Better editing machine?

[ryanporterhouse]

Hi, I'm choosing between two iMacs for premiere and after effects editing. I'm wondering if anyone as insight regarding which is the better machine:

Late 2013 iMac

21.5in screen
500GB fresh SSD
Fresh logic board as of 2018
i5 2.7GHz processor
16gb ram

Mid 2011 iMac

27in screen
4TB SATA (could potentially put SSD in)
i7 3.4GHz processor
32GB ram
+Premiere shortcuts keyboard

[RjL190365]

Neither. You see, newer versions of the Creative Cloud software have become extremely picky about the age of the CPU platform. That means that if the newer versions of the Creative Cloud software were to have run at all in either of those systems, you will experience corrupted renders and/or program crashes every time you attempt to do much if anything in those programs, because those machines are now too old for the newer versions of the Creative Cloud software. In fact, all current versions of the Creative Cloud video editing and processing programs now require hardware that's newer than 2016 just to even run properly.

Sorry. The versions of the software that were compatible with such old hardware are no longer legitimately available any more.

And that's not to mention that the 27-inch 2011 model is already in "Obsolete" support status at Apple itself, which means that it will not receive any further support or software updates any longer, and you officially cannot update its OSX version to a new-enough version that's required for Premiere Pro 2019 or later. The 2013 model has an Nvidia GPU - but the newest versions of Premiere Pro now no longer support CUDA on Mac platforms. Nor does any OSX version since Mojave support CUDA at all. Moreover, the late 2013 model will soon be dropped to "Vintage" status within a few months.

[DML18]

Does this mean then that I'll have to buy a new pc every four years just so I can use adobe programs?

[RjL190365]

Pretty much. Your original post clearly showed the lack of knowledge about Adobe's minimum system requirements, which have changed since the release of Premiere Pro 2019. The minimum system requirements for Mac (as stated on the Adobe Web site) are a system manufactured later than 2016 (the "2017" MacBook Air is an exception as it was merely a refreshed 2015 model), and (for the current 14.x version) OSX 10.13 or later. Unfortunately, with the 2011 iMac you will not officially be able to update OSX beyond 10.13, while the forthcoming 15.x will now require 10.14 or later just to even run at all.

And Adobe must keep adding new features to its programs to avoid falling far behind the competition. Unfortunately, the new features tend to break compatibility with older hardware. And if Adobe were to have continued supporting the old hardware you're considering, Adobe would have had to cease further development of all of its programs, and only issue security patches to its already existing versions - which is not what the company wanted in the first place.