Modest performace upgrade expectation

[davidhm]

I am running an iMac with 8gigs memory, 3.06ghz Intel core duo. I use two externals one for Time Machine and the other to store all my photo files via LR 4. The Hard Disk is the primary and one of externals as the scratch disk.
I use Photoshop CS6, with a series of various filters and occasionally Raw Therapee V3 and LR4

My machine is tired. It runs slow both in accessing apps and rendering the files.

Because Apple has not yet announced a new iMac and the rMBP seems too small for my use (15in.)(pricey, especially after adding all the things necessary to spec out the machine), I am looking for an interim solution.

I read the thread about MBP vs iMac for large files and found it confusing and beyond my technical skills. So a thought is to seek your advice as to some alternatives till the Apple world becomes clearer. Another thought is to use an SSD as the primary for photoshop and use the external as the scratch disk.

Your help and suggestions would be much appreciated. I suspect there are many people out their in my position.

Thanks
David

 

[Artful Dodger]

Not sure how old your iMac is however I have an iMac which runs fine with two of your choices, the SSD and I have 16GB of RAM. I bought the RAM and put it in even before I started my iMac up back in October 2011 when it came with the 8GB.

I find it runs smooth as I believe both work doing the same things and yet at times different. Some will say go with the SSD all day long and others will go with the RAM. I would start with the RAM unless your files are huge and you use a large amount of layers/filters and so on. RAM is cheap to start with and should hold you over but can you give some file sizes to help your question out a bit better?

 

[davidhm]

Artful
My machine is about three years old and maxed out on memory. Did you use, and if so, how, an ssd drive with your iMacs. Did it make an improvement?
David

 

[Designer Dale]

Artful
My machine is about three years old and maxed out on memory. Did you use, and if so, how, an ssd drive with your iMacs. Did it make an improvement?
David

You should be able to put 16 gigs of ram in that machine. Check this link to OWC to make sure.

Other World Computing


Dale

 

[Artful Dodger]

Artful
My machine is about three years old and maxed out on memory. Did you use, and if so, how, an ssd drive with your iMacs. Did it make an improvement?
David

I bought my iMac with the SSD, it's a 2011 model (see sig below) and the RAM was from OWC aka www.macsales.com.

I'm coming from a 17" MBP and all though I put a different HDD in the MBP the iMac runs way faster/better than the MBP using Aperture 3, some plug-ins, CS4 (Flash, Illustrator) and a few other programs. The memory did make a difference or seemed to in A3 and with the plug-ins.