Thank you, Steve and Paul. I think in the end I will get the "top" standard configuration with the M395, 2 TB fusion drive (and upgrade the RAM myself of course, probably to 24 GB). Thunderbolt external drives/enclosures/docks aren't cheap, and I am slightly unhappy with the idea of an external boot drive on an "all-in-one." The upgrade path will be the option to, in a couple of years, replace the fusion drive with a big internal SSD (when those are less expensive and the machine is old enough that I'm not afraid of breaking it).
On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Paul Stenquist <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Bryan, > I have the IMac27 Retina 5K with the Radeon R9 M395 graphics chip, 2 gigs of > VRAM, the i7 4 ghz processor and 32 gigs of RAM. I don’t have anything to > compare it to, but it’s very efficient. I do a lot of PhotoShop work on 1 > gig+ scans of 6x7 negs, and the machine never hesitates. i can do gaussian > blurs and rotations in near real time. And a long burn-in session will result > in only 10 seconds or so of down time. I opted for the 3 terabyte fusion > drive, which comes with a 128 gig SSD. I find that it tracks my work flow > very well and brings up current projects and current folders almost > instantly. A 1.5 gig image file saves in a couple of seconds. > > Paul >> On Nov 25, 2015, at 5:27 PM, steve harley <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> brief answer: my hunch is the graphics chip difference won't matter much >> because the VRAM matters more — and both have 2GB; i would personally >> greatly prefer an external SSD to a Fusion Drive; however choose carefully — >> most Thunderbolt solutions will use a SATA drive, whereas PCIe is a lot >> faster with the right SSD >> >> On 2015-11-25 11:38 , Bryan Jacoby wrote: >>> I am thinking of buying a new 27" iMac, one of the standard >>> configurations (so I can get a discount this weekend). I'm looking at >>> the base and middle option. The differences are: >>> >>> AMD M380 vs. M390 graphics >>> 1 TB 7200 RPM HD vs. 1 TB fusion drive >>> $200 >>> >>> Photo editing (lightroom) is probably the heaviest lifting the machine >>> will do. I know that Lr can use the GPU but I haven't been able to >>> find much information about the difference between the M380 and M390. >>> >>> Now that the SSD component of the fusion drive is only 24 GB I'm not >>> sure how much of an advantage that is over the straight HD. If I get >>> the straight HD I will almost certainly use an external Thunderbolt >>> SSD for most things, and use the internal drive for photo + music >>> libraries. If I get the fusion drive, maybe that will be fast enough >>> on its own, I'm not sure. If it's not and I still end up with the >>> external SSD boot drive, I'm wondering if the fusion drive will >>> actually be worse for photo and music libraries since it is presumably >>> a 5400 RPM drive. >>> >>> (I guess, for the price of the middle M390 + 1 TB fusion drive model + >>> external Thunderbolt SSD, I could get the top standard configuration >>> with M395 + 2 TB fusion drive + slightly faster processor. The 2 TB >>> fusion drive has 128 GB of flash. I'm just not sure how that would >>> perform compared to an SSD boot drive). >>> >>> Thanks for any advice. >>> >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
