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Model A1419 / EMC 2806 / Late 2014 or Mid 2015. 3.3 or 3.5 GHz Core i5 or 4.0 GHz Core i7 (ID iMac15,1); EMC 2834 late 2015 / 3.3 or 3.5 GHz Core i5 or 4.0 GHz Core i7 (iMac17,1) All with Retina 5K displays

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iMac Intel 27" Retina 5k Display RAM Upgrade question

Hello,

Lookin to upgrade the RAM in my desktop. I have taken the stock RAM out of my Macbook Pro 2009 and I was wondering if they are compatible the desktop. 2x 2GB.

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Let me know. Also if this simple upgrade doesn’t work I’d like to know what you all recommend I invest in to upgrade this computer.

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Here's your systems specs: iMac 27" 3.3 GHz i5 (5K, Late 2015)

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Sorry they are very different!

  • Mid 2009 MacBook Pro - Requires: 204-pin PC3-8500 (1066 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM
  • Late 2015 iMac 5K - Requires: 204-pin PC3L-14900 (1867 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM

You do have the right idea of the easiest upgrade! Bumping up the RAM to 16 GB will improve working on large projects or having lots of windows open at once.

As you didn’t give us your systems config as well as what type of projects you are doing its hard to guide you on the best direction to improve your system in the future.

Update (04/26/2019)

I'll assume you got a Fusion Drive setup which is a step up from a HDD. You could jump to a dedicated SSD as the next level of performance. It’s just a matter of which direction makes the best sense.

In your case you have two drive interfaces a 3.5" SATA bay and a PCIe/NVMe custom blade SSD port on the logic board. Presently, you are using both ports for a Fusion Drive setup. The next step would be to break the Fusion Drive and either swap out your HDD for a SSD iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Hard Drive Replacement, or if you want the best performance I would swap out the small blade SSD your system has now for a much larger blade SSD iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement. I’ll worn you this is not easy and its more expensive but it will give you the best performance gain and you still have your HDD for your deep storage.

An alternate solution would be to get a Thunderbolt2 external SSD RAID drive here we aren’t opening the system and getting the same performance as the blade SSD.

As you can see your CPU is currently a 3.3 GHz i5-6600 the best this system will support is a 4.0 GHz i7-6700K. Again this is a big job while it will give you more performance given the amount of work and risk I would hold off on doing this last iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display CPU Replacement

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display CPU Image

Guide

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display CPU Replacement

Difficulty:

Difficult

1 - 3 hours

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Hard Drive Image

Guide

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty:

Moderate

1 - 2 hours

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Image

Guide

iMac Intel 27" Retina 5K Display Blade SSD Replacement

Difficulty:

Difficult

2 hours

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I've added a photo of my overview above.

Interesting. I edit videos, often effect heavy. Usually in adobe. What info would you like to know regarding my configuration? Everything is stock. Is 16GB as high as I can go? What RAM would you recommend? I'm also looking for the cheapest option.

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The max RAM your system can support is 64 GB! Using 4 16 GB SODIMM's But be careful here! Just because you can put that much RAM in your system doesn't mean its the best upgrade for your given usage.

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Is there a downside to a RAM upgrade? My instinct is to buy two 16GB to fill the two empty slots. In the long run I would like to max out the RAM. In the future I will probably buy an external SSD thunderbolt RAID Drive. Is there any RAM specifically you would recommend for this?

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Other than the cost you really should gage if your work needs it. If it does then go for it. Over buying is just wasteful as the RAM space won't be used. So if you are just a writer then it won't help going up to the max.

As for who's, while over clockers tend to count the microseconds, in reality Mac systems are just not tune-able to the degree people think.

I would stick with what Apple specs and the standard RAM makers are just fine.

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Can I buy and install only one 16GB RAM or do I have to buy and install a pair? Is there any issue with purchasing the following:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KEA...

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