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27" Imac Good Buying Advice Needed PLEASE
- Thread starter solman
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I'm having the same problem as solman: trying to figure out how much power I need in a new iMac.
I'm not a power user, but I really want the applications I do use to be slick. I also want to be able to have them all open at once if need be. Like solman I won't be gaming, and I'm primarily thinking of browsing (let's call it power browsing - lots of pages open at once; lots of images and videos on those pages), iTunes, Open Office, HD video, and a bit of video and photo editing. The one processor intensive thing I would like to do is real-time transcoding of video while it streams to my TV. No idea how much power I'd need for that. I know I can probably get by with 4GB of RAM and a 3.06 GHz processor, but I'm sick of watching Safari choke on GIF animations, shutting down applications or closing windows because I'm doing too much multitasking, and dealing with stuttery HD videos on my current machine. With a new iMac, I'd like to spring for the best I can get in terms of performance. If I'll notice 8GB of RAM or a faster processor it's probably worth getting - but if I truly won't notice the upgrades I'll be glad to save the cash.
So would I need an immediate 8GB Ram upgrade, or would it be totally superfluous? And how much CPU power do I really need? I'd assumed an i5 or i7 would be excessive, but having read a few threads in here I'm not so sure.
Apologies if this is considered thread hijacking! I figured it was on topic, but if I should have started a new thread please let me know.
I'm not a power user, but I really want the applications I do use to be slick. I also want to be able to have them all open at once if need be. Like solman I won't be gaming, and I'm primarily thinking of browsing (let's call it power browsing - lots of pages open at once; lots of images and videos on those pages), iTunes, Open Office, HD video, and a bit of video and photo editing. The one processor intensive thing I would like to do is real-time transcoding of video while it streams to my TV. No idea how much power I'd need for that. I know I can probably get by with 4GB of RAM and a 3.06 GHz processor, but I'm sick of watching Safari choke on GIF animations, shutting down applications or closing windows because I'm doing too much multitasking, and dealing with stuttery HD videos on my current machine. With a new iMac, I'd like to spring for the best I can get in terms of performance. If I'll notice 8GB of RAM or a faster processor it's probably worth getting - but if I truly won't notice the upgrades I'll be glad to save the cash.
So would I need an immediate 8GB Ram upgrade, or would it be totally superfluous? And how much CPU power do I really need? I'd assumed an i5 or i7 would be excessive, but having read a few threads in here I'm not so sure.
Apologies if this is considered thread hijacking! I figured it was on topic, but if I should have started a new thread please let me know.
8gigs
Zero swap file, always with reserve memory. That with the iCore processor and you're good to go. You will not choke this machine up.
Thanks for the advice - 8GB it is. And iCore is quad core, right? The standard i5 should do it? It's weird to imagine that I'd need that much CPU beef. I know real time transcoding requires a more powerful CPU than average, but I've read of people doing it successfully on older Macs. The extra RAM should prevent choking, so would I really need the quad core?
This is true, but if I have a fair idea about how much power I definitely need, I can decide how much I'm willing to pay for upgrades I might merely want.
I've also been keeping an open mind about which size to go for. Settling on the i5 also means definitely going with the 27" screen. I could deal with a 21.5" screen, but I plan to get a system with at least a 1TB hard drive (ideally 2TB), so the base model 21.5" is out. For me there would be no point in upgrading a 2TB 21.5" iMac's CPU to 3.33 GHz when I could get a 27" i5 for just a little more money. I'm not really considering the 27" C2D - it's such a small jump for the quad core upgrade, and while I'd like the superior display, I couldn't justify dropping the extra cash for the screen alone. But the price difference between a 21.5" 3.06 GHz 2TB config and a 27" i5 2TB config is substantial. If I can be fairly sure I'll get the performance I need from a 3.06 GHz processor, I can weigh my options with regard to extra CPU power, screen size, hard drive size, and how much cash I really want to spend above and beyond what's necessary. Hope that makes some sense. Glad I can buy the RAM from Crucial.com - that keeps the numbers down on the Apple Store config page!