Need Advice - Buying need Imac

[foxkoneko]

Today is an amazing day, 4k & 5k imacs are here
I need some help deciding which imac to get, suggestions are welcomed!!

I need something that would be kickass for video editing. I do work on final cut pro X and light photoshop daily. Running a couple of windows VMs would be nice too
Coming from the 1st iteration of the 15 inch macbook pro that I use now


Edit: seems 5k imac with + 4.0 GHz processor ($250) + 16Gb Ram ($200) + AMD M395X 4GB Video Memory ($250) comes out to $3k
Which of this stuff would not be needed?
It seems ssd base is only 256

 

[tuxon86]

If you plan on keeping it for a while, buy as much as you can afford. The iMac isn't really user upgradable beside the ram on the 27".

 

[foxkoneko]

If you plan on keeping it for a while, buy as much as you can afford. The iMac isn't really user upgradable beside the ram on the 27".

how easy is it to replace the ram on these things? ive done it for my old macbook in the past and apple is charging a ton for 8GB more

 

[thomas1988]

Hello everybody,

I am non-professional user looking for a new iMac mainly for editing large RAW files and office work (no gaming, or video editing) and could use some advice in the following matters:

21,5" Retina or 27" Retina 3,2 GHz basic model?
Except from the size of the screen, is there a noticeable difference in the performance of the 27" model featuring the new Skylake processor compared to the 21,5" Retina iMac?

1 TB Fusion drive?
Will I be fine with a 1 TB fusion drive or should I even go for the 256 GB flash drive (in addition to external drives).

Magic Mouse or Trackpad?
I guess that's a very personal question. As I have no experience with neither of them, which one would you recommend?

Am I good with 8 GB RAM?
If I chose the 21,5" Retina, I could spend some more money on RAM. Would it be worth it for my purposes?

Thank you so much for any kind of help!

Thomas

 

[photoj2754]

So I too, need the advice. Been waiting a long time for this upgrade and hoping that this one will last me just as long ( I am retiring next March so I want to buy this now). I am currently using a:

24" 2007 iMac 2.4GHz intel core 2 duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM with ATi Radeon 1TB HD 2600 Pro 256 MB. My capacity is 749.3 GB of which I am using 77.95GB.

Not a big power user, email, internet, do run Photoshop Elements 12, Photo Mechanic. I do have Final Cut Express HD on this computer but almost never use it now. A few games, mostly Angry Birds. Almost never running more than one program at the same time. So I am looking at the:

27" 5K Retina iMac with the 4.0 GHz quad core, 512GB flash storage and 8GB memory which I will probably upgrade to 16 myself.)

I do have a 1TB external hard drive that I am using. I know pretty much anything I get will be an improvement so just wondering what people think. My one big question is the processor choice. Am I better off with the 3.2GHz considering my usage and saving the $300? This is my Christmas present to myself and just want to be sure I have covered my bases. Thanks so much for any help.

 

[foxkoneko]

Hello everybody,

I am non-professional user looking for a new iMac mainly for editing large RAW files and office work (no gaming, or video editing) and could use some advice in the following matters:

21,5" Retina or 27" Retina 3,2 GHz basic model?
Except from the size of the screen, is there a noticeable difference in the performance of the 27" model featuring the new Skylake processor compared to the 21,5" Retina iMac?

1 TB Fusion drive?
Will I be fine with a 1 TB fusion drive or should I even go for the 256 GB flash drive (in addition to external drives).

Magic Mouse or Trackpad?
I guess that's a very personal question. As I have no experience with neither of them, which one would you recommend?

Am I good with 8 GB RAM?
If I chose the 21,5" Retina, I could spend some more money on RAM. Would it be worth it for my purposes?

Thank you so much for any kind of help!

Thomas

if you're not doing any video editing you'd be more than fine with just the 4k + 16gb ram
I prefer the magic mouse of the trackpad. It's amazing

 

[foxkoneko]

27" 5K Retina iMac with the 4.0 GHz quad core, 512GB flash storage and 8GB memory which I will probably upgrade to 16 myself.)
.

do you know how easy it is to upgrade ram on these 4/5k?

 

[cspak71]

do you know how easy it is to upgrade ram on these 4/5k?

My understanding is that the 27" iMac ram is rather easily replaceable, the 21.5" though is not, so if you're going to get the 4k iMac, get as much RAM as you can as you can't upgrade later.

 

[photoj2754]

do you know how easy it is to upgrade ram on these 4/5k?

Sure. I upgraded the iMac I am using now myself. That was stated in my post. Just asking about the other specs given my usage and the fact that this may be the last iMac I buy.

 

[Sirmausalot]

I'm a filmmaker and video editor myself. So this is what you need. An i7 (multithreaded for encoding videos, 8 virtual cores, the i5 is not), the 395X with 4GB RAM (for graphic and effects work) upgrade the RAM yourself later to 24GB (more than enough and the most economical option for less that $100) and a 512SSD (super, super fast for programs etc) 256SSD is not enough. Trust me. Get an external RAID for video files. USB3 is fine, thunderbolt if you can afford it.

Today is an amazing day, 4k & 5k imacs are here
I need some help deciding which imac to get, suggestions are welcomed!!

I need something that would be kickass for video editing. I do work on final cut pro X and light photoshop daily. Running a couple of windows VMs would be nice too
Coming from the 1st iteration of the 15 inch macbook pro that I use now


Edit: seems 5k imac with + 4.0 GHz processor ($250) + 16Gb Ram ($200) + AMD M395X 4GB Video Memory ($250) comes out to $3k
Which of this stuff would not be needed?
It seems ssd base is only 256

 

[foxkoneko]

I'm a filmmaker and video editor myself. So this is what you need. An i7 (multithreaded for encoding videos, 8 virtual cores, the i5 is not), the 395X with 4GB RAM (for graphic and effects work) upgrade the RAM yourself later to 24GB (more than enough and the most economical option for less that $100) and a 512SSD (super, super fast for programs etc) 256SSD is not enough. Trust me. Get an external RAID for video files. USB3 is fine, thunderbolt if you can afford it.

awesome thank you