I'm New to Mac and I'm Thinking of IMAC Base model Suggestions

[ghaleon696]

Hi, this will be my first mac that I will be purchasing. I'm looking at the Base model for $1199.99 Core I3 4 GB Ram 500GB HDD.

The main reason for the purchase is that me and the misses are expecting a baby in a few months time. Our friend has a MacBook and we seen the things she is able to do with Iphoto and the Ilife apps. That we think its perfect for us to use to work with photos and movies of our lil'one when she arrives.

To go with that I game once in a while usually WoW which my laptop can handle somewhat but since its integrated GPU, its slow. It definately won't play Starcraft II. Since the Imac has a dedicated GPU that would be great. The Imac kinda helps me on all fronts.

Sorry about the lil history there, but I wanted to give and accurate rundown of my needs for the Imac so that you guys can give me an accurate suggestion.

Let me know if you think the base model would be ok/good/or great for my needs and if you think I need one of the higher models let me know and why.

Appreciate the help and I hope to have my first Mac by the next few days!

 

[Hellhammer]

The base iMac is just fine. I would get an external HD for backups so in case of HD failure, you won't lose the pics of your baby.

 

[gorjan]

The iMac base model will be more than enough for your needs.

 

[ghaleon696]

would i need to upgrade the ram? I figure for $100.00 after market if I can upgrade it to 8GB then its worth it.

I have an external backup hdd I need to go and see if its mac compatible It should be.

Ty

 

[talmy]

I can't address the gaming performance but it will be just fine for the iLife suite -- iPhoto or iMovie. You might want to consider a refurbished iMac -- money tends to be tight when you have a baby.

Budget for an external drive for backups. You don't want to rely on a single device to hold those memories.

I submitted and discovered that Hellhammer got in there first saying the same thine!

You won't need more RAM. 4GB is plenty.

 

[Hellhammer]

would i need to upgrade the ram? I figure for $100.00 after market if I can upgrade it to 8GB then its worth it.

Likely not. That you can decide later on but 4GB should be just sufficient for you

I have an external backup hdd I need to go and see if its mac compatible It should be.

As long as it has correct port (USB or FireWire), it will work. It may need to be formatted to HFS+ so it will work with Time Machine

 

[CampDavid]

we're using a base spec Mac and it's running Logic and all the standard stuff fine.

The Western Digital My Book seems a good bet for backup, I'm using one for time machine and it's pretty much silent - there's no point in getting a noisy drive as it'll only annoy you

 

[pt0016]

[deleted]

 

[ghaleon696]

thanks a lot everyone.

I'll probably drop some lines in the next week or so after I get time to pick one up and dive in. I'm sure there is some software/apps that are must haves that help the Imac run even better then when it comes in.

Take care

 

[GCardoso]

Starcraft runs fine on base 21" model... on medium.