Which iMac for buttery smooth Photoshop performance?

[btyne]

I've been searching everywhere for some inclination about the performance of Photoshop on a new iMac. I am a web designer and I want to be able to pan/zoom my designs around in photoshop without any jerkyness. I don't know if a 27" non-retina iMac with a 780m (4gb) graphics card would work or if the 5k m295x would be better. I would also have another Thunderbolt display running at the same time which makes me think I'm going to need something beefy. I'm currently working off of a 2012 15" non-retina macbook pro that has 512mb gt650 video card and its super jerky on my Thunderbolt monitor. My patience has ran out with this setup and I want to get something where I can pan my design around without the system going to below 30fps.

Any first hand experience or thoughts about this? Will I need to go to a Mac Pro? Thanks!

 

[andy9l]

Either will suffice. They're pretty much the same performance, one just has a retina screen.

The 5K would be better for you to design for retina screens. The Photoshop viewing pane will be "@2x" on the 5K iMac - particularly useful for responsive web design.

 

[btyne]

Cool. Thanks for your reply. Good information to consider for sure. I am doing a lot of Responsive designs lately so its definitely something to consider.

 

[andy9l]

Which iMac for buttery smooth Photoshop performance?

No problem. For a web designer, the 5K screen is a big benefit.

Assuming you're buying new, there's very little difference in price between them, given the fact you get a 5K screen included in that price difference.

Whatever you do, make sure you don't stick with the standard hardrive in the non-retina model. If you can, go for a Flash storage option. If you really need the internal space - make sure you at least get a Fusion drive. The Fusion drive or 256GB Flash storage is part of the 5K iMac base price.