Old IMAC - Late 2014 version - is it worth it?

Good evening all ... this is my first post, please be gentle!!!

For a long time now, I've been using an old Macbook Pro - Mid 2010, I5 2.53 and the memory cranked up to 8gb. It's been great for all I've wanted to do (mainly photoshop CS6 and Lightroom Classic) and has impressed me with it's speed.

Anyway, it's just died.

I'm looking to 'upgrade' and have seen

iMac 27 inch 5K Core i5 3.5Ghz, 8gb, 1.12TB Fusion Late 2014.​

at a very competitive price (£250).

My questions are, is it worth it? I've heard that the Late 2014 one is slower than it's predecessor, but I'm imagining that it would still be way faster than my Macbook Pro mentioned above? I've also heard about making them faster using OLCP or something ... but I know nothing about that??

Any thoughts/advice on how useful it would actually be? Does the price sound about right? I think it sounds worth it.

Also, can anyone recommend any tips or tricks I could do to 'test' it when I'm looking at it in the shop?

Thank you all so much in advance.

Ant.

PS - as a side note, I also use an early 2015 Macbook Air I5, 1.6, 4gb for work, which again, is very nippy and I like!!

The fusion drive is not a performer so it will run slower than what the machine is capable of. That being said, not sure how the late 2015 (with the skylake processors) is priced but i think if you can find that at a comparable price, it's a better idea since they come with extra features like sidecar and universal control if that is important to you. I also vaguely remember that the 5K display struggles in performance and the display itself has issues in the 2014 version (burn in)

However, if you're running a 5400rpm in that 2010, then the 2014 will be an upgrade in every way. i'd be more worried about the issues with the display since that was pretty well documented.

For £250 it might be a decent bridge for a while.

I had this exact machine, though -- and if it's used I will advise you very strongly to check the wear levels on the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive. DriveDx will help with this, and I'm betting there's a demo mode you could use.

saudor said:

The fusion drive is not a performer so it will run slower than what the machine is capable of.

Their time has passed now that SSDs are more affordable -- but I will say that a properly functioning Fusion Drive is a LOT faster than a plain HDD. It does offer some of the speed advantages of the SSD with the large capacity of the HDD.

Again, for the price this could be a decent Mac to use for a while if it's not worn out.

2014 is a pretty decent machine, but the Fusion Drive would slow it down a lot. The other issue I’d look out for - especially if you’re looking to do photoshop is that these years are pretty prone to LCD defects such as pinking hue around edges and image retention

It is worth noting that the 2014 iMacs with any size Fusion Drive came with a 128GB SSD portion, the later 1TB Fusiin Drives came with a tiny 24GB (2015) or 32GB (2017+) SSD, which was almost pointless.

The Fusion Drives with the 128GB SSD were not too bad for speed, especially on HFS.

A problem you will have when talking about these older Macs with HDDs is that you may run into a higher chance of one failing.

If you can do an external SSD, even just a SATA, this would be an improvement over an aging Fusion Drive.

The performance increase from the Intel 3rd gen (Late 2012 iMac) i-processors to even ones from a few years ago isn't that dramatic, so the 2014 i5 Would be a decent and noticeable upgrade from your 1st gen i5 in your MBP, but not too much behind newer Intel Macs.

TwoH said:

2014 is a pretty decent machine, but the Fusion Drive would slow it down a lot. The other issue I’d look out for - especially if you’re looking to do photoshop is that these years are pretty prone to LCD defects such as pinking hue around edges and image retention

Yep. My 2014 5K had some really brutal image retention, which fortunately popped up while it was still under AppleCare. The replacement panel was better and never had the same issue.

For 250 UKP that's a decent option if in good condition. If I got that, what I would consider doing would be to defuse the Fusion drive, and run the OS off the 128 GB SSD and put stuff like photos or whatever on the HD (or else an external USB 3 SSD when you get some more cash).

saudor said:

The fusion drive is not a performer so it will run slower than what the machine is capable of. That being said, not sure how the late 2015 (with the skylake processors) is priced but i think if you can find that at a comparable price, it's a better idea since they come with extra features like sidecar and universal control if that is important to you. I also vaguely remember that the 5K display struggles in performance and the display itself has issues in the 2014 version (burn in)

However, if you're running a 5400rpm in that 2010, then the 2014 will be an upgrade in every way. i'd be more worried about the issues with the display since that was pretty well documented.

Thanks for your reply. That's interesting about the burn in on the display - especially as regards using it for image editing. I'll consider that when looking at the machine.

I was thinking about possibly booting from an external SSD and just using the Fusion drive for storage - to be honest, the majority of my images are already on external disks, with other stuff being cloud based. Lots to think about!!!

I'm not sure what sidecar and universal control are. Don't think I have ever used them. Is this something I should think about?

Many thanks.

ignatius345 said:

For £250 it might be a decent bridge for a while.

I had this exact machine, though -- and if it's used I will advise you very strongly to check the wear levels on the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive. DriveDx will help with this, and I'm betting there's a demo mode you could use.

Their time has passed now that SSDs are more affordable -- but I will say that a properly functioning Fusion Drive is a LOT faster than a plain HDD. It does offer some of the speed advantages of the SSD with the large capacity of the HDD.

Again, for the price this could be a decent Mac to use for a while if it's not worn out.

Click to expand...

Thank you. The machine would come with a warranty of 12months - so hopefully that would cover the drive for the short term. Are the drives easy to upgrade or not worth the effort? I'll see if I can run any tests. Many thanks.

TwoH said:

2014 is a pretty decent machine, but the Fusion Drive would slow it down a lot. The other issue I’d look out for - especially if you’re looking to do photoshop is that these years are pretty prone to LCD defects such as pinking hue around edges and image retention

Thanks for you reply. I feel this may be my biggest concern as it will be used for a lot of image editing . I'll have to have a good look at the screen in relation to this and the burn in mentioned above.

I would not buy any used Mac today -- ANY ONE -- that had a fusion drive inside.
These things are going to have high failure rates in the future.

OP wrote:
"For a long time now, I've been using an old Macbook Pro - Mid 2010, I5 2.53 and the memory cranked up to 8gb. It's been great for all I've wanted to do (mainly photoshop CS6 and Lightroom Classic) and has impressed me with it's speed.
Anyway, it's just died."

Can you tell us what died?
If it's just the internal drive, that's EASILY replaced in the 2010 MBP's (I have one).
Same for the battery.

If you want something different, I would recommend that you look for the following:
iMac -- a 27" model (these have upgradeable RAM) with an SSD
or
Mini -- try to find a used 2018 with at least 512gb SSD inside.