Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

Thinking of upgrading my iMac really to get more RAM and a SSD. I only run pro tools on it. Anybody got advice on how far i need to go Spec wise? I assume its still best to record the music onto an external hard drive?
Cheers.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

And how does anybody here guess what exact model iMac you have today? What CPU, storage and memory options does it currently have, where are you running into problems? (what errors/issues do you get?).

With any modern iMac, as long as it has an NVMe internal drive, you are almost certainly better off recording to that super-fast internal boot/system drive. So rule number one is to buy an iMac with as large an SSD as possible. This topic of picking an iMac has been discussed before you could just find and follow some of those posts from within the last year or so.

For what I need: internal SSD, 1TB or 2TB. 27" iMac retina 5K, 6 core i7 (maybe 8 core) buy with small as DRAM as possible and upgrader myself (not easy on 21.5" iMac). This will not be cheap, so I would be clear I had a problem to fix by upgrading... adding a recording SSD and more DRAM to your current iMac may be a *lot* cheaper.

You have to make sure the minimal macOS version this iMac will run will work with all your software and interface drivers etc. Often that's the real hard stuff.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

i have a 21.5" I mac currently late 2015. It has 8GB RAM. I had been told through Avid technical support that the reason for the CPU spike errors was lack of RAM - supposedly I need 16 GB and Im really sick to death of the incessant CPU spike problems. I can't upgrade this particular machine of mine. So hence the question. Im also running 10.13.6. 2.8Ghz i5. Thanks for your help. Cheers Tony

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

OK well the memory is soldered to the motherboard in that iMac so not upgradeable.

While I would want at least 16GB in any new Pro Tools computer (or 32GB if not upgradeable, to give the computer a long lifespan). I would not assume that is indeed your problem without checking. An 8GB system may be able to run smaller sessions.

What are you doing in Pro Tools? how complex are your sessions? How many tracks, what plugins, especially VIs and how many instances. Are you mixing or tracking or both? What is your IO Buffer size? What interface? What did Avid support do to determine the memory is the root cause? What exact drive are you recording to? Is the system *fully* optimized? What exact standard troubleshooting have you done? Much of that also helps give an idea how large a new iMac to suggest if that is the route to go.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

an i5 is also not sufficient for pt btw , it will need an i7 at least.
im not sure if it makes sense to upgrade ram in this model with this cpu ,
which gpu btw?

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

I have heard people having great success upgrading the RAM for this iMac by buying two additional 8GB sticks of RAM, and using heavy-duty gaffer's tape to affix the RAM sticks to the back of the iMac - just near where the internal RAM would be.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

Yes, you can upgrade the ram but it may be hard to do depending on your tech skills. Check youtube for iFixit videos. If you decide to open it up you should also look into upgrading your CPU.


i7-6700k


If you need an idea on the newer iMac check this video


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drtPus0NCW8

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

er . . . no, you can't. Darryl is correct. My previous post was what is known as a "joke". Look at the date today, and it might give you a clue.

The RAM on this model is soldered onto the motherboard.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/i...015-specs.html

quote from EveryMac.com:
As first confirmed by site sponsor Other World Computing, this RAM is soldered onboard and cannot be upgraded at all after the purchase of the system.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

Ya'll are right. Sorry, I have it mixed up with the other models where it can be done.

Re: Best iMac to upgrade too?
 

Why don't you just buy a second hand with more Ram?