Should I still buy imac 21.5 this November?

[chooyoshi]

Hi guys. Thinking of buying the U$1499 21.5 imac for videp editing purposes for my youtube channel. Was holding out for amac mini but the apple salesman through online chat convinced me to take a look at the imac-despite being more than a year old at this point.

I intend to keep it running for at least six to 10 years. As such is it worth buying the iMac this November? Or is it better to buy mac mini instead?

1. Is fusion drive ok speedwise? I think I would need at least 1tb of space and I also want to dual boot windows. Mac mini only has expensive ssd options.
2. Is it best to upgrade the ram to 16gb? For video editing.

Thanks.

 

[alien3dx]

Hi guys. Thinking of buying the U$1499 21.5 imac for videp editing purposes for my youtube channel. Was holding out for amac mini but the apple salesman through online chat convinced me to take a look at the imac-despite being more than a year old at this point.

I intend to keep it running for at least six to 10 years. As such is it worth buying the iMac this November? Or is it better to buy mac mini instead?

1. Is fusion drive ok speedwise? I think I would need at least 1tb of space and I also want to dual boot windows. Mac mini only has expensive ssd options.
2. Is it best to upgrade the ram to 16gb? For video editing.

Thanks.

16gb min. i vote mac mini + buy external gpu.

 

[chooyoshi]

16gb min. i vote mac mini + buy external gpu.

An egpu would burst my (parent's) budget haha
[doublepost=1541342120][/doublepost]In any case we can be safe that apple will not refresh the imac anytime soon? Not until next year at least?

 

[mikehalloran]

You want to do too much on not enough of your parent’s money from the look of things. Fortunately, being a hobbyist, you can do this as long as you understand the trade offs.

Video editing on an i5 will take longer than an i7 — a lot longer. Same with a Fusion drive but, with short video clips, you might notice little difference. Same with not having enough RAM. Too much RAM won’t make things faster but not having enough makes it slower — more so with a Fusion drive (maybe) than an SSD. You really want 16G.

Remember that you have to add a monitor to the Mini. LG makes a USB-C TB3 27” 4K that you can get for $100 less on Amazon than the 22” from Apple.

The Mini makes sense only if the i5 or i7. Best bang for the buck really is the iMac. See if they’ll Spring for the 16G i7.

A properly set up i7 Mini is better but a lot more expensive.

 

[BigBoy2018]

Video editing on an i5 will take longer than an i7 — a lot longer.

Agree with you on most points except for this. The i7 is way overrated, expecially among some people in these forums All the i7 gives you is hyperthreading, which programs may or may not leverage, and even if they do, the speed gain is 20% max. On top of that, the hyperthreading i7 runs hotter, which may crank the fans, or worse cause thermal throttling.
I’d rather have a solid non hyperthreading i5 that runs cool, and is fully leveraged by all the software I throw at it.

 

[mlody]

I would skip the 21.5" because for basically the same money you can get 27" refurb directly from Apple. You will have even better video card, memory is user upgradable, fusion drive is faster and you get 5k vs 4k screen.. All that for mere $30 more.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...uad-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-5K-display

 

[alien3dx]

An egpu would burst my (parent's) budget haha
[doublepost=1541342120][/doublepost]In any case we can be safe that apple will not refresh the imac anytime soon? Not until next year at least?

buy windows laptop instead, apple product overprice.Get da vinci windows free and min 16gb pc cpu.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Video editing suggest a 27" i7 with say a 512GB SSD for that six to ten years usage. Have used i7's video and graphic design works for the past ten years with no heat problems, and an SSD will reduce whatever heat a platter drive generates.

In Apple refurbs order this model with standard 8GB of memory and the 27"model isn usr upgradable, with cheaper memory available from Mac specialists Crucial and OWC.

Should you nneed more storage an external 7200rpm platter drive connected externally via USB3 would be fast.

 

[mikehalloran]

Agree with you on most points except for this. The i7 is way overrated, expecially among some people in these forums All the i7 gives you is hyperthreading, which programs may or may not leverage, and even if they do, the speed gain is 20% max. On top of that, the hyperthreading i7 runs hotter, which may crank the fans, or worse cause thermal throttling.
I’d rather have a solid non hyperthreading i5 that runs cool, and is fully leveraged by all the software I throw at it.

So let me get this right... Your argument is that the lower performance i5 will somehow run better for heavy video editing than the i7 ... which might suffer thermal throttling.

Right.

I don't know where to begin so I won't.

I'd like to link to solid articles that discuss this in the real world without barfing Intel press releases that say nothing more than (think of Tarzan) i5 good; i7 better in tons of techno-speak that I'm certain the writers really don't understand.

Unfortunately, there are discussion groups where some armchair "expert" will post on and on and on... where you know only two things about that clown: a) He may or may not have an old Mac with an i5 and b) He has never A/B'd the two.

On the other hand, I have. Audio and video projects run faster on an i7 than an i5 of same years with similar RAM and storage. I have test projects in Logic Pro, Digital Performer, iMovie and Final Cut Pro. The difference is not small.

If a video project will throttle an i7 iMac, one needs an iMac Pro. If that can't handle it, time for a Maya Box Rendering station at $13K(8 Core) – $150K (52 cores, 1T RAM, 8T SSD).

Video editing suggest a 27" i7 with say a 512GB SSD for that six to ten years usage. Have used i7's video and graphic design works for the past ten years with no heat problems, and an SSD will reduce whatever heat a platter drive generates.

This.