Steps away from ordering a new imac... more questions

[jrm27]

Hello all,

Due to a lot of research I've done here, I'm getting very close to ordering a new 27" imac. Since i'll be doing a lot of work with Adobe CS5 (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and a little in premier) I'm leaning to upgrading to the i7 for quad core, turbo boost, and hyperthreading ability.

That's the only upgrade I am thinking of doign from the factory. Eventually I want to upgrade the RAM and the storage space, as well as hook up a second monitor.

So... questions.
1. Does this sound like a good setup for my previously mentioned useage? Or is going to the i7 overkill?
2. Is there a second bay in the imac for another hard drive (I dont want to go SSD yet)
3. How big of a second display can the imac push?
4. Is there anything esle I shoudl know about with this setup?

Thanks all! Lookign forward to getting myself a proper new mac!

-jon

 

[Panch0]

I haven't looked myself, but I have seen reports that it would be difficult to add an SSD to the iMac if you didn't order it that way. I think there are physical differences in the frame, or maybe just difficulty in routing the cables. Make sure you do your homework if you think you would want to add the secondary SSD in the future.

Also, I personally would never want to go through the hassle of taking an iMac apart to upgrade the drives. RAM is easily accessible, but everything else is hard to get to without specialized equipment. To add storage, I just use FW800.