Which 27inch model to buy?

[mcdspncr]

I've been waiting for this upgrade for years, and limping by on hardware that I've long outgrown so I don't mind splurging a little for a new iMac. But I also want to get the most value, so a significant increases in price for a nominal performance improvement isn't attractive to me. Reguardless of the model I go with I will likely be adding an extra 32g of RAM for a total of 40 (third party of course). Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations comparing the baseline $1799 model with the $2299 version? Would the performance warrant the extra $600? I think I will probably stick with the fusion drive instead of the SSD, and wasn't really planning on going with an i7 unless someone has a very compelling reason to upgrade. I am a photography enthusiast who plans to start doing a lot more 4k video editing this year as well. Thanks for your thoughts in advance! (Also will any/all models be sufficient for VR in the future?)

 

[jzuena]

I ended up going with the base 27" with the 512GB SSD (didn't want a spinning disk that is difficult to get to) and keyboard with numeric pad. With my company discount it came out to $1999. I'm upgrading from a 2009 mini, so the new machine is going to feel fast anyway. Eventually I'll upgrade the RAM, probably with an extra 16GB.

If the GPU in the base model isn't up to the requirements of VR, there is always the external GPU option now that Apple will be supporting it in high sierra.