Will this config last and work for me?

[Acevesx]

About to pull the trigger on an iMac. I have read countless threads on here and am just confused as ever.

I think I am going to go with the middle tier processor, 3.5 i5 and a 256gb SSD, with 8gb of RAM that I will upgrade to more myself afterwards. (I have external drives for media)

The most processor intense tasks I do are processing several RAW images in Photoshop and Lightroom. I did recently purchase a GoPro so will be dabbling in doing light 4k editing in Premiere or iMovie.

Will this configuration be suitable? I'd really like to not purchase another computer for a while...

 

[BananaRasin]

I think you should be set for at least 4-5 years, if not longer than that.

The Kaby Lake i5s are more than enough for photography use, you should be more worried about RAM and storage than anything else for that. Since (as you mentioned) the RAM on the iMac is expandable that shouldn't be an issue, and with Thunderbolt 3 on the new iMacs expanding disk space is a breeze.

If you can afford it I might recommend that you step up to the top tier iMac for the GPU, it might come in handy later down the road if you decide to get into video editing. If the price increase is too steep I don't think it would be a deal breaker.

Another recommendation that I would make is to swap the standard Magic Keyboard for the full size keyboard with the numpad. Even if you don't use the numpad the full size keyboard is much easier to work with. Same goes with the Magic Trackpad, I highly recommend that over the abomination that is the Magic Mouse especially since the 27" is a lot of real estate to work with.

Most importantly, congrats! I just got a 5K iMac yesterday and it's awesome so far, you definitely won't regret it.

 

[Acevesx]

Thank you I’m still torn lol
Although the i5 config i mentioned above just popped up in the refurb store. Giving me something to seriously consider!

 

[Fishrrman]

The iMac you mentioned in post 1 should do fine...