looking to buy a imac

[macbookali]

hey , new to this forum. i have an early 2009 macbook, had it for 7 years now, its very slow and im in need of an upgrade.

i have some money to spend , so i was looking to invest in an imac 5k retina . i would use it for general browsing, word , excel , internet and maybe watching movies . i will time to time use the video edit and photo edit.

as the i mac is build to order, what sort of memory am i looking at, as i dont really understand the fusion drive or the flash storage .

could anyone recommend me in the right direction ?

many thanks

 

[EnesM]

16GB of RAM should be enough, if you intend to keep it for 7 years you could go with 32GB or just upgrade it later on if needed.

To each their own I suppose, but I would definitely go with SSD, not fusion drive.

However, if you insist on going for the fusion drive, there is one catch: 1TB fusion has only 24GB SSD and the rest is HDD.
2TB fusion drive has 128GB SSD and the rest is HDD.

CPU can be 3.5GHz, GPU 395, more than enough for your needs, and you will be amazed

 

[maflynn]

i have some money to spend , so i was looking to invest in an imac 5k retina . i would use it for general browsing, word , excel , internet and maybe watching movies . i will time to time use the video edit and photo edit.

as the i mac is build to order, what sort of memory am i looking at, as i dont really understand the fusion drive or the flash storage .

Personally, I like the M395 model as it comes with a nice GPU, 2TB Fusion drive, at a decent price point. If your storages needs are not as expansive, then consider a 256GB SSD.

As for Fusion drives, Apple uses two physical drives, one flash drive and one spinning hard drive. They "Fuse" it together logically so as a consumer you see a single drive. The OS then determines what data blocks go on the slower hard drive, and what goes on the faster flash storage.

The 2TB Fusion drive contains 128GB of flash storage, so it will hold a lot more data then the 1TB Fusion drive which has only 24GB of storage. To put it another way; more of your frequently accessed data will be on the slower spinning hard drive on the 1TB Fusion drive just because the flash storage is so small. The best case scenario is to skip the spinning drive altogether and opt for a 256GB SSD, but that might over time be too small.

16GB of RAM should be enough,

16GB is over kill, as noted he's doing basic tasks and getting 16GB now will be a waste of memory. If his needs change, he can upgrade the ram later.

 

[EnesM]

16GB is over kill, as noted he's doing basic tasks and getting 16GB now will be a waste of memory. If his needs change, he can upgrade the ram later.

It's useful if you want to run let's say Windows with Parallels or similar, you can assign enough RAM to the virtual machine.

I have 8GB on my Macbook Pro. I've assigned to Parallels about 4GB, and while it is usually enough, if you open big spread sheets, etc., you can feel it struggling.

If he doesn't need to run Windows in parallel to Mac OS (or wants it via Boot Camp), then it is enough.

Come to mention Boot Camp, if you do want to install Windows, I highly recommend a full SSD, not a Fusion drive as Windows will be installed on the hard drive part of the Fusion making it painfully slow to boot, etc.

 

[maflynn]

It's useful if you want to run let's say Windows with Parallels or similar, you can assign enough RAM to the virtual machine.

I have 8GB of ram, and I've not run into issues, if you're going to run multiple VMs at the same time, then yes.

The OP did not state running windows in his use case, in fact he only mentioned basic needs. Again if he needs 16GB, why not just upgrade the ram when he needs it. Buying it now is a waste.

 

[EnesM]

This is my RAM usage, almost nothing open, and look at the usage. With 16GB swap file would almost never be used.

I highly recommend 16GB

 

[macbookali]

Personally, I like the M395 model as it comes with a nice GPU, 2TB Fusion drive, at a decent price point. If your storages needs are not as expansive, then consider a 256GB SSD.

As for Fusion drives, Apple uses two physical drives, one flash drive and one spinning hard drive. They "Fuse" it together logically so as a consumer you see a single drive. The OS then determines what data blocks go on the slower hard drive, and what goes on the faster flash storage.

The 2TB Fusion drive contains 128GB of flash storage, so it will hold a lot more data then the 1TB Fusion drive which has only 24GB of storage. To put it another way; more of your frequently accessed data will be on the slower spinning hard drive on the 1TB Fusion drive just because the flash storage is so small. The best case scenario is to skip the spinning drive altogether and opt for a 256GB SSD, but that might over time be too small.



16GB is over kill, as noted he's doing basic tasks and getting 16GB now will be a waste of memory. If his needs change, he can upgrade the ram later.

thank you for your reply

i wont be storing to much on the mac, i barely have anything on the macbook, as you said basic needs for browsing and , i need something much faster than what i have already. i was thinking 8gb myself as if i need be in the future i can upgrade myself in the future
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It's useful if you want to run let's say Windows with Parallels or similar, you can assign enough RAM to the virtual machine.

I have 8GB on my Macbook Pro. I've assigned to Parallels about 4GB, and while it is usually enough, if you open big spread sheets, etc., you can feel it struggling.

If he doesn't need to run Windows in parallel to Mac OS (or wants it via Boot Camp), then it is enough.

Come to mention Boot Camp, if you do want to install Windows, I highly recommend a full SSD, not a Fusion drive as Windows will be installed on the hard drive part of the Fusion making it painfully slow to boot, etc.

hey thank you for the reply , i wont being using windows or anything on the Imac , just simple tasks and some video and photo programs

i think i will go with the 8gb and update in the future if need be

thanks for your help though

 

[maflynn]

This is my RAM usage, almost nothing open, and look at the usage. With 16GB swap file would almost never be used.

I highly recommend 16GB

Why? Yes you don't have much open, except for the fact that you're running windows in parallels which is taking a large portion of ram - even so the ram pressure is in the green which means you're not over extending the resources. The OP never stated using windows.

Here's my list and with 8GB, I'm running PS, LR, Excel and a bunch other apps and 8GB fine.