Upgrade 2019 iMac 27-inch and monitor recommendations

>> 2TB SSD drive

Is that an original 2tb Apple SSD — or a fusion SSD/HDD configuration?

A lot of people who purchased fusion models think they are “ssd” because that’s what it says on the box, but system profiler tells the story

my 2019 iMacs with Apple SSDs (no fusion spinning HD drives) are very fast and don’t crash or bog running heavy photoshop and Final Cut projects

they have a lot of ram which also takes a load off the drives

what are you running that’s slowing you down?

what macOS are you running

if you indeed have a fusion setup — I would first suspect hard drive issues

can you post DriveDX (macOS app) report for drive health and power on hours?

If you are set on a new more powerful machine — what is your budget?

Mac mini — mac pro — Mac Studio

A 2019 27" iMac can run macOS Sequoia, a currently supported version of macOS. The only version beyond that is Tahoe, which was released only a few months ago. What software do you have that requires Tahoe?

Regarding the crashes, how about if you download & run Etrecheck and post the results here. It provides details about the Mac, no personal information. (If you post the report, use the "Additional Text" button to include it in a post.)

davidra wrote:

What would be an upgraded system that would match what I have now with a better processor … ?

…

I’m a photographer and use Topaz software. Their newest products will not run on Intel Macs.

The M4 Mac mini, M4 Pro Mac mini, and M4 Max Mac Studio all have CPU benchmark scores higher than any of the 2017" 2019 iMacs.

Single-core CPU scores are about the same for all of these M4-series Macs: 3748–4008, versus 1336–1610 for the 27" 2019 iMacs. Multi-core CPU scores are a bit more variable: 14467–25836 for the M4-series desktops, versus 5018–7612 for the 27" 2019 iMacs.

MacTracker did not have Metal (GPU) scores for the 2019 iMacs, but on the Geekbench site, the Metal scores on the first page of results were between 53305 and 119721. The M4 Pro Metal scores were roughly on par with the ones for high-end 27" 2019 iMacs, while the M4 Max scores were higher.

Source: Geekbench 6 results, as reported by MacTracker – a free utility that contains a lot of information about just about "every Apple Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro ever made."

I spotted some concerns:

— Your SSD is 90% full:

Data (APFS) [APFS Virtual drive] (1.81 TB used)

That's cutting it close.

— Your Write speeds are abysmal:

Performance:

System Load: 1.98 (1 min ago) 3.05 (5 min ago) 10.36 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O usage: 0.25 MB/s

File system: 18.22 seconds

Write speed: 523 MB/s ⚠️

Read speed: 2958 MB/s

Writes should be over 2000MB/sec on that model. Doing a Safe Mode boot and letting the computer "soak" in Safe Mode for about 30 minutes may improve that. Freeing ups some space may help as well.

— I do not let Chrome within a light-year of our computers. Why? This:

Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:

Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)

Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (43) 7.76 GB (Google LLC) ⚠️⚠️

— Unless your Cisco VPN is employer-issued, it's not helping.

To match that 27” 5K Retina screen, you would need a 27” Apple 5K Studio Display - or perhaps one of the third-party 27” 5K (5120x2880 pixel) displays that have started to come out. These aren’t exactly cheap, so many people settle for 27” or 32” 4K displays that aren’t as sharp (due to lower pixel density).

However, since that 2019 iMac can run Sequoia, it should be able to run most current Mac software.

Exceptions: Apple Intelligence, desktop Touch ID keyboards, and the ability to run select iPhone and iPad apps require Apple Silicon based Macs. The Apple Creator Studio subscription applications work best on macOS Tahoe (and in the case of the subscription version of Pixelmator Pro, require it).

Some third-party photo editing programs might also offer the ability to use Neural Engine acceleration when running on Apple Silicon processors.

But your iMac is still a very capable, and reasonably modern one.

I see system requirements

https://docs.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo/system-requirements

that’s bleeding edge — I would suggest Mac Studio with a lot of ram and ssd space…

Note that while your 27" 2019 iMac has user-upgradable RAM – and can take up to 64 GB (official limit) or 128 GB (actual limit) of it, RAM on Apple Silicon Macs is non-upgradable after purchase.

You must buy as much as you need at order time, because there will be no opportunity to add more later.

>> It’s not a Fusion Drive; full SSD

ill take your word on that (it's not a SATA SSD) -- how is its DRIVE HEALTH - POWER ON HOURS - FAIL FLAGS

how much RAM is installed, i5, i7, i9?

+++++

i would get a fresh clone onto a fast external SSD

Erase the internal SSD

install Sequoia on the internal, and update it

install only the problem app, and run any updates

and try to reproduce the problem on a clean system

with all non-Apple stuff removed (including keyboard and mouse)

+++++

if the problem is solved at this point you can use Migration Assistant to bring your clone back onto the new install

+++++

in the meantime, you can work off the external clone until you figure it out

+++++

if the SSD looks good in DRIVE DX -- i would suspect RAM

if you have 4 RAM DIMMs remove two... then swap those two...

could be something goofy like keyboard, mouse, hub or something else you have in the soup

or a corrupted system or user

+++++

you probably know this -- sometimes it's good to get more opinions...