How much of an upgrade

[icharry]

So I have a little bonus cash to spend and I'm trying to decide if I should get a new iMac or Laptop.

I currently have a late 2013 27inch iMac with 3.4GHz Core i5 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2048 MB. I this a quad core chip?

95% of the hard stuff my computer does is in Premiere Pro CC or photoshop. I'm wondering if I would really see that much of a boost in rendering / exporting times. The new middle iMac (about my budget) comes with :

• 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (3.2 is slower - but quad core?)
• Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
• AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2GB video memory (is this better for Premiere / Photoshop)?

I also have a late 2011 laptop - but that I mostly use for surfing the web and occasionally off loading footage from video cameras on location.... it basically seems to work well enough... but I would consider a new macbook if it was faster than my old imac.

 

[Pearl Wisdom]

These are both quad core chips. Geek bench 2 says the older 3.4 cpu scores 10773, versus 9124 for the new one. Seems like the main difference is the Retina 5K screen. I don't know if the the NVIDIA versus AMD graphics choice makes a big difference for the programs you are using. Seems like you might want to wait for the next model before upgrading.

 

[thats all folks]

Seems like you might want to wait for the next model before upgrading.

have to agree with that. and , especially with the retina, go for the max GPU offered (currently the AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4GB). that's a lot of pixels to drive and both your mentioned apps will accelerate off the GPU, provided it has any cycles left to give. if you want to spend money now, RAM. Photoshop loves RAM. you don't mention what you have now but that machine will take up to32GB.

 

[icharry]

Yes - already maxed on ram... Seems crazy that 3 year old imac is about as fast (maybe faster) than a new one. I was hoping someone would say No way the new generation of i5 chips blows the old ones out of the water - even at same speed.

 

[thats all folks]

Yes - already maxed on ram... Seems crazy that 3 year old imac is about as fast (maybe faster) than a new one. I was hoping someone would say No way the new generation of i5 chips blows the old ones out of the water - even at same speed.

don't forget, the new iMac they are selling now is almost a year old. you could step up to an i7. but overall , you are still inside the last big bump.

 

[Tomorrow]

I'd save the money until a big upgrade becomes available. That machine you have sounds like it's still a workhorse.