Hi,
I am the owner of my old faithful 2009 iMac 27" which has served me reliably with not a single issue since new. But in the last couple years this machine has gotten slower and slower now to the point of being glacial. I've wanted a new computer for some time, but with the pricing of Apple these days there is simply no way I can afford a new iMac or MacBook pro.
I'm not very computer literate so I need some practical advice. The only advice I've gotten so far is anecdotal and not much use to me. Stuff that sales people say like "oh if you're doing video editing get the i7". This is the same thing they told me back in 2009. So my machine is an i5 2.66ghz with 4gb ram, 1TB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB. It is running the latest Sierra.
The real questions I want answered are kind of simple no BS style. Why is my computer so slow to load basic programs like Microsoft word (1:20 load time to begin typing). Using MS word as an example, I get about 1.5-2 seconds of lag clicking between tabs at the top, and I can out type the cursor. For my computer to perform this badly on such an easy program is really frustrating. I don't have a lot of crap installed and my HDD is 30% full.
Something I want to do is learn to edit video. I have FCPX which takes a full 3:00 to load at which point it tells me editing 4k is not recommended on this machine. I have been told that video editing is mostly CPU intensive. So I have an "old" machine which is 2.66ghz i5 quad core. The new iMac 27" are 3.2ghz i5 quad core. So if this nomenclature is worth anything, 2.6/3.2 = 81%. So on average my computer should only be 19% slower than a new one on processing tasks? Theoretically a 5 second computational task on a new iMac should then take my computer 6 seconds??
Can I expect to have a reasonably usable computer with some RAM upgrade, maybe a SSD drive? Will I be able to take 4k video, down sample it to 1080p and edit footage on this computer? Is it worth putting money into this machine still? Or should I just get a new computer? Running geekbench 4 my computer puts out 2494 single core and 6793 multi core. In that sense is it comparable to other computers which put out the same score, IE it would not really be an upgrade for me to purchase something like a 2015 MacBook pro 13" which scores 3700/7000?
I am the owner of my old faithful 2009 iMac 27" which has served me reliably with not a single issue since new. But in the last couple years this machine has gotten slower and slower now to the point of being glacial. I've wanted a new computer for some time, but with the pricing of Apple these days there is simply no way I can afford a new iMac or MacBook pro.
I'm not very computer literate so I need some practical advice. The only advice I've gotten so far is anecdotal and not much use to me. Stuff that sales people say like "oh if you're doing video editing get the i7". This is the same thing they told me back in 2009. So my machine is an i5 2.66ghz with 4gb ram, 1TB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB. It is running the latest Sierra.
The real questions I want answered are kind of simple no BS style. Why is my computer so slow to load basic programs like Microsoft word (1:20 load time to begin typing). Using MS word as an example, I get about 1.5-2 seconds of lag clicking between tabs at the top, and I can out type the cursor. For my computer to perform this badly on such an easy program is really frustrating. I don't have a lot of crap installed and my HDD is 30% full.
Something I want to do is learn to edit video. I have FCPX which takes a full 3:00 to load at which point it tells me editing 4k is not recommended on this machine. I have been told that video editing is mostly CPU intensive. So I have an "old" machine which is 2.66ghz i5 quad core. The new iMac 27" are 3.2ghz i5 quad core. So if this nomenclature is worth anything, 2.6/3.2 = 81%. So on average my computer should only be 19% slower than a new one on processing tasks? Theoretically a 5 second computational task on a new iMac should then take my computer 6 seconds??
Can I expect to have a reasonably usable computer with some RAM upgrade, maybe a SSD drive? Will I be able to take 4k video, down sample it to 1080p and edit footage on this computer? Is it worth putting money into this machine still? Or should I just get a new computer? Running geekbench 4 my computer puts out 2494 single core and 6793 multi core. In that sense is it comparable to other computers which put out the same score, IE it would not really be an upgrade for me to purchase something like a 2015 MacBook pro 13" which scores 3700/7000?