iMac 2017

[Jungles999]

hi all new here

I just bought a 2017 iMac 27 inch with fusion drive and amd 570 pro. It was on sale in the U.K.

I’ll primarily use it for photoshop. My old 2011 iMac kept freezing whenever I used photoshop and I guess that’s because it only had 512mb graphics memory

This one has 4gb so I’m hoping I’ll be ok?

The other thing is I used to run my old iMac via a transcend external ssd and it has two ports. One was thunderbolt to thunderbolt. And the other a usb to usb connection.

My new Imac has thunderbolt 3 which is incompatible with the thunderbolt 1 lead.

Should I just use the usb or buy a thunderbolt 1 to thunderbolt 3 adapter.

Or I could buy a usb 3.1 to USB adapter which are much cheaper.

So two questions really

1. Is my new Imac good enough for photoshop and future proof.

2. What should I do about my ssd drive. I’d still like to make use of it in the best way and use it as an alternative way to start up my machine or as a scratch disk for photoshop.

Thank you

 

[Fishrrman]

"The other thing is I used to run my old iMac via a transcend external ssd and it has two ports. One was thunderbolt to thunderbolt. And the other a usb to usb connection."

Easy answer:
Try USB3 first.
If that works, it works.
You probably won't see any increase in speed by connecting via tbolt2.

My prediction is that you'll be just fine via USB.

Also -- of course a 2017 iMac 27" "is good enough for PhotoShop".

You didn't tell us how much RAM you got.
It's probably the "stock" configuration -- 8gb?
Try that first. It may be fine.
If you arrive at the decision that you "need more RAM", it's easily added via the "pop open" door on the back.

 

[wardie]

1. Buy some extra memory at least 2x8GB and put in in yourself, if it in indeed the stock 2x4GB config. Will help with Adobe products like PS and LR processing headroom across multiple cores.
2. If you want to speed up the above and you have large digital assets you may find your fusion drive slows as you run out of SSD portion. Cheaper option buy a USB3 SSD like Samsung T5 1TB cheap for your libraries or scratch space, or if you really want to kick ass buy a Thunderbolt 3 SSD like a Samsung X5 or TEKQ Rapide T3 SSD.
I’ve got a 2017 iMac with i7 processor, 1TB SSD internal, T5 1TB for LR library, 24GB RAM, Radeon 580. Works really well (except wish I had a 2019 i9 now just for the “MORE POWER” but I’m an amateur so time != money).