should i upgrade

i have a late 2014 with a fusion drive, i5 processor. 16GB
everything running fine. Sometimes my windows programs in the virtual machine are a little sluggish but that may be because only 16GB ram.

wondering if i should upgrade now or wait for the next iMac refresh or add more ram and keep my current machine.

I know the window of resale is now and if i wait too long my current machine won't be worth too much.

I would not consider your iMac that old yet. I guess my philosophy is don't upgrade until the one I have can no longer handle what I am doing with it. The sluggishness with your virtual machine could be due to how you have allocated resources to the virtual machine. You don't say what app you are using for your virtual machine but it should allow for changing the amount of memory allocated which might help with the sluggishness. Also the amount of hard drive allocated will influence speed too. If you want to add more memory taking it to 32GB can be done.

Now if you want to upgrade - the new iMacs that just came out are sweet. And... well I love to shop for tech so if I were determined to upgrade, I would look at the new iMac Pro but that is me and with what I do fast performance means time. The less time I spend waiting on a task to complete means more work I can get done. You don't say what you use your iMac for and that will determine what you will need.

I would look on eBay and check out what used iMacs are bringing. Also jump over to the Apple site and play with their system configurators to see what it will cost to get the system you want. The whole line has been upgraded and has just come out. You could also wait for the first refurbished models to appear in a few months to save on a newer model.

Lisa

I mostly use Excel in the virtual machine and word. The mac version of office has too many differences so that is why I use the windows version. And quickbooks on occasion.
I know how to change the allocations and I think i have it enough.
2 years from now the machine won't be worth as much as now and having an SSD would be a nice upgrade.
Decisions, Decisions.

Well as I said, I love to shop and buy new tech.... and with the new iMacs out they are really sweet machines... so ... I suggest going to the Apple site and play with the configurator.

This article gives a nice review of the 2017 iMac. http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/imac/imac-27-inch-2017-review-3660104/

Lisa

To be honest, I had a Mid 2011 iMac 3.4 i7 and it was running like a champ. Till this day I regret selling it because of how well it performed. The only difference between the two (Beside the CPU, which you would only see the actual difference under more demanding operations) is the drive. Mine had the optional 256GB ssd which made it lightning fast. I have experimented with the effects that an ssd has on a array of Apple products and I can honestly say that it is night and day even for MacBooks that are now 9 years old. Long story short, I guess what I am trying to say is that I would first try to use an ssd with you iMac and see if there is any difference. If the installation is a hassle (Which I completely understand), then I would just boot off of an external ssd just to get a feel for it.

curlyimac said:

I know the window of resale is now and if i wait too long my current machine won't be worth too much.

Click to expand...

curlyimac said:

2 years from now the machine won't be worth as much as now and having an SSD would be a nice upgrade.

Click to expand...

Sounds to me like you may be more concerned about the resale value of this 2014 iMac than the sluggishness.

If we "cured" the sugglishness...would that make the resale value issue "go away" (and you keep the 2014 iMac)?

If not...then sell the 2014 iMac...get a newer iMac. Then we don't need to deal with the sluggishness issue.

- Nick

How much ram do you have allocated to the VM?

it says 2048 MB recommended but i have it set at 4000 MB.

It's not too terribly sluggish that I can justify spending $2800 on a new iMac configured the way i want. Although SSD does sound tempting. I could get 16 more gigs of memory for $120 and keep it until the next refresh.
what to do? what to do?

curlyimac said:

it says 2048 MB recommended but i have it set at 4000 MB.

It's not too terribly sluggish that I can justify spending $2800 on a new iMac configured the way i want. Although SSD does sound tempting. I could get 16 more gigs of memory for $120 and keep it until the next refresh.
what to do? what to do?

Click to expand...

That gives you less than 4GB for your VM, why don't you test and set it to 8192MB, that will be double what you have now, see if the 8GB will help the performance?

ferrarr said:

That gives you less than 4GB for your VM, why don't you test and set it to 8192MB, that will be double what you have now, see if the 8GB will help the performance?

Click to expand...

Will try that. Maybe I could also up the ram and keep but won't have apple care after September.
Still pondering the upgrade. $3200 if I go with 1 to ssd. Then add my own ram makes it $3500. Ouch.
I wish apple care gave you more than 3 years.

Before you spend any money on additional ram or other hardware upgrades try the following if you haven't already:

1. Reboot the Mac and launch Activity Monitor.
2. Click the Tab and look for the Memory Pressure graph near the bottom of the window. The results should appear green.
3. Proceed with your normal computing tasks until the slowdown starts to occur then check the memory pressure graph again. If it has turned yellow look to see which things in the list are using a lot of memory. If it has stayed green a memory upgrsade may not solve the problem.

If this is occurring mainly when the VM is running there may be an adjustment that can be made to the VM to improve things.

Thanks for this. Never thought to check that.
I had lightroom, powerpoint, excel in vmware machine open along with safari, mail, calendar and iTunes.
Memory pressure stayed green. In fact, it showed only 8.65 of memory being used.
I generally don't have that many things open at one time. I did allocate more memory to the virtual machine as fearer suggested. Seems like it made a difference.
Guess I can save my money.

curlyimac said:

Thanks for this. Never thought to check that.
I had lightroom, powerpoint, excel in vmware machine open along with safari, mail, calendar and iTunes.
Memory pressure stayed green. In fact, it showed only 8.65 of memory being used.
I generally don't have that many things open at one time. I did allocate more memory to the virtual machine as fearer suggested. Seems like it made a difference.
Guess I can save my money.

Click to expand...

Glad those steps seem to have at the very least given you a bit more information. Of course, if your feeling guilty there are many gadgets/trinkets that can help alleviate that feeling. They will, of course, do some damage to your cash reserve.