Mid-range Mac setup

A Mac that sprints through all your work and play will cost a little more. So how much, exactly?

Configure your iMac 27–inch

THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS of the 2019 iMac 27–inch with an i5 processor. Both are six–core, but the base 3.1GHz model uses the Core i5–8600, while the 3.7GHz configuration has the newer i5–9600K. With no big jump in architecture, the clock speeds give a fair indication of the difference in their performance.

But this isn’t the only reason to pay the extra $300 for the 3.7GHz model. It gets you an 8GB Radeon Pro 580X rather than a 4GB 570X, a significant upgrade: the extra graphics RAM will enable more ambitious creative software, plugins and 3D games, while overall processing power is over 50% greater. These Radeon Pro X GPUs (sold with similar specs as Radeon RX to non– Apple users) are still behind the likes of Intel’s latest RTX 20–series; you can take a step up to a Radeon Pro Vega 48 for $450, while swapping the CPU for an eight–core i9–9900K costs $400. At this point, consider the iMac Pro too (see page 22).

The 3.7GHz model also doubles the Fusion Drive to 2TB, which is more interesting than it looks, because its SSD element rises from 32 to 128GB. This should bring a noticeable speed boost, and also makes it viable to ditch Fusion — which merges the two drives to optimize access speed

— and use the SSD and HD separately (see bit.ly/ml169fsnfx). External storage is effectively unlimited in speed and capacity; there are only two Thunderbolt 3 ports, but you can daisy–chain drives or add a hub.

The default 8GB of RAM is too little for any serious creative work or multitasking between demanding apps, but the iMac 27–inch has a hatch to upgrade this yourself (see bit.ly/ml169imem). There are four slots, two filled with 4GB modules by default, so you can reach 40GB, enough for most purposes, with 2x16GB (around $150, versus Apple’s $200 for just 16GB).