New iMac or Mini or...

[mattyn1]

Morning

With the plethora of videos and photos I have to process from my trip, wondering if I am being as efficient with the equipment I have was I possibly can be. Am prepared to spend a bit... so wanted to gauge opinion.

Currently working on a iMac Desktop - 2019 3.1GHz 6-Core Intel i5 27" with 4GB Radeon Pro 575x and 8GB Ram running Sonoma 14.4. It is quite sluggish, but not incapacitatingly so.

Also have a MacBook Air M2 8-Core with 13.6 screen, 256GB SSD, and 16GB Ram.

I am wondering if the MBA would be faster and swifter for Video and Photos if I added a Samsung LU28R550UQUXEN 28" (or two maybe https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-inch-UR55-Monitor... ) and one of these docking stations (maybe one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/PULWTOP-Vertical-Docking-... ).

If I went with the MBA option, I would look to clean and sell the iMac - which would offer some funding for improvements and would offer a sensible route if I were to upgrade the MBA to a MBP at a later date.

What are the opinions of those that know this stuff?

Thanks all.

[mikiec]

I went with a mini and monitor, use is for a bit of spreadsheeting and photo editing. Figured would allow me to upgrade separate parts in the future in a more cost effective manner than getting an entire system again

[ajprice]

I have a Mini and monitor, you aren't tied down if you want to update the screen or the computer the. There is an Apple event on September 9th, it's probably new iPhones at this time of year but there may be Mac updates too.

[mattyn1]

I had thought about a mini but was hoping the MBA would suffice. I think I would like dual monitors (and possibly the option to add the iPad as a third screen…).

What spec/model of mini do you have?

[ajprice]

Refurb store M2/16GB/1TB

[mmm-five]

ajprice said:

Refurb store M2/16GB/1TB

I was going to suggest CEX, but just seen their A-grade 16GB/1TB MacMini (not MBA/MBP) is the same price as an Apple refurbed 24GB/1TB model...

CEX
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=smm14381016...

Apple Refurb
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/G16LDB/A/ref...

Edited by mmm-five on Tuesday 27th August 14:49

[mattyn1]

I am considering before plunging into those of a factory reset of the iMac to see if that can boost performance. I will have to do it anyway before selling on - so thinking cautiously!!

[mmm-five]

Lack of upgradeability is one of the reasons I specced my iMac with 32GB RAM and Vega 48 (it was a work machine, otherwise the Radeon Pro 580X would have done), as whilst the 27" version has a door on the back for RAM upgrades, the 21.5" version does not

8GB was quite a small amount of RAM even in 2019, so you could try extra RAM along with a factory reset to see if that helps.

However, I've now turned mine into a dedicated Windows PC and it still runs Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite quite well. MacOS (and everything else, that's now Apple Silicon native) runs much faster on the M1 Mac Mini and M1 Mac Studio Max that it did on the Intel iMac..although I was holding out for a 27"+ iMac, but that never appeared, so it was a Mac Studio + display instead.

[mattyn1]

Of course - extra RAM would be a good start. Probably recoverable in cost if I were to end up selling.

Thanks for that steer.

[ajprice]

mattyn1 said:

Of course - extra RAM would be a good start. Probably recoverable in cost if I were to end up selling.

Thanks for that steer.

When I was getting mine the issue seemed to be with 8GB setups, 16GB and above was fine according to the internet at the time (May 2023).

[uk66fastback]

Makes me think back to my first Mac. It had 8mb of RAM - my mate’s had five.

[mmm-five]

uk66fastback said:

Makes me think back to my first Mac. It had 8mb of RAM - my mate’s had five.

In the very early 1990s (might have even been very late 1980s), my work SE/30 came with 1MB RAM and a 10 or 20MB HDD - but it was upgraded quite quickly when we realised the spreadsheet we were using was limited purely by RAM and putting 4MB of RAM in gave us 16x the cells to work with.

[kevinon]

mattyn1 said:

I am considering before plunging into those of a factory reset of the iMac to see if that can boost performance. I will have to do it anyway before selling on - so thinking cautiously!!

As AJPrice says above, the Mac mini may be announced on Sept 9th. Feeling is, certainly this year, with M4 chip and more RAM.

So if you can eke out some more performance on your current machine, could be good timing.

https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_Mini

I have a 2019 27 inch iMac, and I see Mac mini as the way forward. The Mini has no downside, as far as I can see. (apart from price, but even that looks OK if it's Apple silicon; I'd expect a Mini to last a long long time. )

[andygo]

I sold my 2019 27inch Imac and bought a Mini and Apple 27 inch monitor as there seemed little chance of a new 27inch imac appearing. Speccing the Mini with a larger than 500gb drive seemed expensive, so I bought an external 2gb nviem drive in a thunderbolt enclosure and run the Mini from that. My thinking on that is that if I go on holiday I can unplug the drive and safely store it and also if the mini internal drive packs up, all is not lost.

Touch wood, all seems to be reliable and fast after 9 months of use in my office. Screen is very good. Mini is vear vertically cable tied by one tie to the back of the displays stand, so virtually invisible.

[BlueMR2]

mmm-five said:

ajprice said:

Refurb store M2/16GB/1TB

I was going to suggest CEX, but just seen their A-grade 16GB/1TB MacMini (not MBA/MBP) is the same price as an Apple refurbed 24GB/1TB model...

CEX
https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail?id=smm14381016...

Apple Refurb
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/G16LDB/A/ref...

Edited by mmm-five on Tuesday 27th August 14:49

For a few quid over that, you can have a brand new M2 Pro Mac mini with 16gb of ram and 512gb storage.

Much cheaper to add an external drive for data. Whilst having the improved pro processor.

Depends if you need 24gb of memory and 1tb storage onboard, or if you'd prefer a faster pro chip and new costco warranty, whilst adding storage externally later.

https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/Desktops-PCs-iM...

[blackscooby]

I've got a 2019 iMac, and last year decided it was either time to resell, or upgrade.
It had enough memory as I'd addressed that bottleneck before, but changed out the Ye Olde spinny disk for an SSD via a local indy Mac specialist.

Massive performance improvement, although since then I've bought an M3 MBA and it's night and day in terms of performance.

[eeLee]

If you reset the iMac, do it with Disk Utility. I assume the 2019 iMac is SSD; the read speed of these things degrades due to the density stored on them, remove the partition and recreate. I did a similar process on my slugging Surface Pro, the new partition and laying out of the OS again improves things.

If you can replace the SSD, consider doing that too.

You may be surprised; we benefit from the density and size of these drives but they are cheating slightly with how they store the data on them; this can lead to crappy performance after usage hours and as the drive gets fuller.

And M-based Macs. You will like the change, you will arrive there anyway at some point.....if you can choose when, you'll be happier.

[mmm-five]

blackscooby said:

I've got a 2019 iMac, and last year decided it was either time to resell, or upgrade.
It had enough memory as I'd addressed that bottleneck before, but changed out the Ye Olde spinny disk for an SSD via a local indy Mac specialist.

Massive performance improvement, although since then I've bought an M3 MBA and it's night and day in terms of performance.

That must have been one of the last of the 'dreaded' Fusion drive models with the tiny SSD attached to a HDD.

[blackscooby]

mmm-five said:

blackscooby said:

I've got a 2019 iMac, and last year decided it was either time to resell, or upgrade.
It had enough memory as I'd addressed that bottleneck before, but changed out the Ye Olde spinny disk for an SSD via a local indy Mac specialist.

Massive performance improvement, although since then I've bought an M3 MBA and it's night and day in terms of performance.

That must have been one of the last of the 'dreaded' Fusion drive models with the tiny SSD attached to a HDD.

Ahem, my mistake... mine's a 2017 and not a 2019, and yes it did have the pointless Fusion Drive.

[mattyn1]

Made progress over the last week - purchased 2 x 32GB RAM and installed - have not reinstalled the 2 x $GB sticks.

Did some housekeeping on apps etc that I have and cleared out the redundant stuff. Couple of reboots and we are back to A1 for the machine - so thanks you so much for the steer to new RAM. Have not reset to factory settings - as I don't think it is needed.

So with the cash I saved have splashed on a new LG 4k 32" (32UN650P) screen to go alongside the 27" iMac - there is a lot of screen space now and Luminar Neo runs so well.

Much happier now, albeit just under £400 down - but as I was willing to spend I feel its good value.

Thanks again.