iMac Query

Big Nick

Big Nick

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I thinking of buying an iMac and have my sights on the 27" i5 based one, is this going to provide the editing speed and power I'm after?

My desktop PC is ancient and cannot run Lightroom 4 or CS6 so I'm currently running them on a two year old low end laptop which make processing a real pain

I'm looking at new so if anyone knows of any deals available it may help me persuade the account manager (aka er'indoors!) !!
 
It's going to be a lot faster than your low end laptop....
 
The i5 chip has plenty of power on tap the only thing that would slow you down is RAM and HD. If you can afford to upgrade to the Fusion drive then do it. I am not 100% sure but I think the 27" iMacs have user upgradeable RAM slots so you can up that to 16GB later on. Brilliant machines (a colleague has the new 21.5" one and she is over the moon with it, she does a fair bit of photo processing too through Aperture).

I wouldn't mind one of my own but the XE1 has precedence, and my new MBA is plenty fast.
 
Probably best place for this is the Computer section, but in answer to your question, the i5 will blitz through the processing no problem, and additional memory can be bought from Crucial for a more affordable price.
As for deals - nothing more than discount for education.
So if you have a child in school, you can/should mention that when ordering over the phone, or if at University, have them order it though there for a bigger discount and 3 years Applecare.

Other than that, like a lot of companies, Apple control the prices such that other than buying from John Lewis for their 5 yr warranty (think it still applies to computers), there's little point "shopping around".

Bear in mind, that whatever price you pay is only relative insofar as if/when you decide to upgrade with a replacement in say 3-5 years time, you'll retain more value (if you look after it cosmetically) than a comparative PC from the likes of Dell/Sony/HP/Asus.
 
iMacs are great for an all-in-one, good looking solution but for £1500 you can build/buy a much more powerful i7/SSD based PC. I have both btw.
 
Any i5 based iMac will be very fast even for very demanding photo processing.

I am using quad-core 2.66GHz model (high-end option from 2009) which was the fist i5 iMac Apple released and it is still exceptionally fast compared to any other computer I have worked with before.

Just upgrade RAM to at least 8GB if it sells with 4GB. Don't do that in shop, you can always upgrade it later for a fraction of the price.
 
mpe said:
Any i5 based iMac will be very fast even for very demanding photo processing.

I am using quad-core 2.66GHz model (high-end option from 2009) which was the fist i5 iMac Apple released and it is still exceptionally fast compared to any other computer I have worked with before.

Just upgrade RAM to at least 8GB if it sells with 4GB. Don't do that in shop, you can always upgrade it later for a fraction of the price.
Click to expand...

Snap, still on the same 27-inch, Late 2009 model. The only thing I've gone is update the memory from 4Gb to 16Gb (from Crucial not Apple). More than fast enough for any photo editing I do, so a newer one will easily handle anything.

The *only* thing to be aware of is the change from 'proper' graphics cards to 'laptop' based ones. The original 2009 models have desktop based graphics processors where as the new slimline ones come with (high-end) laptop graphics cards. Not something that should affect photo editing, but if you intended to use it for gaming, it's worth considering. That said, I'm pretty sure that a modern high-end laptop card is still more powerful than my 3 1/2 year old 'desktop' version, so probably not an issue.
 
I'm using an i3 iMac but upgraded with 12GB of RAM and a 2TB hard disk. It absolutely flies along with almost any type of photo editing. I'd have no concerns whatsoever about an i5 but as above, stuff plenty of RAM in there. It's a doddle to do.
 
Just do it. I moved to a mid 2010 27" iMac and it is brilliant. I love it for word processing as well as photo processing.

You won't regret purchasing one
 
I have a 2009 c2d iMac. It will run photoshop, Lightroom, iPhoto and iTunes all at the same time with no problems. It may hang a little when doing a surface blur, but generally it fine. An i5 would just fly. Go for it, you won't regret it.
 
Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2010) and it runs LR4 with no issues.
i5 2.4Ghz and I upgraded the RAM to its maximum of 8GB.
Currently got a 320GB HDD which is the bottleneck of any speedy system, hopefully replace this with a SSD this year.

You won't regret getting a Mac.

Riz :)
 
Rizvan said:
Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2010) and it runs LR4 with no issues.
i5 2.4Ghz and I upgraded the RAM to its maximum of 8GB.
Currently got a 320GB HDD which is the bottleneck of any speedy system, hopefully replace this with a SSD this year.

You won't regret getting a Mac.

Riz :)
Click to expand...

Get the SSD, it makes night and day difference. :) I got 128GB SSD long time ago, it was pricey but definitely worth the money. Seeing the current price for Crucial made SSDs there are no excuses not to get one. :)

(same MacBook Pro model, also with 8GB RAM)
 
The i5 model should be fast enough for LR and Photoshop. I've got the 2009 model and it runs fast enough. I'd concur on the memory upgrade.

Don't forget that it's only the memory you can easily replace on this machine. Hard Drive replacement is virtually impossible for the average user.

Don't forget that you can't even upgrade the memory on the 21"
 
It'll be plenty fast enough. Go for the quad core model. I think some of the earliest i5 iMacs were still dual core. Stuff it with as much RAM as you can. Upgrading to an SSD will definitely further improve performance but it's not a trivial upgrade on an iMac so you might not want to DIY that.
 
another alternative is a mac mini (you get 4GB RAM one and then buy 16GB from crucial for pennies) and a 27" IPS screen of your choice. That's i7 quad core going cheap-ish
 
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