So, this post may seem a little out of place, but since I mainly use my iMac for maintaining and working on my photo library, I thought mabe some of you are thinking like me. I have a 27” iMac, mid 2011, just the base model with Thunderbolt and the 2.7 ghz i5 quad core, with 32 mb of RAM (Frys had a sale, $39 for 16gb). Everything works great, but I'm in that upgrade window (2-3 years) and I would like to make some changes. I have thought about a 15” MBP retina or a new 27” iMac, but mine works so well, and I don't think I can sell it for a reasonable price. My thoughts are to put a large SSD and upgrade the hard drive in my iMac, since that is the most likely point of failure. The i5 quad seems to provide all the power I need and with a SSD, will definitely make it snappy. That should put me in good position for Mavericks when it arrives. As far as software, I use Aperture, onOne, and Nik mainly, I haven't gotten the bug to get photoshop. I will be using Final Cut X later in the year or next, and for what I'll do, I think the i5 will be okay (Final Cut Express worked well). Of course, there will most likely be a new version of Aperture, but I assume that will work well on everything.
Thinking about all of the above, I would probably get a MacBook Air to take with me when I travel. If I was to opt for the 15” MBP retina, that would be my main computer for everything, and of course that has its advantages.
So, any thoughts from the Aperture community?
I was following along with you until the 2nd to last paragraph about MBA/rMBP.
Two laptops, choosing between one of them vs. keeping iMac? New iMac or rMBP?
At any rate, hopefully this is helpful:
Whatever you do (aside from upgrading current iMac) wait for the fall announcement period. Certainly the rest of the Mac line will get at least a bump shortly.
Any machine that includes a 2nd graphics processor chip makes a big difference in import speed and time of processing edits within Aperture. From the database management aspect of Aperture, disk, processor speed, available ram are helpful, just not so helpful to import or editing. The 13” MBP, rMBP, MBA 11” or 13”, and Mac Mini do NOT have a second graphics processor. The new Intel processors, Haswell, are supposed to have improved integrated graphics, but how improved?
Upgrading your iMac is less cost effective unless you can do it yourself. And, since you’re already concerned about it’s resale value…that isn’t going to get better.
Sounds like you’re happy with the performance you get now. I’d say wait until you start to expand into using FCPX regularly. FCPX will instantly challenge your configuration. It will work, and work well, but not necessarily fast.
I agree with Bob … scope out your options while you bide your time … but wait to make a move until we know a little more … if there is any worthwhile news about what the (if any) new version of Aperture may be and what hardware configurations would best support it, is now a relative unknown. Once we have some more details, you should be able to narrow down your options to get the most bang for your bucks.
“I don’t think I can sell it for a reasonable price”
I disagree … if you get a used iMac in front of the right set of eyes, you’d be surprised how much re-sale value it retains … certainly much more than a Windows based unit …
Bob,
I guess that might have been confusing. I mentioned that one of my options was to get a new 15” MBP retina or a new iMac to replace my current iMac. Since I want a computer to travel with, if I was to pick a 15” MBP retina over a 13” retina, then all issues would be over since the 15” retina would be my everything computer.
iMacs might get a processor bump, but that in itself is not really important for most of us, the performance is so great now that the margains in percent of gain are mostly marketing. I like the new iMac and the way the screen is glued to the glass, but that by itself would not make me buy a new one. The one thing that I would have liked is USB3, but the thunderbolt options have finally dropped in reasonable range. If I opt for the laptop, I would definately wait for the new models, at least to compare them to the last model, sometimes that is where the bargains are.
Thanks for the comments Bob and Butch!