The 27" iMac up sell dance

[vapourtrails]

Which 27" iMac have you ordered and why? I am looking at the entry level 27" iMac for Photoshop and light video editing. I will of course add memory later. Is the up sell to the mid tier 27" worth the price, or should I go full throttle on the top model.

 

[glenthompson]

I just ordered the mid-level model for my wife. She needs the 3tb fusion drive that's not available on the bottom model. Since few people are not processor bound in their activities, the high end processors don't make a lot of sense. Better to spend the money on memory or disk.

Wondering when 3rd party memory will be available.

 

[vapourtrails]

I just ordered the mid-level model for my wife. She needs the 3tb fusion drive that's not available on the bottom model. Since few people are not processor bound in their activities, the high end processors don't make a lot of sense. Better to spend the money on memory or disk.

Wondering when 3rd party memory will be available.

Did the graphics card play into your decision at all?

 

[glenthompson]

Did the graphics card play into your decision at all?

Slightly. She does a moderate amount of photo and image editing. Figured that the mid GPU would be plenty.

 

[havenyoung]

The top-tier is only $300 more (for edu price it's only $200 more) and comes with double vram(4GB to 8GB) and double storage (1TB FD to 2TB FD). Worth the money to upgrade?

 

[dsc888]

I ordered the 27 inch with...

>i7 4.2Ghz
>8 Gb RAM (to be upgraded to 32 later)
>580 PRO Graphics with 8Gb VRAM
>1 Tb SSD (512 SSD in my rMBP got filled very quickly)
>Magic Keyboard with Number Pad (Loved the old one on my 2010 Mac Pro)

I plan to use it for 4K Video Editing in FCP, Adobe Lightroom and hoping the the new video enhancements built into Kaby Lake will allow Netflix to finally stream 4K to this new machine. This iMac will finally replace my 2010 Mac Pro that has aged well over the years after I added in a 1 Tb SSD and upped the RAM to 12 Gb. It's functional but it's not able to display more than 2.5K via my 27 inch Apple Cinema Display. It'll function as a general system for my wife and kids for e-mail, web surfing and school projects.

I went through the Educational Store to get the $200 discount and pickup in neighboring NH where there's no sales tax. Also 5% cash back as I made my purchase through the Discover Card ShipDiscover Portal.

Net cost...$2706.55 (after the 5% statement credit from my CC).

I can't wait! Delivery is June 19 for In Store Pickup.

 

[Floris]

I do not dance, because I have to pay 600 euro extra just to get it from the USA to EU, we pay extra - no matter what.
It's 3000 with tax in USA/CA and 3600 in EU, basically .. for the model I picked, so screw the dance, watch my tears.

the one i just ordered, i hope they are able to deliver it in june at some point.

It will replace my 2009 iAMc 24"

 

[Neo999955]

27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display

• 4.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
• 16GB 2400MHz DDR4
• 3TB Fusion Drive
• Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB video memory

I've had my same low-spec 21" iMac from 2011 and it's really struggling these days. It no longer seems able to sync my Photos, everything lags, playing games outside of Civ V/HoTS/HearthStone typically results in a sad death. I do a lot of editing for film and somewhat photos, so I wanted the best iMac to do that for another 5-7 years. Plus, I'd love to buy a good VR set to pair with it, even if it's not quite THAT powerful.

I'm also a developer, although, tbh, this is way overpowered for that task.

 

[Jimmdean]

27" base model [EDU] with 512GB SSD for me. I think a regular hard drive has no business in this chassy - regardless of how much SSD it is paired to.

The differences in the GPUs (once you get to 27") are negligible for most people. For the day-to-day there is no difference.
CPU upgrade (to i7) is also not worth it for most people. The people who really need hyper-threading for their workloads know who they are - it's just a waste of money for everyone else.

Unfortunately Apple markets their SSD upgrades as top-of-the-line so they do not give price parity with fusion drives. I know they are top-of-the-line NVME tech, but it's still an expensive BTO that is a real pita. Apple could do a little better there IMO. Personally I think the M.2 slot should be just as accessible as the RAM.

 

[starwager19]

I would love to have 2T of SSD, but there's no way I can justify the price point (both for having to jump to the top model, and then the upcharge for the drive itself). So I'm currently planning to go with the mid-tier with a 1T SSD. I haven't pulled the trigger quite yet, though. I'm excited to get it, but I'm also not in urgent need, so I may wait a little while to get some first impressions on the real world performance.

 

[Traverse]

I ordered a 27" iMac with:

I set out determined to get a 2TB SSD. But thing is that it was just really for media storage. An extra $800 just to store iTunes content when I can get a portable HDD and fix it out of sight for $100 made little sense.

This is my first desktop and I wanted it to be a powerhouse in to last a long time so I got the highest and GPU and CPU I could.

 

[Nismo73]

I would get the following and can get it with education discount.
Would upgrade on my own another 16gb in the two empty slots to make it 32gb total.
Add a usb-c storage drive.

 

[Sirmausalot]

I do not dance, because I have to pay 600 euro extra just to get it from the USA to EU, we pay extra - no matter what.
It's 3000 with tax in USA/CA and 3600 in EU, basically .. for the model I picked, so screw the dance, watch my tears.

View attachment 702470

the one i just ordered, i hope they are able to deliver it in june at some point.

It will replace my 2009 iAMc 24"

Okay, let's dance. What is your yearly salary and how does it compare to the yearly salary for exact same position in the US? Include benefits, like retirement and health insurance. Also be good to compare cost of living in a similar city where the work is. Let's find out if we should cry you that 600 Euro river ;-)

 

[Floris]

Okay, let's dance. What is your yearly salary and how does it compare to the yearly salary for exact same position in the US? Include benefits, like retirement and health insurance. Also be good to compare cost of living in a similar city where the work is. Let's find out if we should cry you that 600 Euro river ;-)

I have a disability, i unfortn. can't work, what i do is freelance, and it's incidental. Despite great health insurance, i pay above average because of it, and haha, retirement.. yeah, that's not in my future. Trust me, compared to me, you're better off, even if you're in the us.

Which has nothing to do with your country and the netherlands, while in the EU, how about we compare the US benefits over say romania or other easter-european countries? lol, did you even check out brexit (i mean the uk) where apple just added a $300 extra on top of almost every product-

 

[Sirmausalot]

I have a disability, i unfortn. can't work, what i do is freelance, and it's incidental. Despite great health insurance, i pay above average because of it, and haha, retirement.. yeah, that's not in my future. Trust me, compared to me, you're better off, even if you're in the us.

Which has nothing to do with your country and the netherlands, while in the EU, how about we compare the US benefits over say romania or other easter-european countries? lol, did you even check out brexit (i mean the uk) where apple just added a $300 extra on top of almost every product-

My point is that people like to compare costs of say New work City (where I live) to costs of, well, wherever they come from. But it's an entirely different equation because there are so many factors involved. So although on your screen it looks like you are paying more, there are way, way too many factors. You can't live in New York City and buy dumplings in China (at least not on a daily basis). Nor do we have to pay Swiss prices for our train rides....

BTW, our family will be cycling through the Netherlands in August...so I hope it's awesome.

 

[Floris]

I would get the following and can get it with education discount.
Would upgrade on my own another 16gb in the two empty slots to make it 32gb total.
Add a usb-c storage drive.

View attachment 702706

Remember to check the specs on the storage you are buying.
No use buying an old usb 2 hdd with usb-c cable and get 480mbit speeds.. yes, those sorta weird combos are out there.

Check that they are the 10gbit usb-c ones. A lot of 5gbit or 1gbit
I think this is usb 3.1 gen 2 ones that are 10gbit.

I just woke up i probably got some of that wrong, but my point is that ppl stick on usb-c or thunderbolt and expect it to be apple 40gbit thunderbolt 3, .. which it isn't.

 

[andriasl]

how many slots for the RAM does the new imac have?

 

[Jack Burton]

how many slots for the RAM does the new imac have?

The 27 inch has 4 slots of up to 16 GB each.

 

[adster]

So the RAM is user replaceable, can I get a fusion drive and replace it with an SSD myself? These SSD Build to Order prices are insane! If so any opinions on types/brands of SSD?

 

[Jimmdean]

So the RAM is user replaceable, can I get a fusion drive and replace it with an SSD myself? These SSD Build to Order prices are insane! If so any opinions on types/brands of SSD?

you can, but it is difficult. keep in mind the standalone SSD they use is not a disk - it's a PCI-E (M.2) Module - think Samsung 960 PRO. It is also difficult to get to - requires removal of the screen and essentially everything behind it - and in the past if you did not order SSD from the start then the actual port would not be there.

It is pretty much a guarantee though that you could replace the regular hard drive (or fusion drive) - with a regular disc SSD in a 3.5" adapter - but you'll get regular SSD speeds, not the crazy 3GB/s that Apple touts on their standalones. That would be a screen removal, but usually not much else...

Trust me - once you think about all the trouble their BTO price doesn't seem so bad.

Still sucks they aren't standard though - or at least price-parity in some way with Fusion.

 

[zorinlynx]

27" base model [EDU] with 512GB SSD for me. I think a regular hard drive has no business in this chassy - regardless of how much SSD it is paired to.

It's funny; I feel the same way. We decided on pure SSD for the machines being ordered in the CS department I work for. Minimizing the amount of moving parts in a hard to service system is only common sense. Historically the ONLY failures we've had on iMacs in this department (across dozens and dozens of systems) have been hard drives.

When I buy my own I'm likely going to do the same; get SSD-only and if I need more space, that's what USB 3.0 external drives are for.

 

[csjcsj]

I ordered the low end 27" because I need a new car, and every cent counts. I did upgrade the memory and to the keyboard with the numeric pad. My main uses for my Mac at this point are running Bryce - a no longer supported 3D program - in Windows XP through Parallels. Also for running the Adobe CS. Given that I'm upgrading from a mid-2012 MBP, even the low end will be a nice upgrade. I'm really looking forward to the 27" screen, the real selling point for me to go from a laptop to a desktop. Ever since the iPP, those are about the only times I use the Mac anymore.

 

[Jack Burton]

I ordered the low end 27" because I need a new car, and every cent counts. I did upgrade the memory and to the keyboard with the numeric pad. My main uses for my Mac at this point are running Bryce - a no longer supported 3D program - in Windows XP through Parallels. Also for running the Adobe CS. Given that I'm upgrading from a mid-2012 MBP, even the low end will be a nice upgrade. I'm really looking forward to the 27" screen, the real selling point for me to go from a laptop to a desktop. Ever since the iPP, those are about the only times I use the Mac anymore.

There is a new version of Bryce for Mac and PC if you are interested: https://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro

It's from Daz now, so I have no idea what features or items are hidden behind micro transactions.

 

[Jamooche]

I'm planning to order a new top of the line iMac to upgrade from my late 2012 non-retina iMac.

I'm going for the 1TB SSD too as I'm coming from a 3TB Fusion.

If I buy 2 16GB RAM cards to fill the other 2 slots, will these work along with the two 4GB that come stock for a total of 40GB RAM? Or do they all need to be the same size in each slot?

 

[hagr182]

Which 27" iMac have you ordered and why? I am looking at the entry level 27" iMac for Photoshop and light video editing. I will of course add memory later. Is the up sell to the mid tier 27" worth the price, or should I go full throttle on the top model.

I´m most likely getting the mid-27 inch model as is around mid november and upgrading the ram down the line. However the 580 card and the 2tb fusion of the top model are very tempting, so I might just end up paying the difference with my credit card; The mid tier should be sufficient for my light photoshop sessions, media consumption and coding. I guess I´ll really know as november aproaches.