Design Studio needs to upgrade 4 iMacs

[markc128]

Hi Guys - looking for some specific hardware advice for a medium sized digital agency that has a team of 4 graphic designers.

Our iMacs are starting to show their age and are costing productivity/time/money and it's time to upgrade.

What we're trying to achieve is the right balance between performance and cost with the upgrade.

Currently running Mid 2011 iMacs: 2.7ghz i5 12GB RAM 6770M 512MB

Our work ranges from heavy Photoshop use to Indesign, Illustrator, Video editing with Premiere Pro and animation with After Effects.

We are in the process of moving towards a cloud storage system so HDD space over 500GB wont be an issue.

Currently looking at two options.

Go with a refurbed June 2017 model (https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...uad-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-5K-display) There is also an option for 3.5ghz processors - is the extra £150 worth that upgrade?

We would then upgrade the RAM ourselves to 32GB.

OR

Go with an older model for less money. Such as this one: http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk/A...GB+RAM+500GB+SSD+MF125BA+A1419+Late+2013.html

Is the price difference worth the premium? Is there a significant performance increase with the newer model or are we just paying for the 5k retina screen which admittedly isn't too important. We don't really touch 4k content at the moment - however future proofing is good.

Hopefully this all makes sense and would love some input from the hardware minded designers out there.

Cheers!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Personally for longevity I would go pure Flash storage or at the absolute least, a 3TB Fusion Drive; nothing less than that. The 1TB Fusion has a paltry 24GB SSD and as such the HDD will be utilised almost immediately after installing creative applications, making real-world performance very frustrating.

5K is a good shout too due to the upgradeable RAM, great display for futureproofing, and better hardware performance over the 2013. Although it may be a little more expensive initially, in the long run getting pure Flash and great displays would save you a lot of time and money.

 

[James_C]

I agree with Keysofanxiety, your biggest improvement in performance will come from an SSD. You can configure a Base Level new iMac with a 512GB SSD for £2,019 including VAT. I would avoid Fusion drives as you have two failure points in the drive (Conventional hard disk and a SSD). If you are a design studio, investing slightly more will pay back with improved productivity. I would not worry about the faster processor - invest in SSD and memory instead.

 

[kingjames1970]

Hi Guys - looking for some specific hardware advice for a medium sized digital agency that has a team of 4 graphic designers.

Our iMacs are starting to show their age and are costing productivity/time/money and it's time to upgrade.

What we're trying to achieve is the right balance between performance and cost with the upgrade.

Currently running Mid 2011 iMacs: 2.7ghz i5 12GB RAM 6770M 512MB

Our work ranges from heavy Photoshop use to Indesign, Illustrator, Video editing with Premiere Pro and animation with After Effects.

We are in the process of moving towards a cloud storage system so HDD space over 500GB wont be an issue.

Currently looking at two options.

Go with a refurbed June 2017 model (https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/produ...uad-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-5K-display) There is also an option for 3.5ghz processors - is the extra £150 worth that upgrade?

We would then upgrade the RAM ourselves to 32GB.

OR

Go with an older model for less money. Such as this one: http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk/A...GB+RAM+500GB+SSD+MF125BA+A1419+Late+2013.html

Is the price difference worth the premium? Is there a significant performance increase with the newer model or are we just paying for the 5k retina screen which admittedly isn't too important. We don't really touch 4k content at the moment - however future proofing is good.

Hopefully this all makes sense and would love some input from the hardware minded designers out there.

Cheers!

I can guarantee you that the 5K screen will be amazing for your designers, that's enough of a reason to upgrade in itself. You don't need to be doing any 4K video work to find the high resolution screens a real boon for productivity.

I work mostly in CC and I just sold my 2013 iMac as I've replaced it with an iMac Pro. I can understand you not jumping on the high end but for the love of all that is holy, don't present designers with four year old Macs unless you want a riot!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Go with the 2017 it has the best graphics short of an iMac Pro and graphics are the first thing to show their age in the current computer upgrade cycles.

 

[theluggage]

Go with an older model for less money.

Is the price difference worth the premium?

First, for business use, only touch the 2013 option if it comes with a decent extended warranty - that's getting on for 5 years old, and Macs are expensive to repair. I wouldn't go over 3 years old on a used computer for business use. Apple's refurbs are ok, because they're pretty much sold as new with full warranties. So getting official refurbs may be prudent, but buying 5-year-old machines is asking for "buy cheap, buy twice".

Second, CPU and graphics wise, yes, a 2013 iMac will perform better than the relevant 2011 Mac model, and a 2017 iMac will out-perform both - and I'm sure you'll notice the difference on Photoshop etc. - but the biggest step forward in the last 7 years has been the switch to SSDs. Avoid fusion drives and for 512GB SSDs - big enough to store the system and work-in-progress, and if you're dealing with large graphics files and movies you'll need terabytes of external/networked/cloud storage for archiving, backup and sharing anyway.

Generally, small CPU bumps give a poor return on investment c.f. SSD and RAM, but it's dangerous to generalise - even something like Photoshop depends on what exactly you are doing with it.

We don't really touch 4k content at the moment - however future proofing is good.

Sorry, but that's the reasoning for those of us buying for hobbyist/enthusiast use for vaguely-defined applications. Any recent, well-specced iMac will "do" 4k but maybe not efficiently - if you are going to take on "4k work" in the future then you'll need to go away and research what equipment you need to do the job (and that's going to extend way beyond what model iMac you have - storage, networking, cameras, training). Currently, you don't even know what "the job" might be ('4k' UHD? True 4k? 8k? 3D CGI? HDR? TV? Movie? Web? Type of camera? Format? Most suitable software?)

Its always worth working out what (say) 10 minutes a day of one of your designers' time would cost over 3 years, writing it on a post-it and sticking it on your screen while you're costing up equipment purchases. I know that money doesn't grow on trees, but the reality is that the cost of computer equipment is loose change in relation to your personnel costs, yet it is a key part of your infrastructure. Having the right people is, of course, the most important things, but giving them the right tools doesn't come far behind. Your business case is the productivity of your staff at what they are doing today and in the forseeable future - not some hand-wavy "future proofing".

 

[Razzerman]

I work mostly in CC and I just sold my 2013 iMac as I've replaced it with an iMac Pro. I can understand you not jumping on the high end but for the love of all that is holy, don't present designers with four year old Macs unless you want a riot!

Chuckled to myself at this statement - and never a truer word written.

Just as a curve ball, why not consider waiting until the next gen Mac Pro comes along? Also, it might be worth talking to the designers and get their feedback - at least they'll feel involved and can't really complain about whichever machine they end up with.

Cheers,

Razzerman