Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Should I open up my new iMac?

A

ayeplussjr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 29, 2008
108
0
Should I open up my iMac that I just purchased last week. I've been using my Windows machine up until yesterday when it finally crashed. It was on it's last legs for awhile and I was putting off on opening my iMac hoping for an update like everyone else. Yeah...I know I spent a lot of money on an iMac with outdated hardware, but I needed something, and I wanted to get rid of Windows.

From all the rumors about the updates, the updates on the iMac will take advantage of the Open CL when Snow Leopard comes out, will my iMac have any problems with that? What would be the major difference of Open CL on the current NVIDIA 8800 and the possible update on the new iMac?

I may not even notice a difference since I will not be doing any heavy video editing, or much gaming.

I'm tired of waiting...don't know if I can wait much longer. I've been using my 10gb, pentium 4 for 6 years now, so this would be a major step up for me using the iMac that I purchased....I can use the iMac 6 years, and then purchase the latest and greatest at that time, or maybe just upgrade in a few years. If I can survive on my old system for 6 years, this should be a breeze.
 
if you need it, open it... from what we've heard snow leopard will run better on imacs than leopard, its supposed to be more efficient. 2.4 ghz is still very decent. im holding back as much as i can with one pc just failing, a laptop with a broken lcd and my pentium 4 is dying [30-40 minutes from startup to functionality ]

but for now im dealing with withdraws from OS X, i drive WAY out of town to best buy to play on their macs for a few minutes every few days. just putting up with crappy pcs for basic internet till they drop. its a personal choice.
 
If you are not going to be doing too much gaming or video editing, then the update is pretty much irrelevant to you. An nVidia 8800 is the high end 8 series and quite a capable card. My 8600m gt is a tad bit lower and a mobile GPU and even that card is capable. Snow Leopard will still take advantage of Open CL with the iMac you just bought.

I say go and open it up and enjoy technology from this century ;)
 
i think i may of just changed my own mind lol, the new mbp wont be getting to people till atleast the second week of february [[just about]] till the end of february. that means by the time we get the new imac it'll be early to mid march assuming it releases by the end of january-early february. and you know what they say about assuming.
 
I am in the same boat. I am planning on ordering the 24'' with the ati card and 4 gb of ram. It will have a 320 internal hd and a 1 tb external. I am going to be using it for just basic home movie editing. Will this be suffice? It is my graduation gift and i have been waiting about a year and a half to get it. I just don't think I can wait anymore?
 
richterbon23 said:
I am in the same boat. I am planning on ordering the 24'' with the ati card and 4 gb of ram. It will have a 320 internal hd and a 1 tb external. I am going to be using it for just basic home movie editing. Will this be suffice? It is my graduation gift and i have been waiting about a year and a half to get it. I just don't think I can wait anymore?
Click to expand...

If I were going to order one today (and I am currently considering it), I would suggest selecting the nVidia graphic option for the 24" as I think it will be better supported when 10.6 is released.

EDIT: If a 24" 2.8GHz iMac w/ nVidia graphics card option ever shows up in the refurb store, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.
 
You bought a very capable machine. Wow, what an upgrade! I don't quite think I've heard of such a leap between systems in hardware in a long time. The GPU you have will definitely be able to take advantage of Open CL, as will most of the mac machines equipped with hardware this good or better.

_______________
OS X Mac Tips & Tricks MacUpdate Macworld
 
ayeplussjr said:
Should I open up my iMac that I just purchased last week. I've been using my Windows machine up until yesterday when it finally crashed. It was on it's last legs for awhile and I was putting off on opening my iMac hoping for an update like everyone else. Yeah...I know I spent a lot of money on an iMac with outdated hardware, but I needed something, and I wanted to get rid of Windows.

From all the rumors about the updates, the updates on the iMac will take advantage of the Open CL when Snow Leopard comes out, will my iMac have any problems with that? What would be the major difference of Open CL on the current NVIDIA 8800 and the possible update on the new iMac?

I may not even notice a difference since I will not be doing any heavy video editing, or much gaming.

I'm tired of waiting...don't know if I can wait much longer. I've been using my 10gb, pentium 4 for 6 years now, so this would be a major step up for me using the iMac that I purchased....I can use the iMac 6 years, and then purchase the latest and greatest at that time, or maybe just upgrade in a few years. If I can survive on my old system for 6 years, this should be a breeze.
Click to expand...

At least wait until the end of tomorrow (US time), it's incredibly unlikely but you would kick yourself if they did a silent update tomorrow.
 
Soxy said:
At least wait until the end of tomorrow (US time), it's incredibly unlikely but you would kick yourself if they did a silent update tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I can wait one more day but I think that would be it. Do u think if they did the silent update we'll know at around 12am?

The iLife up to date page was updated at 12am this morning so I'm hoping if there's a silent release it should be around midnight..I think there would be some announcement instead of silent release, right?
 
It could even take a few months but I would definitely not open it until the next money; you'd regret it if they updated it within a few months and you can't exchange it.. these are overpriced $1,000+ computers we're talking about here, lol
 
ayeplussjr said:
Yeah...I can wait one more day but I think that would be it. Do u think if they did the silent update we'll know at around 12am?

The iLife up to date page was updated at 12am this morning so I'm hoping if there's a silent release it should be around midnight..I think there would be some announcement instead of silent release, right?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know if there's been a pattern to silent updates in the past, but I seem to remember a couple that were released in the afternoon around 4pm PST.

Either way, you should wait until the close of business for Apple, which is like 6:30pm PST? Then feel free to open it and breathe in your fresh new iMac goodness :D

Edit: "Silent update" doesn't literally mean silent (as in suddenly when you go to the store the iMac's have updated specs), when it happens there will probably be a splash page about it (maybe a rotating one considering the MWSF announcements) on the main site, and they'll update all the pages on the iMac too, so you'll know straight away when you go on the site if they're updated.
 
Oh and since I was in a rush before I'll address your other points:

1. Pretty sure your 8800 will work fully featured with OpenCL, infact I think it's been confirmed, wouldn't worry about it.

2. If you don't do any heavy graphical tasks, especially gaming, I don't think you would see a blind bit of difference between your 8800 and the proposed 9600 that would be going in a speedbumped iMac, after a certain point a graphics card is purely for specialised tasks like 3D work and games.

As an added point, nobody knows if you've bought "outdated hardware", from an iMac perspective anyway, it could be a good 6+ months before we see an update, and considering the current computer you have will thrash the kind of tasks I assume you're gonna be throwing at it according to your post, you shouldn't really care even if it gets updated in a month.
 
Wow that's some crazy willpower. I would have ripped that thing open like a 5yr old on Xmas morning. There will always be a new system just around the corner. You have a GREAT machine just sitting there waiting for you to come to your senses.

IMO 99% of the people who need to ask if they should wait shouldn't be concerned at all about it. The people who need to wait pretty much already know they need the upgrade and it's for something spacific. For a lot of people it's just keeping up with the joneses.
 
Rock that beast!! Open it up - seriously, that is some INTENSE willpower!!
I'm sure you can get back most of your money by selling it on CL or eBay...
Congrats on the new computer and on the serious leap to "paradise"!!
 
Impressive will power. I probably would have cracked before you. Go on. Do it. Open it up! Macs tend to hold their value well so you should be fine, even if you want to sell on!
 
I ordered a new 24" iMac 2.8ghz with the upgraded video card on Saturday night. It still hasn't shipped.

Apple used to have this graphic on the status page that showed if it was being assembled, ready for shipment, etc.

Now? It just says:
Not yet shipped
IMAC 24/SD CTO
Custom configured
Ships: 1 - 3 business days
Delivers: Jan 15 - Jan 21
 
JohnR said:
I ordered a new 24" iMac 2.8ghz with the upgraded video card on Saturday night. It still hasn't shipped.

Apple used to have this graphic on the status page that showed if it was being assembled, ready for shipment, etc.

Now? It just says:
Not yet shipped
IMAC 24/SD CTO
Custom configured
Ships: 1 - 3 business days
Delivers: Jan 15 - Jan 21
Click to expand...

With no updates today, and my increasing need for a desktop computer again, I purchased a refurbished 24" 3.06GHz iMac this morning, along with 4GB of RAM from Cruical (for ~$45). I really would have like to wait, but my older iMac just didn't want to cooperate.
 
NightStorm said:
With no updates today, and my increasing need for a desktop computer again, I purchased a refurbished 24" 3.06GHz iMac this morning, along with 4GB of RAM from Cruical (for ~$45). I really would have like to wait, but my older iMac just didn't want to cooperate.
Click to expand...

It's only 7am at Apple HQ... If there is an update it wouldn't have happened already :x
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back