On the 27-inch iMacs (except the iMac Pro), there is a user-accessible RAM access door on the back of the machine, which allows you to perform the RAM upgrade yourself.įinally and most importantly, you do not need the AppleCare Protection Plan. On the 2017 21.5-inch iMacs, the RAM can't be upgraded without removing the display which is glued together - you would need to take it to an Apple Store or Apple Authorised Service Provider, and those upgrades do not come cheap. On the 3.4 GHz 4K iMac, that brings the total to £1,719.Īlso consider whether 8 GB RAM will be sufficient for your needs for the length of time you intend to keep your iMac.

If you were to customise your order to replace the stock configuration with a 512 GB SSD in the 3.0 GHz 4K iMac, that would bring the total to £1,609. You will get the best performance if you purchase an iMac with SSD storage, but for music production I imagine 256 GB won't be enough - so you might need to customise your iMac to include a minimum 512 GB SSD which costs £270 as a customisation upgrade, so you might find the best value-to-performance ratio in a Fusion Drive if an SSD is too expensive for you. If you don't want to save up in order to buy a 27-inch iMac, you should either purchase the 3.0GHz 4K iMac but with a 1 TB Fusion Drive which brings the total to £1,339, or the high-end 3.4 GHz 4K iMac which comes with a 1 TB Fusion Drive for £1,449 - this model is almost on par with the low-end 27-inch iMac in terms of processor and graphics performance. That might be fine for general use, but certainly not the ideal drive speeds for music production. As you are going to be using your iMac for music production, you would benefit from a Fusion Drive or SSD storage as the 2.3 GHz and 3.0 GHz 21.5-inch iMacs use 5400-rpm hard drives. Your budget will limit you to the lower-end iMac range.

Best imac for recording music