Buy a new Mac mini to replace my late 2009 iMac?

[gryphon69]

Hi Guys

I am thinking about replacing My iMac 2009 - 2.8 GHz i7 with
ATI Radion HD4850, with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, with a specked out
Mac Mini.
here is my question to you guys, will I see a big improvement over the iMac,
I am mostly thinking about the grafik card!.
Offcourse the Mac Mini will have a ssd instead of the 2 TB of the imac, and I will have a thunderbolt external disk,
to take care of my aperture files, Aperture is the only program i am a bit worried about, as the files acan be large,and
I dont feel sure that it will be a nice workflow with the Intel 4000 grafik card!!.
Maybe I should wait for the new one to come out;-)
Hopefully someone has experiance with Aperture on a Mac Mini to share.

Thanks in advance.
Poul

 

[Fishrrman]

My advice:

Is the iMac still running ok? If so, I just don't see any real reason to replace it with a Mini. The specs you posted are fairly good, vis-a-vis the 2012 Mini's.

I'd keep the iMac for a while longer…perhaps until the Haswell version of the Mini is released.

 

[hudson1]

Hi Guys

I am thinking about replacing My iMac 2009 - 2.8 GHz i7 with ATI Radion HD4850, with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, wit a specked out Mac Mini.

How much RAM in the iMac?

 

[marzer]

Hi Guys

I am thinking about replacing My iMac 2009 - 2.8 GHz i7 with
ATI Radion HD4850, with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, wit a specked out
Mac Mini.
here is my question to you guys, will I see a big improvement over the iMac,
I am mostly thinking about the grafik card!.
Offcourse the Mac Mini will have a ssd instead of the 2 TB of the imac, and I will have a thunderbolt external disk,
to take care of my aperture files, Aperture is the only program i am a bit worried about, as the files acan be large,and
I dont feel sure that it will be a nice workflow with the Intel 4000 grafik card!!.
Maybe I should wait for the new one to come out;-)
Hopefully someone has experiance with Aperture on a Mac Mini to share.

Thanks in advance.
Poul

I have the same 2009 iMac as you and a 2012 i5 mac mini. Your iMac is still a more capable machine than the new mini with regards to graphic performance. The ATI 4850 is at least twice the performance of the Intel 4000.

What's your motivation in downgrading from the iMac to a mini? The new iMacs have screamer GPUs compared to the 2009 models, esp. WRT the 680MX.

 

[blueroom]

I replaced the HDD with an SSD in my 2009 iMac 27" (you have to short out the thermal sensor). Is nice.

 

[gryphon69]

how much ram in the imac?

16gb

----------

I have the same 2009 iMac as you and a 2012 i5 mac mini. Your iMac is still a more capable machine than the new mini with regards to graphic performance. The ATI 4850 is at least twice the performance of the Intel 4000.

What's your motivation in downgrading from the iMac to a mini? The new iMacs have screamer GPUs compared to the 2009 models, esp. WRT the 680MX.

Thanks for the input.
My iMac is in the shop now for bad graphic card, will cost me 670$ to fix.
I have told them to fix it, but I worry a bit for the hard drive, it is very slow to open programs, and it sounds like it is cooking something inside when i use it
I hope it will work better when it comes back.
Nice to know about the graphic card on the Mini, you made me make my mind up I don't want worse graphics on a machine I buy, I thought that maybe after a few years, a Mini would have a graphic card that was better than I have.

----------

I replaced the HDD with an SSD in my 2009 iMac 27" (you have to short out the thermal sensor). Is nice.

Really!! it worked?
I have heard it to be very difficult to get it to work right!

 

[marzer]

Thanks for the input.
My iMac is in the shop now for bad graphic card, will cost me 670$ to fix.
I have told them to fix it, but I worry a bit for the hard drive, it is very slow to open programs, and it sounds like it is cooking something inside when i use it
I hope it will work better when it comes back.
Nice to know about the graphic card on the Mini, you made me make my mind up I don't want worse graphics on a machine I buy, I thought that maybe after a few years, a Mini would have a graphic card that was better than I have.

Before you swap drives, did you check it for thr hard drive recall? My HD also had become sluggish and turned out it was a faulty drive covered by the recall. If you are eligible, get it swapped before you consider installing an SSD.

Another thing I did was install 1333Mhz memory, wasn't a huge jump but every bit helps. My Applecare just recently ran out, so I'm contemplating an SSD. I expect with that and the faster memory to get another 4 years (at least) out of my 2009.

And to give perspective to integrated graphic unit performance, the Geforce 8800GS in my 2008 iMac still benchmarks higher than the Intel 4000.

 

[gryphon69]

Before you swap drives, did you check it for thr hard drive recall? My HD also had become sluggish and turned out it was a faulty drive covered by the recall. If you are eligible, get it swapped before you consider installing an SSD.

Another thing I did was install 1333Mhz memory, wasn't a huge jump but every bit helps. My Applecare just recently ran out, so I'm contemplating an SSD. I expect with that and the faster memory to get another 4 years (at least) out of my 2009.

And to give perspective to integrated graphic unit performance, the Geforce 8800GS in my 2008 iMac still benchmarks higher than the Intel 4000.

I usually follow recalls when they are announced, I can not remember a recall on harddrive on my computer, is there a way to check that, ( google maybe )
Maybe the sluggeness is a result of the graphic going bad slowly
I did install more memory, from 8 to 16, but i must say i was a bit dissipointed with the result, not a big difference.
Just did a google, it seams it was the Seagate 1Tb drive
http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

 

[marzer]

I usually follow recalls when they are announced, I can not remember a recall on harddrive on my computer, is there a way to check that, ( google maybe )
Maybe the sluggeness is a result of the graphic going bad slowly
I did install more memory, from 8 to 16, but i must say i was a bit dissipointed with the result, not a big difference.
Just did a google, it seams it was the Seagate 1Tb drive
http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

Another thing about memory upgrades is that increasing the amount won't make much difference if you aren't exceeding the amount you already have. In my case, the 8GB was plenty but I wanted to try the faster memory sticks. That and I got a really good deal at BB, 16GB/1333Mhz for $60.