Replacement or Upgrade for iMac

[jazzer15]

I have a late 2015 i7 iMac with 512GB SSD, 24GB RAM (I purchased with 8 and added 16 myself) and 4GB video card. It's a great machine and does everything I need/want and more — which includes the typical office stuff, editing photos (as a hobbyist) in Lightroom and a little Photoshop, etc., some hard disk audio recording/Garageband, and light video editing.

For a number of reasons, it would be helpful for me to have a separate monitor/CPU rather than an all in one and since my wife's iMac is very old at this point I was thinking about maybe passing my computer to her and getting something new.

If I wanted something of at least equal power, what would you suggest?

 

[redheeler]

Unless you're ok with downgrading to a 4K display (and that's not a downgrade I would do), be prepared to spend upwards of $3K if you want better performance than the iMac. i7 + 512 GB SSD + 16 GB RAM Mac mini is $1,699, AMD GPU + Thunderbolt 3 enclosure is approximately $400, and the LG 5K display is $1,299.

So whether or not this is worthwhile is entirely up to you.

 

[ElectronGuru]

You said didn’t like the iMac format but you didn’t really say why and to what end. Are you looking to repeat the 5k, shift to dual screens, what is your content (photos, pages)?

 

[jazzer15]

Unless you're ok with downgrading to a 4K display (and that's not a downgrade I would do), be prepared to spend upwards of $3K if you want better performance than the iMac. i7 + 512 GB SSD + 16 GB RAM Mac mini is $1,699, AMD GPU + Thunderbolt 3 enclosure is approximately $400, and the LG 5K display is $1,299.

So whether or not this is worthwhile is entirely up to you.

Thanks. That's what I thought. And probably not worth it to me.

You said didn’t like the iMac format but you didn’t really say why and to what end. Are you looking to repeat the 5k, shift to dual screens, what is your content (photos, pages)?

It's not that I don't like the iMac format. I do in fact. Probably the biggest issue is that I spend a good amount of time working at home and I must use a work-issued PC laptop and need to be able to hook it up to a large monitor. My iMac can't be used as an external monitor.

The obvious (and much cheaper) solution is to buy another monitor for use with the laptop. Unfortunately I don't have the space for a second monitor, so I thought I might be able to solve the problem with Mac Mini and external monitor -- but it sounds as though it will be very expensive to do so.

 

[ElectronGuru]

Unfortunately I don't have the space for a second monitor, so I thought I might be able to solve the problem with Mac Mini and external monitor -- but it sounds as though it will be very expensive to do so.

If you’ve got vertical content and space for two 4Ks, two of these would look pretty good and work even better:

Both OSs parallel and double of either

 

[harriska2]

I currently run 3 computers (including an imac with broken lcd) off one 40” samsung 4k uhd. So far it looks great. I hope the new mini on monday looks great as a fourth computer.