new iMac config? (late 2012) - going crazy with too many options

K

killmaster

Active member
I've made films before but only using actual film. I'm now getting into setting up to edit on a computer and Final Cut Pro X (and possibly Premiere as well). I've decided to go the iMac route and have spent hours reading about hardware options. I would love some advice from those who have the experience on what upgrades REALLY make a noticeable difference for what I'll be doing. I plan on using it to edit mostly documentaries. 2-5 tracks of video. 30-60 minute projects. I'll govern my own deadlines so I don't really foresee having to get things done super quickly so I can start something transcoding or whatever and can take the time to let it process without stressing about it. Won't be doing large volume of editing under tight deadlines in other words. I can spend the money to get the most maxed out iMac but would really rather not if the performance increase is marginal.

1) 12.5" or 27" display - leaning toward 27"
2) i5 or i7 - does hyper-threading really make for a real time workable difference or is it just for processing tasks like compression etc... ?
3) how much memory will really make a difference? standard is 8. I plan on going with that first and adding as much as I need later
4) fusion drive or not? 1TB adds $250. 3TB adds $400! I can't imagine what advantage there is other than fast boot up which I don't care about at all.
5) graphics card - Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX 1GB GDDR5 OR Nvidia GeForce GTX 680MX with 2GB GDDR5 - for video does the extra gig really make any difference or is this mainly for 3D type functions?

Thanks for any advice here! Would really love to hear from those who've had real world experience with these aspects...

Greg K
 
just buy the top of the line i7 imac 27", you wont regret it, that I am going to do, I'm gettin the best graphics card that is available and a regular drive no fusion, buy me a optical drive, ram from macsales and I am ready to hit it, I am buying 3 of those
 
Don't buy RAM from Apple. As aalleexx says, get it from macsales. You can get 32 GB of RAM from OWC for about $200...and, yes, you can actually put 32 GB in an iMac.
 
very true on the ram, the reason why im a little washy washy on the fusion drives is because I read somewhere that aside from being a new tech, these drives are more prone to fail, someone please fill me in on info regarding this

Dave © said:
Don't buy RAM from Apple. As aalleexx says, get it from macsales. You can get 32 GB of RAM from OWC for about $200...and, yes, you can actually put 32 GB in an iMac.
Click to expand...
 
Dave,

Are you certain about the RAM in the new iMacs? You can no longer do the same with MBPs...since they've gone thinner with the iMacs, just curious if they've soldered in the RAM like on the MBPs. If you still can, definitely go with RAM from OWC and max that baby out.

Kegan
 
The 21.5-inch iMac unfortunately joins the MacBook Air and 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display as computers with soldered RAM.

You have to buy the 27-inch to get user upgradable RAM, I believe.
 
Yeah, sorry, I should have clarified. I was referring to the 27". David is correct. Read the last section on this page...or the quote below:

"The 21.5-inch iMac comes with 8GB of memory and can be configured online with 16GB. On the 27-inchiMac, 8GB of memory comes standard, and you can upgrade to 16GB or 32GB. Configure and buy your iMac at the Apple Online Store and it will arrive with the memory already installed. Or add more memory to the 27-inch model yourself by popping open the easy-to-access memory panel on the back."
 
Upgrading the ram on just about any of the new Macs is pretty simple. If, however, you're thinking of upgrading the HDD in an iMac by yourself, make sure you check out a few of those YouTube tutorials on the topic. After that you may decide to max out the configuration on an iMac or consider a MacPro tower, minimally configured, and build the one that suits your needs best. They're much easier to self-customize and can, therefore, save you some coinage.
 
from Apple i would get: 27", smallest HDD, smallest RAM configuration, 2GB graphics
and then add by myself: external thunderbird RAID 1 System (to have a backup if a HDD fails) and 32GB RAM as suggested above

if you want to save Money, get you two of those USB 3.0 external HDD's and use the apple HDD utility to set up a Raid System...

cheers
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
from Apple i would get: 27", smallest HDD, smallest RAM configuration, 2GB graphics
and then add by myself: external thunderbird RAID 1 System (to have a backup if a HDD fails) and 32GB RAM as suggested above

if you want to save Money, get you two of those USB 3.0 external HDD's and use the apple HDD utility to set up a Raid System...

cheers
Click to expand...

Thanks Stefan, this is very helpful advice and makes sense. Good to know you think the 2GB graphics card is worth the upgrade. I think I'll go this route though still somewhat uncertain what the i7 is doing for me versus the i5.

Any case, thanks everyone for your input. really appreciated. It seems from what I've read you can upgrade the RAM in the 27" and perhaps you can add single units of memory instead of pairs like I used to with past macs... Can anyone confirm this?
 
i personally used an iMac, late 2009 i5 27"... if i had the choice again, i purchased the i7 version... i am also doing some 3D render jobs as well, so this would have made a difference - don't know if this fits your type of work, but some more power isn't bad if you see that iMac as a long time purchase. i worked on mine for about 3 years with that i5 CPU though...
 
stefanhuberfilms said:
i personally used an iMac, late 2009 i5 27"... if i had the choice again, i purchased the i7 version... i am also doing some 3D render jobs as well, so this would have made a difference - don't know if this fits your type of work, but some more power isn't bad if you see that iMac as a long time purchase. i worked on mine for about 3 years with that i5 CPU though...
Click to expand...

same here used the i5 2009 27" imac since it came out. still works great, for regular editing of prores and h264 its performance is enough but I would like to go into grading and use resolve 9... trying to get money together for the new model.

I will probably get the small fusion drive, will this give you the same superfast performance as an regular ssd?

Is there an external Raid system you could recommend? I want an external drive to put my footage on and edit from. For speed I was thinking about and RAID0 setup. Thunderbolt is still very expensive, but the new iMacs have usb3 which seems fast enough for most of what I will do.
 
teh said:
I will probably get the small fusion drive, will this give you the same superfast performance as an regular ssd?
Click to expand...

No, it's basically just an overlarge cache. Unless your projects are all really small, and even then you have to count on OSX placing your videos on the SSD drive in the first place.

It's a replacement for the SSD for your OS/apps and spinning drive for you data for people who can't (or would prefer not) to deal with two drive volumes.
 
Ok, so here's the basic rig I'm ordering:

  • 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
  • 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
  • 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5
And will fill the 2 extra slots with 8 gigs each for a total of 24GB RAM. Might consider external RAID drive. Decided not to get fusion drive. $200 for the i7 upgrade and $150 for the slightly better graphics card with 2GB instead of 1GB.

total comes out to $2,357.00 plus tax...

 
I think you'll be really happy with that setup. I went with an SSD (256 GB) in 2011. But $1300 for a 756 GB flash drive is a lot of money.

Even though you'll have a 1 TB internal drive, I would highly suggest that you only use it for the OS and apps. Put everything else on fast, external drives.

You might also want to consider going all the way up to 32 GB of RAM from macsales. You can sell your 8 GB apple RAM for probably $50, which will almost pay for the price difference between 16 GB and 32 GB. And if you don't like the magic mouse, you can sell that for almost full price and use a much less expensive mouse. Between those two, you'd max your RAM for about the same price.
 
BTW, if you really want Apple RAM, I've got 8 GB that hasn't been used. I took it out before ever turning on my iMac and replaced it with 32 GB RAM from macsales.
 
As someone who is about to make the same decision, I have one other question for you iMac folks. I have been using my not to replaced MacBook Pro 17 (2007) and a MacPro (2008) but need to upgrade. I would like to go to an iMac 27 loaded/maxed out. The footprint is one reason and the lack of significant upgrades to both the Mac machine I now use is the other. I however have terrabytes of esata storage, have been doing color correction with my Matrox. Is there a Thunderbolt to esata interface that will allow me to use my two 8 bay arrays? Or ?
Thanks
Brian
 
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