Mac upgrades

Hi guys,looking for some opinions (please, no flame war regarding mac vs pc). What would be the best option for me from the options below, keeping in mind that the budget is pretty tight, but willing to spend extra if it will make it worth while. I spend about 30% of my time doing graphic design work, but the rest is After Effects (mostly templates, no 4K footage…) and desperate to get into Cinema 4D.

option 1: 21.5-inch: 2.9GHz – $1500 option 2: as above but memory upgraded from 8gb to 16gb – $1700 option 3: 27-inch: 3.2GHz (NVIDIA GeForce 1GB, where the two above have 512mb cards) – $2000

I guess what I’m asking is if I wanted to upgrade, where will it be best spent? There’s also the option of upgrading from core i5 to i7.

Depends how much your time is worth.

If you’re a motion graphics professional on a day rate, the extra $500 will pay for itself many times over in the lifetime of the computer.

If you’re a hobbyist, I’d recommend 16GB RAM for definite. The graphics card and bigger screen are a matter of taste… and a matter of how much stuff you’re going to be doing on a graphics card. Check the benchmarks between the models you’re looking at.

Check they’re CUDA enabled (i.e. on Ae CS6’s whitelist) too.

27’ with his high resolution is very helpful in any creative works. You have to ask yourself what is optimum for your needs. But buying new computer is not like a T-shirt It have to work for long time before you’ll get next one.