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Which would you choose?

Howard Brazee

Howard Brazee

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 24, 2006
517
7
Lafayette CO
I'm thinking of replacing my iMac. I'm thinking I might choose to spend $2000 at an Apple store - if I do that, I see two choices - and I wonder what people here think of those two choices:

One choice is the following:
27-inch: 3.4GHz
Specifications
3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
8GB (two 4GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M with 2GB video memory

The other choice is a cheaper model, but with an upgraded fusion hard drive:
27-inch: 3.2GHz
Specifications
3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB (two 4GB) memory
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M with 1GB video memory
 
Up it

I would up the ram to 16 and do a flash drive and go up on the video card!
It makes it a 4k unit but 2 of the guys from Mac break weekly and they have seen NO lag or studder! U they also show this set up on that show and also on try before u buy where u can see on you tube.
 
I wouldn't consider ANY Mac without a least a Fusion drive; you need a flash drive. You could, I suppose, add it later via Thunderbolt but why? A flash or Fusion drive is the single most important thing you can do to speed up a Mac for general use.
 
ashman70 said:
It would help if you told us what your needs are and what you'll be using it for.
Click to expand...

I don't have any particular needs. I'm retired and don't do much photography nor recording stuff.

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igirl67 said:
I would up the ram to 16 and do a flash drive and go up on the video card!
It makes it a 4k unit but 2 of the guys from Mac break weekly and they have seen NO lag or studder! U they also show this set up on that show and also on try before u buy where u can see on you tube.
Click to expand...

So what would I drop in order to pay for those two upgrades?

I can upgrade RAM later, once everything is paid for.
 
Howard Brazee said:
I don't have any particular needs. I'm retired and don't do much photography nor recording stuff.

----------



So what would I drop in order to pay for those two upgrades?

I can upgrade RAM later, once everything is paid for.
Click to expand...

Yes ram is the only thing u can upgrade after u purchase a iMac

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robgendreau said:
I wouldn't consider ANY Mac without a least a Fusion drive; you need a flash drive. You could, I suppose, add it later via Thunderbolt but why? A flash or Fusion drive is the single most important thing you can do to speed up a Mac for general use.
Click to expand...
I agree I have a fusion on mine and my next will be flash.
 
There are two important things when choosing a Mac that you should follow:

1. Do not get a Mac with only a spinning harddrive in it
2. The CPU should be the last thing to spend money on


Here is my priority list:
1. 4Gb RAM
2. SSD or Fusion Drive
3. Increase RAM to 8Gb
4. Increase size of SSD or Fusion Drive
5. If you know specific use cases where 8Gb RAM is not enough, buy it after market

6. Take your family to dinner

7. If heavy gaming is important to you, don´t get a Mac
8. Upgrade to a beefier graphics card

9. Take your family on a vacation

And if you have money left
10. Faster CPU
 
When cost is a factor you need to state what your uses will be.

I do A LOT of video encoding and a little bit of gaming. So your option 1 is much more suited toward my needs. A 1 tb fusion drive is much to small to be of any significant use to me since everything is going on external drives.

However it would be nice to have a fusion drive for OS X.

So my suggestion, save up a bit more money. Its much better to spend 2200 for a machine you love then 2000 for a machine you regret.
 
Last edited:
I would recommend waiting until the non retina iMacs get the same gen chipset as the retina 5K. If you like external storage get the SSD. If not get the fusion drive.
 
I would still wait for Broadwell or even Skylake, but that's just my opinion.
 
Last edited:
Zwhaler said:
Because if someone wants to spend $2,000 I would recommend they do it on newer hardware, the iMacs in the OP are 387 days old.
Click to expand...

Don't know about waiting, but there is an i7 3.4 27" with Fusion drive on sale for just less than $2k US in the Apple refurb store right now. Better deal than either the OP suggested, IMHO. And for about $2400 an i7 3.4 with a better graphics card (4GB memory) and 3TB Fusion drive, or for same price an i5 with 512 flash.
 
Zwhaler said:
Because if someone wants to spend $2,000 I would recommend they do it on newer hardware, the iMacs in the OP are 387 days old.
Click to expand...

Broadwell/Skylake will hardly make any difference to the OP considering his needs. Performance-wise it won't be much of a bump, and even though it will be a bit more energy efficient it won't matter all that much for a light user anyway.

Why wait for a new model when the "old" one will do just fine for years to come?
 
robgendreau said:
Don't know about waiting, but there is an i7 3.4 27" with Fusion drive on sale for just less than $2k US in the Apple refurb store right now. Better deal than either the OP suggested, IMHO. And for about $2400 an i7 3.4 with a better graphics card (4GB memory) and 3TB Fusion drive, or for same price an i5 with 512 flash.
Click to expand...

Yeah at this point I would recommend going for a refurb.
 
Zwhaler said:
Yeah at this point I would recommend going for a refurb.
Click to expand...

I have never shopped for a refurb. In places where they are available, are there generally options for fusion drives, etc?

My wife's 27" computer is a 2.9 GH with 8G memory and 1 TB SATA disk from late 2012 (It has two empty memory slots). It replaces a computer we gave to my grandson with a typist friendly keyboard which doesn't use current OSX. It has some hardware features that I don't have with my 24" 2.8GB half TB SATA disk - which I expanded the RAM to 4GB. It is an easy sell to her that I should upgrade my computer. With what I give myself for an allowance, I wouldn't be able to do so for a couple of years unless I give up golf. But Christmas is coming up, and she doesn't mind paying for most of a computer for me. If I give the computer to a grandchild, I would buy myself a new Time Machine drive - otherwise, I will buy a Thunderbolt base for my old Seagate that has a Firewire base. (When we upgraded my wife's, we couldn't find a base in a hurry, so got a Firewire/Thunderbolt plug).

It appears that there isn't a significant enough difference between her computer and the new ones (excluding the Retina display model). Although it might make a difference in AppleCare. I live near Boulder, Colorado with Apple Stores and other stores with Apple close by.

I appreciate your discussion here.
 
Zwhaler said:
Let us know what you end up deciding.
Click to expand...

Will do. Where "you" is plural - my wife will be setting the budget if I get it this Christmas.

Even though most of our retirement money is from my pension - I give myself an allowance, she won't do that for herself. But it means she's willing to spend more right now.
 
Although I don't care for "fusion" drives myself (I prefer a "straight" SSD), the choice between fusion or a platter-based spinning HDD is easy:
Fusion.

This will be far more beneficial in day-to-day usage than an extra gb of video RAM...
 
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