Very tricky to get/choose a twin matching 5K screen set up, upgrading an old iMAC ! thoughts appreciated

IWC Dopplel

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I would of thought it would be easy !

I have an old 2010 iMac, have always wanted to upgrade to a new 5K 27" screen, I do a lot of photography using Lightroom and now working from home (which I intend to do more of) I thought time to get two screens, big linked complex spreadsheets are really hard work on one screen. I have had two screens at work for years, but not at home. So easy I just choose an iMaC mini, spec it up well and get two 5k screens, darn it won't run two 5K screens so 24" 4k x2 should be fine right ?

Order placed, 2xLG24, 2TB 6-core Mac mini i7 32GB ram, just shy of 4k, gulp.... Lovely screens when they came through but..... I want a 27" for Photos, 24" is just too much of a compromise after 10 years with a 27' screen for photos

I look at other 4K thunderbolt 27" screens then started to realise I really do want to have 5K, and I want them to match, so it is going to be another £1k on screens and two 27"LG 5k screens it is, but what to use to drive them, they have just stopped selling the BlackMagic and BlackMagic Pro's, so its looking like a MacBook Pro...

I had thought about this, well it might be useful to have a laptop and I do then have portability, but then its what spec do I need, I have decided to try the following : (Im think :thumbsdow )

Screen Shot 2020-05-17 at 10.14.38.png


I am pretty sure on 32GB of Ram, as I use Lightroom and reading reviews this will be worthwhile in this scenario, I dont do very much video work, virtually none, but do need to run two 5k screens and seems that managing 28m pixels and the internal 4m is a lot of graphics requirements, so thought speccing the high end graphics probably made sense, also the 8 core i9 gives me a good level of processing

My use case is Lightroom, and dual screen for multiple spreadsheets usually in parallel with we bowsing and a few other things. I don't game or run any high end video processing software

The only other option is a MAC Pro !!! to run two 5k LG screens and although I could buy an iMAC, and one 5k I want the green to match, so if I have the desk space and desire to run one iMac and two LG37" screens is not possible with an iMAC you need and iMAC Pro...

I'd value any MacBook Pro spec thoughts and other mac mini thoughts, from what I have seen the external built graphics cards can be noisy and the integration is not perfect (manual sequence to turn off and no neat apple flow as drivers are embedded in the BlackMagic unit)

Pulling the trigger on £6k seems crazy :facepalm: as its really all about two 27" 5K screens and replacing a 10 year old limping iMAC. I will stay with apple and I want to be neat and seamless....

Why do my budgets always end up being multiple by 2+ x every time I do this ....
 
I would of thought it would be easy !

I have an old 2010 iMac, have always wanted to upgrade to a new 5K 27" screen, I do a lot of photography using Lightroom and now working from home (which I intend to do more of) I thought time to get two screens, big linked complex spreadsheets are really hard work on one screen. I have had two screens at work for years, but not at home. So easy I just choose an iMaC mini, spec it up well and get two 5k screens, darn it won't run two 5K screens so 24" 4k x2 should be fine right ?

Order placed, 2xLG24, 2TB 6-core Mac mini i7 32GB ram, just shy of 4k, gulp.... Lovely screens when they came through but..... I want a 27" for Photos, 24" is just too much of a compromise after 10 years with a 27' screen for photos

I look at other 4K thunderbolt 27" screens then started to realise I really do want to have 5K, and I want them to match, so it is going to be another £1k on screens and two 27"LG 5k screens it is, but what to use to drive them, they have just stopped selling the BlackMagic and BlackMagic Pro's, so its looking like a MacBook Pro...

I had thought about this, well it might be useful to have a laptop and I do then have portability, but then its what spec do I need, I have decided to try the following : (Im think :thumbsdow )

View attachment 1300706

I am pretty sure on 32GB of Ram, as I use Lightroom and reading reviews this will be worthwhile in this scenario, I dont do very much video work, virtually none, but do need to run two 5k screens and seems that managing 28m pixels and the internal 4m is a lot of graphics requirements, so thought speccing the high end graphics probably made sense, also the 8 core i9 gives me a good level of processing

My use case is Lightroom, and dual screen for multiple spreadsheets usually in parallel with we bowsing and a few other things. I don't game or run any high end video processing software

The only other option is a MAC Pro !!! to run two 5k LG screens and although I could buy an iMAC, and one 5k I want the green to match, so if I have the desk space and desire to run one iMac and two LG37" screens is not possible with an iMAC you need and iMAC Pro...

I'd value any MacBook Pro spec thoughts and other mac mini thoughts, from what I have seen the external built graphics cards can be noisy and the integration is not perfect (manual sequence to turn off and no neat apple flow as drivers are embedded in the BlackMagic unit)

Pulling the trigger on £6k seems crazy :facepalm: as its really all about two 27" 5K screens and replacing a 10 year old limping iMAC. I will stay with apple and I want to be neat and seamless....

Why do my budgets always end up being multiple by 2+ x every time I do this ....

£600/year for 10 years is more than achievable and represents great value for money
 
Actually I probably use my computer 4-5 x as much as my home cinema so not sure why I think 4K on a video processor is sensible yet 6k on a computer is mad 🧐
 
It is worth considering how much Mac OS is worth to you as while the capability you want may be rare and expensive on Apple PCs, it's much cheaper and more widely available from other brands.
 
Thanks for all the advice, so far. I am lost and perplexed...

I now have two 5K screens running from my new MacBook, the MacBook is everything I hoped for the keys, build and screen quality very good, it looks and acts like a retina screen, off angle viewing is good, black levels are good, its bright no surprises the MacBook is quick and responsive, so all good there........ BUT I am underwhelmed and disappointed with the LG 5K screens , off axis viewing is dreadful and I am not going to keep them at any price. My 2010 iMac in the middle which is not as resolving but doesn't have this awful viewing issue.

I want two 27" screens that have the performance of my MacBook retina screen, not sure I will keepmthis either as I chose the MacBook to drive two 5K screens as a mobile desk solution, I cant fit or afford the supposedly amazing 6K apple screens so what to buy ?!?!

1590041694367.png

1590041807020.png
 
I'm not 100% sure, however I do not believe the 8th Gen 13inch MacBook Pro can drive a 5K display over USB-C. I believe it's only the 10th Gen version. Again, my understanding is not 100% I just remember something like this being mentioned while watching reviews on YouTube.

I was going to get the £1299 base model, however I'm now looking at the £1799 model due to it being that little bit better.
 
The 9th Gen 16" will drive two 5k screens as mine does, I am pretty sure I will send them back and see if I can replace with something different with better black levels
 
The 9th Gen 16" will drive two 5k screens as mine does, I am pretty sure I will send them back and see if I can replace with something different with better black levels

Oh I don’t doubt that. I was purely referring to the 8th Gen 13inch MB Pro.
 
Lit up with brighter images they are considerably better, its the black levels on dimmer images that I am not so keen on. The MacBook is great for portability obviously, I am not sure I need the powerful machine to be portable though.:thumbsdow
 
I have toyed with all permutations including speccing up two iMacs and using one as a second screen only. After looking at a number of photographs on the LG's vs my old iMac with calibrated screen I think I have settled on keeping this set up and tolerating less than perfect black levels. My MacBook Pro will run two HDR screens......Hmmm.....

Now If I put them on a professional arm to save the £2k on two stands, don't have the matt screen.... STOP, Stop ....:nono:
 
Well, half way through a silly idea to transfer data via wifi, I cancelled the data transfer and ended up rebooting the MacBook from scratch , I was faced with the Catalina wallpaper nothing like the pictures shown above, black levels seem to have improved, dramatically ? monitors running in ?
 
Apple are going to hate me, I have decided to swap my new MacBook for the same spec but with a 4TB drive to save worrying about running to of capacity (I am 1.7GB after tidying photos) and external 2TB SSD's that are thunderbolt and fast are £380 from apple, £600 to have it in the machine...

Screenshot 2020-05-30 at 13.13.53.png
 

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