Hello all so I am going to be buying a new 27" iMac soon and wanted to make sure I'm buying the best one for the money, so I've narrowed it down to either the base model or the next model up, I'd be upgrading to 256gb SSD drive and would add ram at a later time. My use case is basically web browsing, light photo editing, watching movies/videos and very lite gaming, I have a gaming PC for 99% of the games I play. Would I really need the 575x radeon GPU and the slight bump in specs? Now the only thing that I'm questioning because I keep hearing two stories is on apple's site it says the base model only goes up to 32gb max, the next model 64gb max, but other sites it says 128gb on all the 27" models, so which is it? Thank you for your time.
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Help deciding on which iMac 27"
- Thread starter EricandSuebee
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Apple won't sell a base model imac with 64 GB, but the tech specs don't carve out an exception, so it must be a marketing decision
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191#27inch2019
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191#27inch2019
They support 128GB RAM if you buy 3rd party RAM and install it yourself.
Since this seems like a secondary computer for no reason, the specs shouldn't really matter..?
Since this seems like a secondary computer for no reason, the specs shouldn't really matter..?
IMO, the 3.1 model makes little sense, given the small gains over the 3.0. The $200 would be better spent on other, more practical things, like more storage. The 3.7 is $500 more, but at least provides some palpable performance improvement.
The 3.0/256 is currently available for $1609 as an Apple refurb. That's only $10 more than what a stock 3.0/1TB Fusion has gone for on sale (Best Buy's $1299 price mistake last week notwithstanding).
The 3.0/512 is available new for $1899 from B&H, which is a no-brainer versus paying Apple the same money for a 3.0/256. And it's in stock/not special order, which provides an inking of what people actually buy. The 3.1s would have to be special ordered.
Going BTO with an SSD limits the buying options. The only way to get discounts on them though Apple is with refurbs or other qualified discount program. Otherwise, dealers like B&H that order and stock BTO models are the only other option. They discount, but only take returns of unopened machines. You may also wish to check out others like Adorama or Expercom.
All of the 2019 hardware can support up to 128GB RAM. Apple elects to only test and sell configurations in smaller amounts, but it's not a technical limitation, nor is the 3.0 especially limited.
The 3.0/256 is currently available for $1609 as an Apple refurb. That's only $10 more than what a stock 3.0/1TB Fusion has gone for on sale (Best Buy's $1299 price mistake last week notwithstanding).
The 3.0/512 is available new for $1899 from B&H, which is a no-brainer versus paying Apple the same money for a 3.0/256. And it's in stock/not special order, which provides an inking of what people actually buy. The 3.1s would have to be special ordered.
Going BTO with an SSD limits the buying options. The only way to get discounts on them though Apple is with refurbs or other qualified discount program. Otherwise, dealers like B&H that order and stock BTO models are the only other option. They discount, but only take returns of unopened machines. You may also wish to check out others like Adorama or Expercom.
All of the 2019 hardware can support up to 128GB RAM. Apple elects to only test and sell configurations in smaller amounts, but it's not a technical limitation, nor is the 3.0 especially limited.
none of the above.
The one you really want is this $1949 refurb: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...9079fde42cd2cfaa129b69208fb1c4e8c001988a5647a
You get the 9th gen Intel CPU (lower models are 8th gen), and 8 GB Radeon 580X (2 steps up and 2X ram). Double win.
For your use (and honestly for 95% of people) the Fusion drive is waaaaaay more than adequate. Read speeds are identical to the flash drive read speeds, write times are slower -- but still near 700 MB/s -- plenty fast.
Guessing moving tons of large data on your internal drive IS NOT something you were planning on doing anyway, since you were considering a 256 GB flash drive. So the R/W speed of the flash drive is moot anyway. 256 is pretty damn small. Skip it and get the fusion drive. 100X more practical.
ALL 2019 27" iMacs support 128 GB -- but to be honest, if you are trying to go as "cheap" as you can now, the idea of you being able to afford $600 in ram (128 GB 3rd party) seems kinda far fetched. I highly doubt you will ever spend the $ on 128 GB of ram. For your use it would be a waste of $ anyway.
Best bang for the buck is to add an addtional 32 GB (total 40 GB) -- which is more than enough for your use. (well, again, 95% of users.)
FWIW, the above config -- refurb 27" 3.7/2 TB Fusion, w/8GB Radeon 580X + 32 GB DIY ram is what I currently recommend to all my clients. 3 purchased in the last few weeks. All super happy.
The one you really want is this $1949 refurb: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...9079fde42cd2cfaa129b69208fb1c4e8c001988a5647a
You get the 9th gen Intel CPU (lower models are 8th gen), and 8 GB Radeon 580X (2 steps up and 2X ram). Double win.
For your use (and honestly for 95% of people) the Fusion drive is waaaaaay more than adequate. Read speeds are identical to the flash drive read speeds, write times are slower -- but still near 700 MB/s -- plenty fast.
Guessing moving tons of large data on your internal drive IS NOT something you were planning on doing anyway, since you were considering a 256 GB flash drive. So the R/W speed of the flash drive is moot anyway. 256 is pretty damn small. Skip it and get the fusion drive. 100X more practical.
ALL 2019 27" iMacs support 128 GB -- but to be honest, if you are trying to go as "cheap" as you can now, the idea of you being able to afford $600 in ram (128 GB 3rd party) seems kinda far fetched. I highly doubt you will ever spend the $ on 128 GB of ram. For your use it would be a waste of $ anyway.
Best bang for the buck is to add an addtional 32 GB (total 40 GB) -- which is more than enough for your use. (well, again, 95% of users.)
FWIW, the above config -- refurb 27" 3.7/2 TB Fusion, w/8GB Radeon 580X + 32 GB DIY ram is what I currently recommend to all my clients. 3 purchased in the last few weeks. All super happy.
DO NOT buy ANY new or Apple-refurbished iMac with a fusion drive.
You will probably regret the purchase.
Get ONLY an iMac with an SSD inside.
You will NEVER regret doing this.
Having said that, ALWAYS buy the minimum configuration of RAM (8gb) and add more yourself later. But DO NOT buy "the cheapest" -- get good RAM.
And having said that, I believe the best "value" and longevity in the iMac line usually lies "in the midrange" models.
My opinion only.
Others will disagree.
Some will disagree vehemently.
You will probably regret the purchase.
Get ONLY an iMac with an SSD inside.
You will NEVER regret doing this.
Having said that, ALWAYS buy the minimum configuration of RAM (8gb) and add more yourself later. But DO NOT buy "the cheapest" -- get good RAM.
And having said that, I believe the best "value" and longevity in the iMac line usually lies "in the midrange" models.
My opinion only.
Others will disagree.
Some will disagree vehemently.
DO NOT buy ANY new or Apple-refurbished iMac with a fusion drive.
You will probably regret the purchase.
Can you back that up with some real world use? If not, then you "probably" shouldnt insert "opinions" vs "facts" -- it just confuses the OP.
Real world use: Fusion drives are great, with write speeds near 3000 MB/s and read speeds near 700 MB/s*. And again, unless you are a user that is pushing tens or hundreds of TBs of data around all day on your internal drive, you are more than good.
*With some exceptions. 1 TB Fusion drives starting with the 2015 model are crap. Apple made the flsh part really small. pre 2014s are not. Sadly, there are several reviews out there that seem to come up first with a google search that reference the 2015 iMacs 1 TB Fusion drive performance as the "bar" at which they rate all fusion drives.
2 and 3 TB Fusion drives are fine, from any year.
Which is all moot, since we arent talking about anything but a 2019 iMac.
You will probably regret the purchase.
Can you back that up with some real world use? If not, then you "probably" shouldnt insert "opinions" vs "facts" -- it just confuses the OP.
Real world use: Fusion drives are great, with write speeds near 3000 MB/s and read speeds near 700 MB/s*. And again, unless you are a user that is pushing tens or hundreds of TBs of data around all day on your internal drive, you are more than good.
*With some exceptions. 1 TB Fusion drives starting with the 2015 model are crap. Apple made the flsh part really small. pre 2014s are not. Sadly, there are several reviews out there that seem to come up first with a google search that reference the 2015 iMacs 1 TB Fusion drive performance as the "bar" at which they rate all fusion drives.
2 and 3 TB Fusion drives are fine, from any year.
Which is all moot, since we arent talking about anything but a 2019 iMac.
This is outright lie. Some singular tests which utilise the tiny SSD portion (ergo, it's NOT testing the 'Fusion drive' at all) do not tell you real world usage of the entire drive.
Dude, you're the one throwing out opinions.
Facts:
- You have zero control over the SSD and HDD portion on a Fusion.
- HDD portion is way too slow for macOS, has been since 2008.
- macOS takes away control of a variety of things from the user, which aren't good for HDD, i.e. it'll index whenever it feels like
- SSD portion on Fusion differs greatly
- External USB drives are cheapest they've ever been
Why would you cripple your machine with something that MIGHT work okay some of the time, when you get get an industry-best (almost) SSD which will run at top speed all day every day for all of your work.
DO NOT GET FUSION IN A 2019 MAC
I ended up going for the refurbished model that was linked, the specs and price at the money saved was well worth it and I have had 0 issues over the course of the few days I've had it with the fusion drive, it has been working great!
No my original question was on Apple's website it only lists 64 GB as the max, I wanted to know if all models are 64 GB or was it just the mid and high range models as I was originally going to go with the base model, but upon looking at price and refurbished models went with this model as it was the best price. Then everyone chimed in on 128 GB of ram, I will never use or even purchase that much to begin with, but it is nice to know I could go up to that if I really wanted to.