Interesting excercise selecting a "photography" iMac

[Siegfried]

The V2.2 upgrade of Workspace reminded me that my 2013 iMac is a little old. I never considered it old because it still works well for image editing. The question was, what should I get for the next 5 or 10 years? Like cameras, finding the appropriate information to select a good photography PC was difficult and complex...

My photography and video requirements are simple. I am an old-school hobby photographer and love photographing with the older Olympus M43 and 4/3 cameras. My video work consists of simple YouTube videos, family videos, and videos of our dog. Think of a guy 40 years back with an analog video camera and now using a digital camera...

My 2013 model i5 iMac 27" with 32GB RAM, 1TB Fusion HD, and 2GB Graphics Card still works well. I used it daily, and my only frustration was software like DxO PhotoLab 6, Photoshop CC 2023, and Workspace asking for more PC power. I didn't necessarily need more and enjoyed the older versions of these applications.

I decided to "upgrade" on a tight budget. The obvious answer was to buy secondhand. This started my search for a "new" iMac.

I used this simple criterion to stay below $900:-

- Processor (i5 works well, i7 would be nice)
- Graphics card (I wanted the Radeon Pro 8GB, 4GB would also work well)
- 27" 5K display (It takes 2GB to feed this display)
- RAM (Probably the most important part - I like to have 32 or 64GB)
- 500GB Apple SSD
- Year (model) (Each year had some interesting improvements on the iMacs)
- Compatibility with Ventura (I do not really like Ventura, but it's another discussion)

My new iMac is a 2017 model, i7 (4.2GHz) iMac 27", Radeon Pro 8GB, 16GB RAM (will upgrade), 5K display, and 500GB SSD.

It's quick, a huge improvement, and I am confident it's good enough for the next 10 years...

Apple gives good advice on how to buy secondhand...

I hope this will help someone.

Siegfried

[Siegfried]

I completed my article about upgrading my iMac to a photography iMac.

I trust it will help someone...

Best

Siegfried