need iMac upgrade advice

[absolutic]

Hi! My 2015 iMac 27 (4GHZ Quad-Core i7, 32GB 1867 DDR3) has been choking the last year or so with my tasks (photo centric, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop). It is pretty slow and with some Lightroom tasks, like the new noise reduction feautre and some others, it basically goes dark for few seconds during tasks and i have to wake them up. My 2020 basic macbook pro with M1 does all these tasks easily. But I am accustomed to review/edit photos on my iMac so I have been thinking of upgrade. I will definately will be getting a used one.

I was looking at 2019/2020 iMac 27s since this is the last year the 27 are available, since I don't think 24 inch woudl be big enough for me, plus I need a big SSD, 4TB or 8TB due to the size of photo catalogues, and 24 inch iMac does not seem to offer it. Circling back to 2019/2020 iMacs, for my purposes (no video processing but a lot of photo processing) will i5 vs i7 vs i9 matter? Also the number of cores? Any other considerations for 2019/2020 machines? Will I be disappointed in Intel machines, since I am used to M1 performance on my macbook pro and on my ipad pro? Is going from 2015 to 2019/20 much of an upgrade?

 

[jz0309]

Hi! My 2015 iMac 27 (4GHZ Quad-Core i7, 32GB 1867 DDR3) has been choking the last year or so with my tasks (photo centric, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop). It is pretty slow and with some Lightroom tasks, like the new noise reduction feautre and some others, it basically goes dark for few seconds during tasks and i have to wake them up. My 2020 basic macbook pro with M1 does all these tasks easily. But I am accustomed to review/edit photos on my iMac so I have been thinking of upgrade. I will definately will be getting a used one.

I was looking at 2019/2020 iMac 27s since this is the last year the 27 are available, since I don't think 24 inch woudl be big enough for me, plus I need a big SSD, 4TB or 8TB due to the size of photo catalogues, and 24 inch iMac does not seem to offer it. Circling back to 2019/2020 iMacs, for my purposes (no video processing but a lot of photo processing) will i5 vs i7 vs i9 matter? Also the number of cores? Any other considerations for 2019/2020 machines? Will I be disappointed in Intel machines, since I am used to M1 performance on my macbook pro and on my ipad pro? Is going from 2015 to 2019/20 much of an upgrade?

I was in a similar situation with a 2017 iMac but I decided to get a M1Max Studio 64 and 4TB, plus an ASD, very happy with that.

 

[Coltaine]

Same situation here, I had a 2015 27" iMac and switched to a Mac Studio M1 Max, 32 GB, 1 TB SSD and an Apple Studio Display.
Happy with that, even though I still would be in the market for an Apple Silicon all-in-one machine with a larger display a few years down the road.

 

[DeltaMac]

What do you have for a boot drive? Still have a Fusion drive? That 27-inch even came standard with a spinning hard drive... Not much of a boot drive with today's macOS. If so, you might consider an SSD upgrade. There's a blade slot on the logic board, and 4TB NVME blades are available. AND, if you decide to do that, a RAM upgrade might be on your list, too. Your iMac17,1 can use up to 64GB. Possible max RAM, and fast internal SSD may take care of the performance issues that you have now. And, I think a 2015 iMac would be a good candidate for an OCLP install to upgrade to a more current macOS system.
(I like the Intel Macs, but... I also respect the performance of the Mac Studio.)
Should you upgrade a 9 year-old Mac? Is it worth the money, compared to replacing with new? Only you can decide.

 

[Fishrrman]

Wait just a little longer (thinking Oct/Nov).

Then... get one of the new m4PRO Minis.

And... a good 27" 4k display.

That should do for a while...