Which Processor for Graphic Design i5 vs i9

I teach Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and have a good understanding of the requirements of many of the Adobe apps. The i9 is of course the preferred chip, but it’s not worth breaking the bank. The i5 3.7Ghz is also a very capable chip that is multi-threaded and it benchmarks much faster in single core and multi-core over just the previous generation iMac i7 computers.

I have a 2017 27” iMac with a 4.2Ghz i7 processor. This was Apple’s fastest iMac just several years ago. The i5 in the 2019 iMac is about 20% faster than my i7.

I run Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time and have no issues with the performance. I have maxed out the RAM at 64GB from OWC. I also have the Radeon Pro 580 with 8Gb of video/graphics memory. Adobe is using the graphics card more and more to improve performance in all their applications. Getting the fastest graphics card available for the iMac can also be a wise choice.

Either way you end up going you’ll have a very capable computer that will give you years of service.

The Core i9 is hyper-threaded so that 8-core i9 will have 16 threads of execution which will come in handy with your multiplicity of applications and browser tabs. The Core i5 is just 6 Cores, not hyperthreaded (to my knowledge), and a generation older CPU. Go with the Core i9 and not less than 32GB RAM.

My vote...

The i9, 32GB.

With that type of work, I'd go for 32 GB RAM and the i9. An i5 is not going to cut it.

i9 & as much RAM as you can afford as well as big of SSD you can afford.

Jeff Donald wrote:.....The i5 3.7Ghz is also a very capable chip that is multi-threaded ....

The I5 used in the iMac you talk about is not multithreaded

as per Intel specs on this page:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/190884/intel-core-i5-9600kf-processor-9m-cache-up-to-4-60-ghz.html

From that page:

Only the i9 is multithreaded. None of the i5 chips

used in any iMac were ever multithreaded.

You did mention InDesign and Illustrator. Any work with graphics is processor intensive and requires rendering of the images. There is nothing worse than getting tools (computer) that necessitate you having to wait for it to finish the task, especially if that is your livelihood.

But, that is my personal opinion - it is your decision to make.

Whatever iMac you get only order the minimum 8GB of RAM. You can upgrade the RAM yourself in 27" iMacs for less than ½ of what Apple will charge. I recommend getting the RAM from only Crucial.com or MacSales.com (0WC).

Here are the relative speeds of the CPUs in single core and multiple core modes from the MacInTrack app.

If you can afford the i9 get it.

+ 1

It’s multi-threaded, but not hyper-threaded. All modern processors have been multi-threaded for years.