Buying A New 5k iMac, Just Looking For Help To Make A Decision

[cntrydisney]

So, Long story short we just bought an iMac and then less then a couple of weeks later these new ones came out. We had bought the 21 inch and have now decided to get the 27 inch 5k, since you can upgrade the ram. We're just not sure what to configure it to. We were thinking the middle of the road 3.2 !5 5k but are now thinking the top of the line 3.3 !5 since you can upgrade the video card. We will be using it mainly for our Essential Oils business but also for photos and doing photo editing. So we'll have Photoshop CS6 as well as Final Cut Pro installed. We obviously want to get things we can't upgrade at a later date. I've installed upgrades to my computers in the past such as the processor in my old G4 tower and adding an SSD to our MacBook Pro so, I can do my own upgrades and installs. We're not sure if we should upgrade to the I7? Would the I7 be a worthwhile upgrade considering the price point? I was thinking of upgrading the video card, especially since we will be doing some photo editing, would the 4gb video card upgrade be worth it? I was thinking of sticking with the 1TB fusion since we have a 6 TB external but if it's possible I'd like to install an SSD at some point. Also I'm not familiar with flash storage, it must be better then a fusion drive would that be better to buy then an SSD? Or is it just better over all over the fusion drive? For ram I'm staying with the 8GB for now but will upgrade to 64 at a later date. We will also get the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2. Just want to get anybody's advice on what we should upgrade. Thanks for the time. I know whatever we choose we'll be happy and will have a great computer for a long while.
Thanks again, Anton & Snow

 

[boldblue737]

The following is advice for the 27 inch late 2015 iMac only..

1. Ordering the standard 8 GB of RAM is the ONLY choice considering how easy it is to upgrade the RAM and how much money you will save. The current sweet spot is to order an additional 16 GB of RAM (going for about $85-95 dollars right now) and put it in the the 2 open slots which in addition to your filled slots will give you 24 GB of RAM, more than enough for your uses. In the future if you want to go 32GB (totally not necessary for your current uses as of today) it will be as easy as ordering another 16 GB of RAM and replacing the Apple supplied chips.

2. Order at LEAST the 2 TB Fusion as the 1 TB fusion only comes with a tiny, tiny 24 GB SSD vs. a 128 GB SSD with the 2 or 3 TB fusion. The tiny SSD drive in the 1 TB fusion is a downgrade vs. previous years and may quickly fill and cause slowdowns compared to the larger drives. They are great choices for simple all in one devices (lots of storage in your Mac) but I elected to go with a 512 GB SSD (no Fusion) and will use USB 3 external drives for media.

3. The 395 GPU card is quite a bit faster than the 390 or 380 and is worth the money. If you can afford getting the X version (4 GB) I personally would do all of that before bumping to the i7. The Adobe apps will use GPU acceleration and take advantage of it.

 

[cntrydisney]

Thanks, for the feedback. So the 512 GB SSD is the Flash Storage? Like I said we have a 6 TB external we'd be using for media. So we wouldn't want or need a lot of storage internally. Thanks again for the feedback. I'll add the stuff you mentioned above and price one out.