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iMac - 4GB VFX Beneficial to me?

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WinstonRumfoord

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 27, 2014
482
1,174
I am getting an iMac for my work office and was wondering if getting the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB upgrade would be worthwhile, seeing as I dont do any 3d, no gaming, and no overly heavy compositing. I am a "power user" though, most days running tons of adobe CC software simultaneously:

-Photoshop
-Premiere Pro working on 1080p, no 4k for a long time
-After Effects doing basic animated charts and compositions, lower thirds
-Lightroom working on tens of thousands of 22MP RAWs

Ill certainly be getting the quad core i7, the 256 ssd, and maxing the ram out on my own.

Is the 4GB vfx card worth the upgrade? Or is the money better spent on a night out with the wife?
 
These are consumer-grade graphics cards, so it is unlikely that you will see a big difference unless you are gaming.
 
I'm in a similar situation, looking to buy soon. I'll get the 4gb because I intend to keep the machine for 4-5 years. 4gb may not have many immediate benefits this year or next, but down the road it will become more important in keeping the machine fresh.
 
WinstonRumfoord said:
I am getting an iMac for my work office and was wondering if getting the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB upgrade would be worthwhile, seeing as I dont do any 3d, no gaming, and no overly heavy compositing. I am a "power user" though, most days running tons of adobe CC software simultaneously:

-Photoshop
-Premiere Pro working on 1080p, no 4k for a long time
-After Effects doing basic animated charts and compositions, lower thirds
-Lightroom working on tens of thousands of 22MP RAWs

Ill certainly be getting the quad core i7, the 256 ssd, and maxing the ram out on my own.

Is the 4GB vfx card worth the upgrade? Or is the money better spent on a night out with the wife?
Click to expand...

Doesn't Premiere Pro use the GPU for rendering like FCP does? That's bound benefit from the better card.

Do you have to justify the cost to someone else?

If you are using your new iMac in a few months and you think it's a bit slow, then you may always be wondering if the better graphics card would have helped.

Just buy it and take that potential worry away. It's bound to increace the lenjevity of the iMac.
 
Great points guys..

Another question, with 4k getting cheaper and cheaper, is it even feasible that I could use a 4k as an additional monitor for the imac if I were to get one eventually?

- Would the GPU be strong enough to power that and the inbuilt monitor running applications?

- Would the 4GB GPU make a noticeable difference in that regard?

- Could the version of TB on the latest iMac support a 4k monitor at 60Hz?

Thanks guys!
 
if you plan to use a multi monitor setup go for 4gb vram.
Mac os mavericks easily use up to 1GB of vram by itself. Using premiere and after effects at same time can give you Out of Memory errors quite often on a 2 GB vram setup.
 
WinstonRumfoord said:
Great points guys..

Another question, with 4k getting cheaper and cheaper, is it even feasible that I could use a 4k as an additional monitor for the imac if I were to get one eventually?

- Would the GPU be strong enough to power that and the inbuilt monitor running applications?

- Would the 4GB GPU make a noticeable difference in that regard?

- Could the version of TB on the latest iMac support a 4k monitor at 60Hz?

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt 1, which is what you get with current gen iMac, cannot support 4K at 60Hz. You will need to wait for the new iMac with Thunderbolt 2.
 
Wait until the 15th October before making any decisions as any new iMac announcement will affect the price of the current model.

I hope this new machine will have decent graphics, we will see then.
 
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