Help with purchase

[Kimmie92592]

My old imac is dying and I found this imac for a good deal. My question is, what are the major differences between the late 2014 and the late 2015? I vaguely remember (but I'm not sure) that a 1TB fusion drive on a 2014 is better than a 1TB fusion drive on a 2015. Also, is it true that a 2014 can be used as a monitor only while a 2015 cannot? Any help would be greatly appreciated or if you could direct me to where I could find this info, thank you.
Apple 27" iMac with Retina 5K Display, 5120x2880, Intel Core i5 Quad-Core 3.5GHz, 8GB RAM, 1TB Fusion Drive, AMD Radeon M290X, Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite (Early 2014)

 

[dyt1983]

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[redheeler]

I vaguely remember (but I'm not sure) that a 1TB fusion drive on a 2014 is better than a 1TB fusion drive on a 2015.

Yes, it has more than five times the SSD storage space of the 1 TB Fusion drive in the 2015 iMacs (128 GB vs only 24). The 2 TB Fusion drive in the 2015 iMacs has 128 GB.

Also, is it true that a 2014 can be used as a monitor only while a 2015 cannot?

No, none of the 2014/2015 5K iMacs can be used as a monitor in Target Display Mode.

 

[varian55zx]

The 1tb fusion in the late 2015 iMacs is a very poor product indeed. I wouldn't recommend my worst enemy for that

The 2tb fusion is great, and underrated.

The 1tb on the 2014 is satisfactory as it has the 128gb SSD portion.

Mind you, the flash storage in the 2014 models is much slower than the late 2015 models. Much slower

You only posted the 2014 option so we can't compare them, but if it's only between those two, and the other one is a late 2015 with a 1 tb fusion, that decides it right there.

You'd have to go with the 2014 based on the storage option, though I'd hope you aren't that limited in your options.

 

[maflynn]

I vaguely remember (but I'm not sure) that a 1TB fusion drive on a 2014 is better than a 1TB fusion drive on a 2015.

The older 1TB Fusion drives had 128GB of flash storage, but the newer 1TB Fusion drive only has 24GB. The 2TB model still has the 128GB of flash, so I highly recommend that. Best case would be an SSD, but only if your data can sit in a 256GB, or if you can afford a 512GB upgrade.

is it true that a 2014 can be used as a monitor only while a 2015 cannot?

Unfortunately 5k iMacs are incapable of doing this.