Upgrade to M1 or another Intel iMac?

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Level 1

4 points

Upgrade to M1 or another Intel iMac?

Will a 2021 M1 iMac 24" be enough computer for me? My late 2009 27" core duo iMac just can't get it up in the mornings. Time for a new computer. The new M1-based iMacs about to be released look quite interesting, but I am stymied by their relatively low fixed RAM and generally un-upgradable nature. I am a writer, a retired but active fine artist photographer, hobbyist filmmaker and dabbler in music composition. I have been very happy with the machine I now own with a 1TB internal drive and three add-on drives, but I can no longer upgrade the OS or much of my software. I'm seeking advice here. Do I need to replace my iMac with another 27" model with i7 or i9 processor, upgraded graphics, etc.? That nearly doubles the cost, and I'm trying to be reasonable here. Obviously I'm the sort of person who only upgrades once in a blue moon, and at age 75, the box I choose might be the one I die with. What should I do?

iMac, macOS 10.12

Posted on May 5, 2021 6:33 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

rkaufmann87

Level 10

144,144 points

May 5, 2021 7:37 AM in response to danmouer2

I suspect a nicely specked out 24" M1 would be fine for you, 16GB of RAM is fine for most users. Remember, if you buy from Apple you have 14 days to return the computer for ANY reason, so buy one, test it and then make your decision. However also remember that if you have any legacy 32bit apps they will not work on ANY Mac that has Big Sur installed and once you buy a new computer you cannot downgrade Mac OS to an earlier version. This means you MUST upgrade your 32bit third party apps or replace them.

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Answer 2

Mr Leo Sir

Level 4

1,645 points

May 5, 2021 6:39 AM in response to danmouer2

Hi danmouer2,

Reading what you do, I get why you mean by no upgrades etc. if you are dealing in 4K big long videos then no the M1 would do it but not as well as it could be by other things coming out mostly down to its RAM.

but if I read your post correctly then you only really use this once every so often and it's not a big thing. I would say yes go for the M1 you will be happy with it snappy responded user interface and it will be able to render a lot of things fast. Make sure you get the 16Gb RAM as lots of user with 8GB has reported that having just 8GB the M1 while doing videos that are long and have a lot of 4K video etc this crashes the system, but 16GB seams just fine.

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Upgrade to M1 or another Intel iMac?

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