iMac 2010-2011 in 2016?

[macmee]

I wouldn't go as far as 'unusable'. The screen burn outs seem to come from those trying to use the iMac as a Mac Pro workstation and while the 6970m has earned a reputation as a lemon the 6770m has held up. I've been very impressed with my 21.5" 2011 and while I do wish I had USB-3 I think the user upgradable ram was far more valuable.

I have a fully maxed out iMac and I use it for xcode and software development.

In what way am I trying to use the iMac for a purpose in which it is not intended to be used?

Are you suggesting that Apple only sells i7 iMacs believing that people want the i7 for better facebook and instagram performance?

lol

It does not matter what people are using their iMacs for. Under no circumstances should you be able to cause physical damage to the screen or any other component based on what apps you run on the Mac. Apps, I will point out, which are even available on Apple's own Mac App Store and that are created by Apple themselves in the case of xcode.

If the retention problem is in fact caused by the machine overheating, then what the user does in software space is irrelevant. The fault is 100% with Apple and their failed air flow and heat dispersion designs, all in a vein attempt to produce the thinnest devices on the market.

 

[padams35]

I have a fully maxed out iMac and I use it for xcode and software development.

In what way am I trying to use the iMac for a purpose in which it is not intended to be used?

My apologies for my presumption on y'alls usage and the lack of clarity on my expression of anticipated workflow. Software development is one activity I too use my iMac for to lesser extents and have had zero issues with. I was fully expecting others with iMacs doing software development to have had few if any issues as well. When I contrasted the iMac to a 'Mac Pro Workstation' I was mentally contrasting against cinematic video processing and other activities that the $3000+ Mac Pro line appeared to be advertised for.

Since you had spoken of 'running hot' I had assumed you were trying to cram activities traditional performed by the literal Mac Pro Xeon-CPU lineup into an iMac shell. My bad on that assumption.


I will however disagree with your assumption that under 'no circumstances' should physical damage be possible. There will always be people attempting to hot rod machines, car, computer, or other, and I would rather people have the freedom to run their equipment outside envisioned parameters to the physical limit than for life extension throttling to be enforced.

I will concede that your described activity sounds like exactly that for which an iMac is intended and am dismayed by your string of failures. I know not if you have been exceedingly unlucky or I have been simply blessed with exceptional good fortune. My only intent was to try and defend a machine that has served me well with a qualifier that it was not a one-size-fits all solution to every professional work load.

 

[macmee]

My apologies for my presumption on y'alls usage and the lack of clarity on my expression of anticipated workflow. Software development is one activity I too use my iMac for to lesser extents and have had zero issues with. I was fully expecting others with iMacs doing software development to have had few if any issues as well. When I contrasted the iMac to a 'Mac Pro Workstation' I was mentally contrasting against cinematic video processing and other activities that the $3000+ Mac Pro line appeared to be advertised for.

Since you had spoken of 'running hot' I had assumed you were trying to cram activities traditional performed by the literal Mac Pro Xeon-CPU lineup into an iMac shell. My bad on that assumption.


I will however disagree with your assumption that under 'no circumstances' should physical damage be possible. There will always be people attempting to hot rod machines, car, computer, or other, and I would rather people have the freedom to run their equipment outside envisioned parameters to the physical limit than for life extension throttling to be enforced.

I will concede that your described activity sounds like exactly that for which an iMac is intended and am dismayed by your string of failures. I know not if you have been exceedingly unlucky or I have been simply blessed with exceptional good fortune. My only intent was to try and defend a machine that has served me well with a qualifier that it was not a one-size-fits all solution to every professional work load.

If you have apple care and are willing to do a little experiment I can show you how to reproduce image retention on your imac. Put simply, all you have to do is some heavy load activity to cause the machine to crank up to 85C-95C.

(I don't actually advise doing this because it will damage any iMac you do it on):

1. Run it hot like that for about 30 minutes. I'm talking 85C to 95C hot, which is easy if you have xcode - just compile something to the simulator and do your usual work stuff
2. Set your desktop background to the light pink apple stock flower photo. hit cmd+shift+3 about 10 times just to get some desktop icons produced (the white outline on images burns in really well).
3. Position these white outline icons on the right side of your screen. We want 2 rows of your entire right side of the screen filled with these icons because they show the burn in really well on the pink stock apple background of flowers.
4. Sit for 1 to 30 minutes on that screen depending on how damaged your screen already is.
5. Switch to a full screen text editor with the solarized dark theme
6. observe the burn ins along the right hand side of the screen. You can now see the white box outlines for the icons you created in step 3
7. observe, even more scary, that the burn in doesnt go away for 3 to 30 minutes, even if you reboot, unplug the machine completely, etc.

P.S. you can also develop burn in by running the machine at only 70C but it's just slower. Produces the same effect though.

 

[davybe]

I can afford 2010 with i7 or 2011/12 with i5 (same price in my country) rest of the spec is the same.

I just reached my friend and asked him what exactly he's using - it's Mac 27' Mid 2011 2,7 Ghz i5 with 24gb RAM and he says that it's like a rocket after upgrading to SSD last year (he's using Sierra + Logic Pro X). So it will be fine for me too, but maybe buying mid 2010 with i7 could be better idea?

I don't need features like USB 3.0 or anything that is related to other Apple devices since I don't use them at all. The only USB device I'm using is audio interface and it's 2.0 cause 3.0 makes no difference in latency.

So I would like to know if it's better to get older i7 (mid 2010 Intel Core i7 I7-870 2.93 GHz for example) or newer i5 (2011/12)?

[doublepost=1479506907][/doublepost]Owlie: in my experience with my 2010 27" iMac, it's truly a beast if you get the top of the line (2.97GHz quad i7, ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB) with modern SSD and more RAM. In my example I put in 32GB and replaced the stock 2TB drive by a pair of OWC SSDs that I mounted in RAID0 for maximum performance. Although they are old gen SSDs suited to the SATA limitations of this Mac model, it's amazingly fast, certainly compared to before. I must add that since Sierra I have the beachball regularly for a few seconds, so I must fix that, but I suppose my config is still good. Yes the GPU isn't the strongest but I used Final Cut Pro X (with arguably small projects compared to a pro) with no problem or latency. I agree with other posters that USB3 is worth it but if you're sure you don't need it 2010 is great.

 

[iDutchman]

I am using my 27" iMac Mid 2011 2.7Ghz i5, 12GB RAM, 6770m 512mb since early 2013. I purchased it 'second hand' for around €900,-. It has been the best Mac I've ever used.

I installed a Samsung 840 EVO 256GB in 2013 and left the internal 1TB HD. It works great, fast en does everything I want to do. I honestly see no reason to upgrade. I always work fast en never had a problem. Ever.

I sell Apple MacBook model for a living (www.macvoorminder.nl) and I have seen it all. This is the absolute best purchase I have ever done.

So, if you get a good deal for the 2011, go for it. It can easily help you through many more years.

 

[weckart]

I have a 2011 27" iMac with the 6970 gnu. I have always erred on the side of caution with notebooks and AIOs and never relied on firmware settings for cooling - especially Apple's, which favours quiet over adequate airflow under stress, hence using something like Macs Fan Control to ramp up the cooling. A failed graphic card and yellowed screen on a 2009 iMac taught me a lesson.

Having said that, for the amount of money you are likely to want to drop on this, I think you should not discount the Mac Pro 5,1. I picked up a base model recently on eBay for £400. Another £130 or so upped the 2.8GHz Quad core to a 3.46 Hex core. It Geekbenches just shy of 13k, which is a hefty increment over the iMac and I don't have concerns about cooling or failing graphics cards when running flat out. You can add in USB 3 cards and other audio peripherals as you wish. Basically, it achieves Mac Pro 2013 performance at a fraction of the price.

Of course, you will need to budget for a suitable monitor but at least you can pick one to suit your needs or easily run a couple or so without worrying about heat build up. Given that the 5,1 was sold up to 2012, I would assume that Apple will support it at least as long as the 2011 era iMacs if not longer. If space is an issue, then the 2011 iMac at least allows an element of upgrading: USB 3 is obtainable over Thunderbolt, RAM is trivial, graphic cards and hard drives are doable, which is not necessarily the case with the later, thinner iMacs.

 

[spriter]

I am using my 27" iMac Mid 2011 2.7Ghz i5, 12GB RAM, 6770m 512mb since early 2013. I purchased it 'second hand' for around €900,-. It has been the best Mac I've ever used.

I installed a Samsung 840 EVO 256GB in 2013 and left the internal 1TB HD. It works great, fast en does everything I want to do. I honestly see no reason to upgrade. I always work fast en never had a problem. Ever.

I sell Apple MacBook model for a living (www.macvoorminder.nl) and I have seen it all. This is the absolute best purchase I have ever done.

So, if you get a good deal for the 2011, go for it. It can easily help you through many more years.

Agree with this. Just picked up a mid-2011 27-inch i5 variant for €470. Spent €160 on 16gb ram and a 256gb SSD. Added in the SSD using the OWC kit, dual boot the SSD and have the 1TB as a file store. It easily handles what Office work I throw at it.

Geekbench 4 (64-bit) says 3450 / 8320 if that means much. All I can say is day-to-day it's instant. No USB 3, of course, but I factored that in. I don't move large files except for on a NAS via Ethernet.

 

[MinEderPlayz]

If you have apple care and are willing to do a little experiment I can show you how to reproduce image retention on your imac. Put simply, all you have to do is some heavy load activity to cause the machine to crank up to 85C-95C.

(I don't actually advise doing this because it will damage any iMac you do it on):

1. Run it hot like that for about 30 minutes. I'm talking 85C to 95C hot, which is easy if you have xcode - just compile something to the simulator and do your usual work stuff
2. Set your desktop background to the light pink apple stock flower photo. hit cmd+shift+3 about 10 times just to get some desktop icons produced (the white outline on images burns in really well).
3. Position these white outline icons on the right side of your screen. We want 2 rows of your entire right side of the screen filled with these icons because they show the burn in really well on the pink stock apple background of flowers.
4. Sit for 1 to 30 minutes on that screen depending on how damaged your screen already is.
5. Switch to a full screen text editor with the solarized dark theme
6. observe the burn ins along the right hand side of the screen. You can now see the white box outlines for the icons you created in step 3
7. observe, even more scary, that the burn in doesnt go away for 3 to 30 minutes, even if you reboot, unplug the machine completely, etc.

P.S. you can also develop burn in by running the machine at only 70C but it's just slower. Produces the same effect though.

Let me tell you something, this is not heat related as much as you think it is. The same image retention issue plagued the iPad Air, and even something as old as the iPad 2. It seems that it has more to do with Apple's display panels rather than heat. I had an iPad 2 exchanged 3 times, all three models had severe ghosting from the start, then I got an Air upgrade from them but alas, the iPad Air still had the issue. I was so happy about the upgrade at the time though that I decided not to bug them again.