iMac Pro Should I Buy an iMac 21.5” Late 2012?

[HeartletTullius]

Hello!

I'm thinking of buying an iMac, and my brother is selling an iMac 21.5" Late 2012 (running macOS High Sierra). He got gifted it at work, and doesn't have any use for it, so it's never been used. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and I'd love to buy it off him. However, I do a LOT of heavy duty things on my Mac currently, for example, Final Cut Pro X, Xcode, Logic Pro, Photoshop CC 2018, Motion 5, Fontlab VI etc.

It's not a retina, so maybe that will help with my question.

I just wondering is it worth buying for all this heavy duty stuff. I use this software all day, everyday for work etc. Final Cut and Photoshop I use the most, so would they be extremely laggy/buggy. I edit 4K video a LOT, so would that be very buggy and glitchy - or should the iMac handle it fine.

I currently have a MacBook Pro Retina 13" Late 2013 with 256GB, 8GB of Memory and Intel Iris 1536 MB. It also has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5.

The iMac my brother is selling is an iMac 21.5" Late 2012 with 500GB, 16GB of Memory, and NVIDIA GeFORCE GT 640M 512MB. It also has a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5.

Also, will this iMac be out-of-date and not supported by any software over the forthcoming months/years? Or should I be okay?

Thank you for all your help, and thank you for taking the time to read and answer my question!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Based on what you have versus what you're talking about buying, I'd say the iMac will probably have a little more performance, especially since it doesn't have to drive a higher resolution display. You also get more RAM and a dedicated graphics card. The CPU is slightly older, but it will be a 65W CPU and a quad core (versus your 45W dual core, I believe), so you should see more CPU power. You also get the major bonus of a 21.5" display versus the 13."

As far as future updates, that's anyone's guess. With them being only a year apart, there may not be much of a difference.

So, if you don't mind the lack of portability, I'd say go for it. You can always attempt a few upgrades over time on the iMac as well, like adding a large SSD.

 

[Glmnet1]

How much is he selling it for?

 

[alien3dx]

if can get below 500 dollar why not.. but still need to changed the hardisk to external ssd and hack the board and upgrading the ram if available.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

A 500GB what? Yes if it is an SSD, no if it is a slow old 5400rpm laptop style platter drive. The graphics being only 512MB may drag a bit. The memory bs adequate and a big plus is that model has USB3. Another plus is Thunderbolt.

The CPU is the slowest of that model.

Sold one October 2016 for $580 and with the new release of the 2017 and niMac Pro, suggest not paying more than $450.00.

 

[JustMartin]

I'm typing this on a late 2012 21.5" (I7, Fusion, 16gb, 650M) - not done much with graphics, but it's coped well with Logic Pro, Sibelius, Microsoft Office, Xcode sometimes all at the same time. I had planned to upgrade to the latest model when it comes out this year, but may well wait.

 

[Luis Ortega]

It's a 6 year old model that is going obsolete.
You will not be happy with its performance for the work you say you want to do.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hello!

I'm thinking of buying an iMac, and my brother is selling an iMac 21.5" Late 2012 (running macOS High Sierra). He got gifted it at work, and doesn't have any use for it, so it's never been used. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and I'd love to buy it off him. However, I do a LOT of heavy duty things on my Mac currently, for example, Final Cut Pro X, Xcode, Logic Pro, Photoshop CC 2018, Motion 5, Fontlab VI etc.

It's not a retina, so maybe that will help with my question.

I just wondering is it worth buying for all this heavy duty stuff. I use this software all day, everyday for work etc. Final Cut and Photoshop I use the most, so would they be extremely laggy/buggy. I edit 4K video a LOT, so would that be very buggy and glitchy - or should the iMac handle it fine.

I currently have a MacBook Pro Retina 13" Late 2013 with 256GB, 8GB of Memory and Intel Iris 1536 MB. It also has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5.

The iMac my brother is selling is an iMac 21.5" Late 2012 with 500GB, 16GB of Memory, and NVIDIA GeFORCE GT 640M 512MB. It also has a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5.

Also, will this iMac be out-of-date and not supported by any software over the forthcoming months/years? Or should I be okay?

Thank you for all your help, and thank you for taking the time to read and answer my question!

For that use case no, you really want a modern 5k imac with a decent graphics card and an ssd, the imac will feel very slow because of the HDD, and will be only marginally better than your MacBook at most things and feel slower because of the disk drive.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Looks like a 50/50 split at the moment. I guess we aren’t so helpful! Would he loan it to you for a few weeks so you could properly evaluate it for your needs?

Price is a big deal here. Yes, a new iMac would be faster, but you’re looking at a lot more money, and you’ll still be looking at a spinning disk as the default. Fusion or full SSD will only further crank up the price. I’d love to have a newer Mac, but my cMP is getting me by and I’ve spent a lot less on it (bought it for $320).

 

[padams35]

Double check that '500GB' bit. The 2012's shipped with 1TB 5400rpm drives by default and I don't remember there being any 500GB SSD config options from Apple that year. Thus '500GB' may be a typo or an indication of an aftermarket SSD upgrade.

If it has an SSD and you can agree on a fair price go for it! Faster CPU, slightly faster GPU, more ram... the only downside is less video memory. The 2012s have USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, native metal support, etc so I wouldn't expect to suddenly become out of date any time soon.

4K video editing might be questionable, but then again I wouldn't have expected a 13" 2013 MBP to be a 4K video editor either. +1 to the suggestion of test driving it first if possible.

 

[HeartletTullius]

How much is he selling it for?

$300!
[doublepost=1518198189][/doublepost]

A 500GB what? Yes if it is an SSD, no if it is a slow old 5400rpm laptop style platter drive. The graphics being only 512MB may drag a bit. The memory bs adequate and a big plus is that model has USB3. Another plus is Thunderbolt.

The CPU is the slowest of that model.

Sold one October 2016 for $580 and with the new release of the 2017 and niMac Pro, suggest not paying more than $450.00.

It’s a Fusion Drive

 

[Glmnet1]

$300!
[doublepost=1518198189][/doublepost]
It’s a Fusion Drive

It's a good deal at that price but I don't think it's the right computer for your needs. As others have said, a 2017 27" iMac would be a better purchase if you can afford it.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

But it will cost a tad more than $300!

If everything works the price is right.

 

[PopetheIv]

hello everyone, stumbled across this thread, I just bought a 2012 27inch iMac off eBay for $350 albeit with an HDD. I am thinking of buying an external SSD so i can boot OSX from it.