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iMac 2020 i5 vs i7 for office/content creation
- Thread starter arz
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For some reason I never really liked gaming. I was thinking about some studio monitors 😁
Magic Trackpad is excellent, IMO. Way better than the mouse. Especially if you already know you like a trackpad
Completely agree with this. I have the Magic Mouse for portability, but at home I use Magic Trackpad.
Trackpad is excellent in many ways, but I still not knowing how to highlight and select sentences. Always too little or too much...so I use an ordinary mouse (not Magic Mouse) occasionally.
What works for me is to set the "Click" sensitivity to "Light" and turn on "Force click and haptic feedback" in the trackpad preferences. I find it much more difficult to select text if it is set to "Firm." Just a suggestion. 🙂
Enable 3-finger drag under accessibility: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204609
I don't know why Apple made the very stupid decision to hide this setting.
I don't know why Apple made the very stupid decision to hide this setting.
I received my base iMac yesterday. So far I like it. Not blazing fast but very smooth. I create a 30 minute video every week for YouTube in 1080p (from my Canon 80d). I didn't time the export, but it was faster and the fans were much quieter than my mbp.
At the moment, I am busy writing my weeks assignments. I will play with video/audio editing this weekend. I think I will keep it. However, if I am not happy with the performance I may return it for the i7. Sometimes you just have to test and see how it works I for you...
One thing...the 27" screen is nice, but a big adjustment. I will have to adjust my desk a bit. I think it is about 5cm too high. My desktop is 75cm high but I am short (170cm). So I will have to buy a new desk that is about 70cm or raise my chair 5cm. I will find something that works for me 👍
I ordered 32gb of Crucial ram and a Magic Trackpad. 😁
I may create a new post with a detailed review for those interested.
At the moment, I am busy writing my weeks assignments. I will play with video/audio editing this weekend. I think I will keep it. However, if I am not happy with the performance I may return it for the i7. Sometimes you just have to test and see how it works I for you...
One thing...the 27" screen is nice, but a big adjustment. I will have to adjust my desk a bit. I think it is about 5cm too high. My desktop is 75cm high but I am short (170cm). So I will have to buy a new desk that is about 70cm or raise my chair 5cm. I will find something that works for me 👍
I ordered 32gb of Crucial ram and a Magic Trackpad. 😁
I may create a new post with a detailed review for those interested.
Sorry about that! I hope your next one is better. I checked the exterior box carefully. It looked good. There was one corner that was crushed a little. The inside was box crushed very little . The interior foam is thick so it was fine...
My interior box was not that bad. Some minor exterior box damage can be expected, just the way shipping is and one reason for it. But the interior box...should be pretty good I should think.
Damage to outer box is expected, just more or less. But visible obvious damage to inter one like yours is totally unacceptable. It just look like shipping without the outer box to me.
I am sorry for your experiences.
My main personal mac has been a 2013 MacBook Pro with gt 750m graphics 16gb ram. I've been using an i7 2020 iMac with 16gb ram and 5500xt since last week. My experience editing in FCPX so far, graphic process and certain plug ins are not optimised to work with the new GPUs on the new iMacs so the performance is not light years faster then my old MacBook yet!
When it does recognise the 5500xt when performing certain tasks I would say overall speed is about 3-4 times faster whilst only using about 50% or less of the CPU compared to my 2013 MBP which was almost maxed out.
Coming from a 2012 MBP with 8gb ram, any of these new iMacs will be fast if you are still able to get by on your old system. I would take the Goldilocks approach and get the middle system if you don't need bleeding edge GPU performance. The 5300m is the same one that's in the 16 inch MBP 2019 which I was using this summer and I find it performs around 2-3 times faster then my old MacBook Pro 2013. Not amazing but still faster then what I was used to.
Where you'll benefit from having the 5500xt or 5700xt is if you do a lot of visual effects like in Motion or 265 encoding but that's if your using bootcamp where these GPUs performs faster then the t2 chip does at encoding 265 in macOS.
When it does recognise the 5500xt when performing certain tasks I would say overall speed is about 3-4 times faster whilst only using about 50% or less of the CPU compared to my 2013 MBP which was almost maxed out.
Coming from a 2012 MBP with 8gb ram, any of these new iMacs will be fast if you are still able to get by on your old system. I would take the Goldilocks approach and get the middle system if you don't need bleeding edge GPU performance. The 5300m is the same one that's in the 16 inch MBP 2019 which I was using this summer and I find it performs around 2-3 times faster then my old MacBook Pro 2013. Not amazing but still faster then what I was used to.
Where you'll benefit from having the 5500xt or 5700xt is if you do a lot of visual effects like in Motion or 265 encoding but that's if your using bootcamp where these GPUs performs faster then the t2 chip does at encoding 265 in macOS.
You mean 5300 (iMac) is the same that’s in the 16 Inch MBP 2019 ? Sorry but you’re wrong. They’re totally different GPUs. 5300 iMac got performance 5500m (5500 it could be a little bit faster if you really need 8GB of VRAM).
Like I said before. There are only two good options: 5300 or 5700. 5500XT isn’t worth.
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Thank your insight! I bought the base i5 model. I think the main benefit of the 5500xt is the 8gb of video ram. If I was doing more 4k editing then it would be worth it (I think).
So far I am pretty happy. I don't like that the fan runs all the time at 1200rpm..but that is just the way it is. It is only about 28db. My very sensitive dynamic mic for podcasting/radio does not pick it up, so it's good.
I think the performance for my use is going to be just fine. I imported 5 minutes of 4k video (iPhone) into Premiere. I added some color correction etc. I exported it in .264 for 1080p YouTube. It took 5 minutes to export. I noticed that the GPU was working at 60-95% in activity monitor. It seems the new Adobe update is using more of the GPU. All 6 CPU cores were at work (I think at about 60-80%). The fans went up but it was not as loud as my mbp. I am not a professional editor, so I really don't need fast rendering.
I will continue testing it this weekend. I need to clean up a music recording in Audition. I think it will process the fx, plugins etc. faster than my mbp.
It’s hilarious that Apple still refuses to offer a proper height adjustment on a computer in this price class. The machine should adjust to the user, not the other way round.
If (and that’s a big „If“) I’d ever buy an iMac, I’d only buy the VESA variant (if that’s still offered) and couple it with an Ergotron monitor arm.
I would have liked the VESA model...but it would have increased the cost by $200+ So I will have to make do 😁
My mistake I thought they put the mobile GPU inside the iMac like in the past with previous iMacs, if it's a desktop class then more the better.
I switched to all 64 bit software a few years ago (Adobe CC). It’s working well 👍
No offense intended: My long-term health is easily worth (more than) $200 to me. I’d rather save elsewhere, as I’ve spent my share with bad monitors and bad ergonomics. And when you spread the additional cost over multiple years of use, it‘s not much more than a nice dinner per year.
Besides: If you need to get another desk and/or have to spent several hours on some workaround, the savings may vanish completely ...
Best for ergonomics today I think is to have a sit/stand desk (http://ergonofis.com) with the shelf https://ergonofis.com/collections/monitor-and-laptop-stands/products/desk-shelf to make it a bit higher.
At least this is what I'm looking to very soon 😛
No offense taken. You make a good point! In my case, I was able to make it work for me without buying a BTO iMac (which is much more expensive where I live). You are right that $200 is not much when it comes to your health.
As far as the new desk...I just moved and now have larger office/studio for a sit-stand desk. I will probably upgrade to that desk soon as I like standing while recording my radio program etc.