Jerry,

Hot damn, I missed that little tidbit… up to 2GB VRAM?! That’s nuts. And very good for Aperture.

According to Apple’s iMac page the graphics performance is “up to 3x faster than previous-generation iMac”. I do wish their performance charts had something other than games on it though.

The Adjustments in Aperture are rendered on the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). My understanding is that, like regular RAM, the more VRAM you have, the more the computer can keep in memory at once, without “paging” (moving data between really fast memory and somewhere else, not as fast). This doesn’t necessarily speed up an operation, but once you stack multiple operations (multiple adjustments), it can keep more stored in the fastest memory possible. This adds up to a Good Thing™. As you pile on adjustments, or move between adjusted images, I’d imagine that this will slow down later than it would with less VRAM.

Lots of VRAM and a fast GPU have always been good for Aperture, and in most cases, more important than the CPU. For the extra $100, I’d definitely move from the 1GB to the 2GB card.

I suppose it all depends on your budget. The solid state + conventional HD option is sweet, which will definitely speed up the entire system. Adding a fast RAID on Thunderbolt to store your photos will also speed things up. Aperture is one of those apps that uses just about everything in the system, so there’s no item in there that’s not worth upgrading. I’m sorry to say :)

Good luck, and if you do get one, let us know what you think. I’ll be holding out until the MacBook Air gets Thunderbolt. Of course then it’ll cost me a house ‘cause I’ll want to upgrade my iMac, MacBook Air and add an external SSD Thunderbolt drive all at once. Sheesh.

-Joseph @ApertureExpert