[New 27" IMac configuration]

MarkM,

 

Spend the money now. I just bought a new iMac back in January...no regrets.

 

Get the 27".

 

I went with the i9 processor and the top of the line GPU. I got it with 8G of memory and then added 32GB of aftermarket for a total 40GB.

 

I've easily already recouped the cost the extra expense. The rendering times are so much faster.

 

 

[New 27" IMac configuration]

Hi RussU,

 

Sadly, you can't do that on the iMacs. They only have one slot for storage. But then that's where the super fast Thunderbolt 3 ports come into play, so you can add another SSD as a peripheral and not lose too much speed.

[New 27" IMac configuration]

Art V,

Thanks for replying. 

The read/write speeds (from Apple) of the 512GB SSD are the same as the 1TB SSD. I keep a really clean computer, so I think the 512 should be more than adequate for me.

I don't do any film editing or Photoshopping where I would need the extra headroom for disk cacheing, so for now, I think the 512 should be adequate. The 512 GB SSD is still a money upgrade from the base storage which is a 2TB Fusion drive and  which has only 128GB of SSD storage. At a later date I can always add an external SSD drive via Thunderbolt 3, which is very fast.

For instance, I have over 2 TB of music, none of which is on my computer, but on an external drive which is hooked to my router. I can transfer all my digital photos to an external, which also lowers my need for in-computer storage. 

 

The memory from OWC or from Crucial are the same specs as Apple's; 2666MHz DDR4. ( I did talk to an OWC tech).

Apple's memory cost upgrades:

16GB- $200

32GB- $600

64GB- $1000

 

So for about $220, I can do two 16GB modules and get 40GB total.

At a later date, for another $220 I can add two more 16GB modules for a total of 64GB

So it's $440 vs. $1000.

 

The one nice thing about the standard iMacs vs. the iMac Pro is the ease of memory upgrading. The iMac Pro is quite complex to upgrade the memory because it doesn't have the memory access trap door like the standard iMac. The internals of the iMac Pro are in different locations than the standard (I believe it has something to do with the cooling).

 

Anyways, I hope our conversation can also help others who are in the upgrade cycle. 

Thanks

[New 27" IMac configuration]

I'm going to upgrade here shortly to one of the new 27" iMacs. I'm thinking the top of the line with the 8 core i9 CPU, upgrade to the 512GB SSD storage, and stick with the Pro 580X graphics. I read in one of the mac forums that the Pro Vega 48 was only about 10-12% faster than the Pro 580X. They both have 8GB of memory, but they are different types of memory. I don't thnk that slight increase in speed is worth $450.

I'm also going to stick with the standard 8GB of memory because for $220 I can add 32 GB (2-16GB chips) for a total of 40GB. A tech from OWC said that the original 8GB will be inclusive with the new 32GB.

 

I do some fairly complex renderings, with lighting and shadows and all that good stuff, but now that I'm retired from the building business most of my design work the past 5 years has been furniture, but I still do the furniture in a room setting so the renderings can still get quite complex. I have the full suite of Arroway wood textures and I use displacement mapping and all that good stuff; all set to high or very high quality settings. Getting pretty close to photorealistic quality with Renderworks, but rendering times can be quite long. Most of my initial drawing is done on my old iMac, then check it with Open GL which is pretty quick on my iMac. Once I'm satisfied with colors and orientation, I'll create a viewport. If it's a fairly large file, I'll export it over to my MacBook Pro Retina to do the actual hi-rez rendering, which is a lot faster than the old iMac. Then I'll save it as a .png or .tiff.

 

The price from Apple according to the specs I gave would be $2829 with a numeric keyboard. My wife is a librarian so I think I can get the education discount. Got that discount when I purchased my MacBook. 

So my question for you guys, am I on the right track with the specs I gave in the first paragraph?