which earn me advertising fees or commissions.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
B&H Photo...
Amazon
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
6000 MB/sec!
Mac or PC.
Ideal for Lightroom, Photoshop, video.
Capacity up to 16TB!
iMac 5K (Late 2015) vs Mac Pro: 64GB Memory Supported
Related: 2015 iMac 5K, 4K and 5K display, computer display, iMac, iMac 5K, Mac Pro, Macs, memory, Photoshop, video
Get iMac 5K at B&H Photo and see also MPG’s computer gear wishlist.
See also diglloyd-recommended performance packages for iMac at OWC.
MPG recommends this iMac 5K: 27" Retina 5K Display, 4.0 GHz Intel Core i7 (Skylake), 1TB Flash, 8GB memory, AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU (4GB GDDR5) + 32GB or 64GB OWC memory.
All prior models of the iMac 5K have long been handicapped by a 32GB memory limit, thus forcing professionals to the Mac Pro.
But the late 2015 iMac 5K changes the game by accepting up to 64GB memory, which makes it far more viable for professional photographers like diglloyd, videographers, etc*.
For example, MPG digloyd’s everyday work cannot be done efficiently on a system with only 32GB memory, as the screen shot shows from a late-night image processing job. Observe that Photoshop CC is using 40 GB of real memory. This would be a serious performance problem on a system with only 32GB, yet with other apps also taking memory, even the 64GB system is stressed into using 7.8 GB of compressed memory, as shown.
Apple does not offer a 64GB memory option, but OWC offers a 64GB memory kit that costs only a little more than what Apple upcharges for 32GB, making an awesomely fast Photoshop or Lightroom workstation out of the late 2015 iMac 5K at a far lower price than the Mac Pro.
If the iMac 5K was bought with 8GB or 16GB of memory, here’s the cool thing: Apple now configures that 8GB as 2 X 4GB or 2 X 8GB, thus leaving two memory slots open. For a long time, it was 4 X 2GB or 4 X 4GB, occupying all four slots, so whatever came with the iMac had to be removed. So here’s what’s cool, if a full 64GB is not needed, keep the two modules that come with the 8GB or 16GB iMac 5K, but add 2 X 8GB or 2 X 16GB:
2 X 4GB + OWC 2 X 8GB ===> 24GB
2 X 4GB + OWC 2 X 16GB ===> 40GB
2 X 8GB + OWC 2 X 8GB ===> 32GB
2 X 8GB + OWC 2 X 16GB ===> 48GB
* Some iMac 5K drawbacks remain, name only two Thunderbolt ports (on one bus), which is problematic for multiple displays in particular, but also for multiple high performance devices, or device-to-device copies (bandwidth restrictions). Also, the Mac Pro can go to 128GB for really huge jobs.

Blazingly fast Thunderbolt 3 SSD!
Up to 4TB capacity, USB-C compatible.
USB-C model also available
Ultra-high performance across entire capacity, outperforms the competition.
Tiny, bus-powered, rugged, compact!
Eight-bay Thunderbolt 3 high-performance storage for photo and video.
Hard drives or SSDs.
Non-RAID or RAID-0/1/4/5/10.
Capacities up to 128 Terabytes!
High capacity, high-performance fault-tolerant storage for photography and video.
Non-RAID or RAID-0/1/4/5/10.
Capacities up to 64 Terabytes!
8-bay Thunderbolt 3
2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drives, NVMe SSD, USB-C, USB-A, DisplayPort 1.4, SD slot, PCIe slot, 500W power supply.
Non-RAID or RAID-0/1/4/5/10.
Capacities up to 128 Terabytes!
Venus Optics Laowa 105mm f/2 Smooth Trans Focus Lens for Sony E
SAVE $220