance of a computer more than anything else....

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[propower]

^^^ Yes count me in the club as well!
I have 2017 i5 3.8 1TB SSD 40G Ram 580 AppleCare to 2020. Been a perfect machine for music production and light YouTube/music video editing. Only regret is not going for 2TB internal. The attraction for the 2019 is upping the cores from 4 no HT to 8 with HT - huge plus going forward.

If I can recover 2.5K in a local sale then the $4200 to get the new one (with RAM and Apple Care) looks doable. But the reality is - there is nothing my current rig isn't doing quite well and $2.5K may be more than market can bear! LOL

To the OP - I think the X5 for OS and photo work would be a very big gain! Alternate you could split the fusion, run OS on the 128G flash and use any 1TB SSD external for data and workspace...

 

[jerwin]

To give you some hints I found a review with benchmarks comparing different CPU's/# of cores with Lightroom:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Lightroom-CC-6-Multi-Core-Performance-649/

Especially in the last graph with the actions sets you see that the number of cores does't really matter if you have at least four (only JPEG exports improves with the number of cores. If that is your main job go for the i9). Enough RAM and a quick storage is more important. That fusion drive is really a performance killer. If you work with big RAW images the internal drive might be too small anyway so you should invest in a fast and big external Thunderbolt 3 SSD/NVME drive or at least a USB3 SSD drive.

You should also put the camera RAW cache on the SSD and set it large enough. You can find some hints is this document:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

If exporting JPEG images is your main job the i9 iMac might make sense, otherwise upgrade your existing iMac....

speaking of imports (JPEG or otherwise), some SD card readers are faster than others.

https://fstoppers.com/originals/are-expensive-memory-cards-and-readers-really-worth-price-336716

If Apple was generous, the built in reader won't be the limiting factor. If it skimped, a better reader could well be a better investment than the i9.

 

[nihil0]

On the technical side, the biggest bottleneck you have is the hard drive. I would purchase a fast external SSD and test that out first, which will be much cheaper than the alternative below.

On the economics side, I can shed some light because I just sold my 2017 iMac with plans to purchase the 2019 model. I don't know where you are located and how you'll be selling it, but I'm located in the USA and sold my 2017 27" iMac (Core-i7, 512 GB SSD, 40 GB RAM, 580 GPU) on eBay a few days ago. It sold for almost $2000. After the Paypal, shipping and eBay fees, I had $1700 remaining.

The machine you have will sell for hundreds less. The 2019 iMac you're considering is $2800 before taxes. So you're looking at having to put in an additional $1500 or so (likely more).

It was the same decision I was facing (I was looking to buy the same configuration as you except I wanted the Vega GPU, too). I could not justify the extra cost. I ended up purchasing the 2018 Mac Mini (i7 6-cores, 512 GB SSD, self upgraded to 32 GB of RAM) and a large 43" monitor. The total was $2300 (so I had to put in an additional $500). That still left me with $1000 for whatever I needed (eGPU, etc), which I do not need.

I'm guessing the iMac's screen is an important factor as you are a photographer, so I know your needs are different. If I was in your shoes, I would definitely try the external SSD first. If you decide to purchase the 2019 iMac, you can still use the external SSD.

I wanted to try Samsung X5 but tests on Puget Systems website for export from RAW to JPEG show that the difference between spinning drive and NVME is roughly 7-8% which is not that big difference than having i9. Or is there anything else I am missing? See: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...ge-Performance-Analysis-875/#BenchmarkResults

I am from Europe and I bought my current iMac for 2599€ VAT included. I thought I could be able to sell it for 1800-2000€ and get new one with financing - the cost of 2019 i9 I wrote in OP is around 3300€. So there is a question whether 1300-1500€ difference would make up for saved time.
[doublepost=1554063602][/doublepost]

^^^ Yes count me in the club as well!
I have 2017 i5 3.8 1TB SSD 40G Ram 580 AppleCare to 2020. Been a perfect machine for music production and light YouTube/music video editing. Only regret is not going for 2TB internal. The attraction for the 2019 is upping the cores from 4 no HT to 8 with HT - huge plus going forward.

If I can recover 2.5K in a local sale then the $4200 to get the new one (with RAM and Apple Care) looks doable. But the reality is - there is nothing my current rig isn't doing quite well and $2.5K may be more than market can bear! LOL

To the OP - I think the X5 for OS and photo work would be a very big gain! Alternate you could split the fusion, run OS on the 128G flash and use any 1TB SSD external for data and workspace...

Isn't splitting the fusion drive process where I would have to remove partitions and lose all my data? I have Time Machine backups, but still...
[doublepost=1554063671][/doublepost]

speaking of imports (JPEG or otherwise), some SD card readers are faster than others.

https://fstoppers.com/originals/are-expensive-memory-cards-and-readers-really-worth-price-336716

If Apple was generous, the built in reader won't be the limiting factor. If it skimped, a better reader could well be a better investment than the i9.

I don't have problems with built-in SD card reader in iMac - the speeds are very fast - I am using Sandisk Extreme SD cards.

 

[jerwin]

I don't have problems with built-in SD card reader in iMac - the speeds are very fast - I am using Sandisk Extreme SD cards.

Does the imac 2019 support UHS-II cards? (at uhs-ii speeds, natch)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204384

says that UHS-II is a imac pro exclusive.

 

[nihil0]

Does the imac 2019 support UHS-II cards? (at uhs-ii speeds, natch)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204384

says that UHS-II is a imac pro exclusive.

Sandisk Extreme is UHS-I U3, Extreme Pro is UHS-II. My cameras do not support UHS-II as well so I don't bother buying those cards.

 

[nihil0]

So just to refresh this thread instead of creating new one if anyone has exact or similar questions regarding if i9 is worth buying for Lightroom

I bought 2019 5K 27 inch iMac with i9, 1 TB SSD and R580X and added my own RAM to have 24 GB RAM total.

Here are the export to JPEG tests:

110 24 MPx RAW in Lr (resize to 1920px long edge, quality 70)

2017 i5: 3m49s
2019 i9: 2m59s

When I first saw this I thought to myself that it was money not well spent because although work in Lr is smoother and snappier, my main reason for buying was to have extra power and it is not there.

However, second export to JPEG test:

392 24 MPx RAW in Lr (resize to 1920px long edge, quality 70):
2017 i5: 14m11s
2019 i9: 9m49s

So the difference grows exponentially with larger number of files. I assume when using it for my standard workflow (export around 1000 RAWs), the difference will be even larger. I sold my 2017 model, so I will not be able to test it anymore.

 

[mj_]

You went from 2.08 (i5) and 1.63 (i9) seconds per photo in your first test to 2.17 (i5) and 1.5 (i9) seconds per photo in your second test resulting in a 27% performance increase in your first test and a 45% performance increase in your second test. That is anything but exponential

Given a large enough sample size it will probably settle somewhere around 50%. Which is exactly what you predicted in your March 31 post in this thread: a decrease from 90 minutes to 45 minutes.

 

[nihil0]

You went from 2.08 (i5) and 1.63 (i9) seconds per photo in your first test to 2.17 (i5) and 1.5 (i9) seconds per photo in your second test resulting in a 27% performance increase in your first test and a 45% performance increase in your second test. That is anything but exponential

Given a large enough sample size it will probably settle somewhere around 50%. Which is exactly what you predicted in your March 31 post in this thread: a decrease from 90 minutes to 45 minutes.

English is not my first language so I guess I chose the wrong word. But you get my point .