Should i get Vega 48 or 580X for Dual Monitors setup?

[wenjiun88]

Hey guys

I couldn't find any specific information on the internet about this iMac 2019, hope i can get help from you guys and I believe there are many experts here that can guide me.

I'm currently using Macbook Pro mid 2015, 16GB DDR3 RAM, 512GB SSD with AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB. I always using it as desktop to connect to my Dell UP2716D like the picture below (sorry about the kitkat mug).

Recently Apple has refreshed their iMac series and I really want to get one for my work and as birthday present! I wanted to get the new iMac 2019 because is better buy this version before Apple ruined the 2020 iMac or 2021 iMac....



my current setup

I uses Mac for photo editing, web browsing and some graphic design stuff for my company. But I mostly do a lot photo editing because that is my main job as wedding photographer and photo editor. I wanna save time to editing and exporting photos with my Macbook Pro 15" mid 2015, 'cause it takes like 1 hour and 30 minutes to export total 1800 photos...

So my questions is....

1. Should i upgrade the graphic card to Vega 48 or 580X for dual monitors setup? will it slow down the export time frame and performances while using dual monitors setup with 580X GPU?
   
   
2. Should i get 512GB or 1TB SSD? does it makes any differences in terms of speed and performances?
   

Thanks and hope to hear from you guys.. sorry about my grammar, im from Malaysia.

 

[nihil0]

Hi there,

1. The GPU has nothing to do with speed of exports. It relies solely on CPU power (and that is only until 6 cores, everything higher than 6 cores has same performance), and also on SSD. But I have no idea if 580X can support dual monitor setup (depends also on resolution - will it be QHD, 4K, 5K?), that has to be answered by someone else. Although I know from other discussions that for 5K iMac display, the GPU with 4 GB VRAM is enough (although borderline). However, 580X and Vega 48 have both 8 GB VRAM so technically, it should not matter if your only concern is dual monitor setup.

2. 1 TB SSD is faster than 512 GB SSD. Altough again, I don't know by how much. My guess is only few % which will not drastically speed up the exporting process.

 

[Zettie1996]

2: no real speed difference. See: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-1tb-ssd-faster-than-512gb-ssd.2183377/#post-27408630

 

[wenjiun88]

Hi there,

1. The GPU has nothing to do with speed of exports. It relies solely on CPU power (and that is only until 6 cores, everything higher than 6 cores has same performance), and also on SSD. But I have no idea if 580X can support dual monitor setup (depends also on resolution - will it be QHD, 4K, 5K?), that has to be answered by someone else. Although I know from other discussions that for 5K iMac display, the GPU with 4 GB VRAM is enough (although borderline). However, 580X and Vega 48 have both 8 GB VRAM so technically, it should not matter if your only concern is dual monitor setup.

2. 1 TB SSD is faster than 512 GB SSD. Altough again, I don't know by how much. My guess is only few % which will not drastically speed up the exporting process.

Thanks Nihil0 for answering my questions, appreciate it! my monitor is Dell UP 2716D is 2K monitor. Although my current Macbook Pro can support 2k monitor(according to apple) but i feel it slow down quite a bit when i use the monitor compare to I use the laptop itself.

Well to save up some cash, i will try to get the 512gb and save everything else in External HDD and Vega 48 for dual screen setup! Maybe Vega 48 is powerful enough so it wont slow down my editing process

 

[wenjiun88]

2: no real speed difference. See: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-1tb-ssd-faster-than-512gb-ssd.2183377/#post-27408630

good to know! maybe 512gb is good enough.