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Swap i7 CPU from Dell into 27" i5 iMac?

Hellhammer said:
Ahh okay, thanks for correcting me. They use laptop parts anyway (socket P) so finding new CPUs isn't easy or cheap so it isn't worth it anyway.

Boxed versions have the thermal already (if you use the fan that comes with it) so IMO it's not that annoying, just put it in and put the fan on top of it and tighten the screws that's all. It sucks if you haven't put the cables in order though. Installing CPU is very straight forward and takes less than 5min but the cable hell is another thing which I hate a lot
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The new iMac's (late 09) are NOT using laptop/mobile cpu's. They are however using mobile versions of the GPU (graphics processor). Mobile i5's and i7's are just starting to hit the market now in laptops and were not available when the new iMac's started shipping late last year. The boxed fan and thermal pad included are irrelevant as they obviously will not fit in an iMac and the stock thermal pads will never equal the performance of good thermal paste such as Arctic Silver, OCZ, etc. Just clarifying. Cheers!

James
 
Deanster said:
So, the question - is it POSSIBLE to swap the i5 in my iMac and the i7 CPU's in my Dell?
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Why would you want too? I saw some benchmarks that showed the i5 outperforming the i7 in many tasks that 'normal' people would be doing. The bottom line was that the difference between the two wasn't worth it for most people. They suggested that people dead set on the i7 wait for the next iteration. Plus, if you break something during your brain transplant, you have a nice broken piece of modern art that you paid a lot of money for.

I wouldn't do it.
 
joudbren said:
The new iMac's (late 09) are NOT using laptop/mobile cpu's. They are however using mobile versions of the GPU (graphics processor). Mobile i5's and i7's are just starting to hit the market now in laptops and were not available when the new iMac's started shipping late last year. The boxed fan and thermal pad included are irrelevant as they obviously will not fit in an iMac and the stock thermal pads will never equal the performance of good thermal paste such as Arctic Silver, OCZ, etc. Just clarifying. Cheers!

James
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We were talking about iMacs BEFORE late 2009, I know the current ones are desktop and have known that since the day they were released.

Fans and thermal pastes we talked about, were for desktop PCs, so ignore that too. Boxed versions are fine if you are not looking to overclock it but for overclocking 3rd party paste and fan (or watercooling) are very appreciated.
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Why would you want too? I saw some benchmarks that showed the i5 outperforming the i7 in many tasks that 'normal' people would be doing. The bottom line was that the difference between the two wasn't worth it for most people. They suggested that people dead set on the i7 wait for the next iteration. Plus, if you break something during your brain transplant, you have a nice broken piece of modern art that you paid a lot of money for.

I wouldn't do it.
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Trust me, I'm the same guy that highly recommends the i5 over the i7 for those that don't need every last little bit of performance as I also understand that most software currently cannot take advantage of the i7 on the iMac.

For those of us that like to mess with our gear though, why not? Just because it doesn't make sense to the average user doesn't mean it has to make sense for the rest of us to "just do it". Man, if I had to justify all my hobby stuff (computers, home theatre, photography) on a cost basis or even "was it the right thing to do", I'd never have any hobbies! Thank god my wife is as understanding as she is. (and that I have the means to support all my toys!)

For me personally, I'll probably do the upgrade once my warranty is gone just because I can and I want to see what makes it all tick. By then more software should support the i7 and at that time it will be a $200 buck upgrade so why not. I can also upgrade my HD at the same time and get another year or two out of this beast. Cheers!

James
 
Hellhammer said:
We were talking about iMacs BEFORE late 2009, I know the current ones are desktop and have known that since the day they were released.

Fans and thermal pastes we talked about, were for desktop PCs, so ignore that too. Boxed versions are fine if you are not looking to overclock it but for overclocking 3rd party paste and fan (or watercooling) are very appreciated.
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Sorry Hellhammer, didn't catch that you were talking about earlier iMac's. A lot of other people still assume the new iMac's are using Mobile versions of the CPU's (which of course they're not) so it's still a good point for clarification. Apologies again for missing that. Cheers!

James
 
joudbren said:
Sorry Hellhammer, didn't catch that you were talking about earlier iMac's. A lot of other people still assume the new iMac's are using Mobile versions of the CPU's (which of course they're not) so it's still a good point for clarification. Apologies again for missing that. Cheers!

James
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That's okay :) Some of our discussion was bit offtopic too. Just pay attention to reading the post and quotes, that's all ;) Cheers,
 
so i'm guessing that replacing an C2D 3.6 27"

with an i7 would be totally out of the realms of possibility right? or am i wrong? i hope i am! maybe i5?

hellhammer? :D
 
joudbren said:
P.S. Cat, how did you make sure there was no lint or grit on the LCD screen and the backside of the glass when you re-installed the glass? That would make me nuts. Thanks!

James
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I use surgical gloves not the powdered ones, you can get it at Home Depot, they are blue in colour, not the white ones which are powdered mostly.

I have atleast 2 cans of spray & usually try not to touch the front of the screen or back of the glass cover. I usually hold the glass cover by the edges only where the metallic strip runs around the perimeter. To clean the actual glossy screen I usually havent had to as i dont touch it, but I would recommend Kensington screen guardian which I bought from Grand & Toy many years back. I have tried a lot of other screen cleaners but this is the best I found. Not sure if this is still available!

It is going to be impossible to make it completely dust free, but almost. Spray the hell out before putting back the glass cover, if you do notice any, you can easily pop the glass out & blast more air.

By the way I am from Toronto, so am a fellow Canadian!
 
cat3600 said:
I use surgical gloves not the powdered ones, you can get it at Home Depot, they are blue in colour, not the white ones which are powdered mostly.

I have atleast 2 cans of spray & usually try not to touch the front of the screen or back of the glass cover. I usually hold the glass cover by the edges only where the metallic strip runs around the perimeter. To clean the actual glossy screen I usually havent had to as i dont touch it, but I would recommend Kensington screen guardian which I bought from Grand & Toy many years back. I have tried a lot of other screen cleaners but this is the best I found. Not sure if this is still available!

It is going to be impossible to make it completely dust free, but almost. Spray the hell out before putting back the glass cover, if you do notice any, you can easily pop the glass out & blast more air.

By the way I am from Toronto, so am a fellow Canadian!
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I get cans of compressed air from Costco for cheap so guess I'll use that and see what happens. Thanks for the info eh! :p

Cheers!

James
 
Rizvi1 said:
I saw this comment in a your post and remembered another post I read where someone tried to change the hard drive in their iMac but their fans were out of control so they went back to their 1TB. I might be misunderstanding something though, but thought I would link to help and/or learn:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8941386#post8941386
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Good link, I'm suspecting though if I use exactly the same hard drives that Apple uses that I should be ok. I have no interest in an SSD drive at this point unless they suddenly jump up to 2GB size for a reasonable price. Thanks!

James
 
Sorry to dig up an older thread, but I was wondering if in the 6 months since if anyone has installed the 2.93GHz i7 870 in a 2009 27" i5 iMac yet? And if so, did the upgrade go smoothly?

I'm thinking of doing both a CPU and SSD upgrade at the same time on my i5 sometime in the next few months, so I just wanted to hear what others have experienced on this machine.

As for CPU swaps, I've done plenty on other machines, including swapping out a Core Solo with a C2D on one of my Mac minis. So I'm not really worried about the process of disassembling the machine. I really just want to know how well the machine behaves after swapping the CPU :)
 
SmileyDude said:
Sorry to dig up an older thread, but I was wondering if in the 6 months since if anyone has installed the 2.93GHz i7 870 in a 2009 27" i5 iMac yet? And if so, did the upgrade go smoothly?

I'm thinking of doing both a CPU and SSD upgrade at the same time on my i5 sometime in the next few months, so I just wanted to hear what others have experienced on this machine.

As for CPU swaps, I've done plenty on other machines, including swapping out a Core Solo with a C2D on one of my Mac minis. So I'm not really worried about the process of disassembling the machine. I really just want to know how well the machine behaves after swapping the CPU :)
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Someone in the topic already swapped their socket 1156 cpu with another 1156 cpu, so yes it's possible.


To further the topic:
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Store_30.html

Someone should try upgrading the 4670 or 4850 in their 09 iMac to the 5870 as seen on mxm upgrade! At 350 euro, talk about an unreasonable price for a card tho.
 
Oh! For some reason I overlooked that on OWC's website. That very well might be an offer worth considering for my mobility 4850.
 
TMRaven said:
Oh! For some reason I overlooked that on OWC's website. That very well might be an offer worth considering for my mobility 4850.
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For 4850 the 5750 is probably not worth of upgrade considering such a high price and very hard installation.

Yes, the 5750 has twice as much memory and it supports latest features of OpenGL/DX. On the other hand 4850 has more shader processors and TMUs. Raw performance - memory bandwidth, texel and pixel rate is similar. I expect 5750 to be just a few fps faster in contemporary games. Some could even run faster on 4850...

On the other hand the 5750 could be a great upgrade for 4670 or 5670...
 
Don't worry, I'm rather knowledgeable in the gpus. I even made this topic when the mid 2010 iMac first came out.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/978676/

I'm tempted to get the mobility 5850 as an upgrade, and tearing apart the iMac is no problem for me, but I'll most likely wait until next revision to see what mobility 6k series has in store for the iMac.
 
DoFoT9 said:
i looked into the upgrade then realised i was stupid for even considering it.

reason?

COST. at the time, the upgrade from apple was $258aus i think (including discount) - to buy the CPU from a store was >$310. and then my time/lost warranty doing the upgrade.

was a simple decision for me.
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well maybe it would be more cost effective, if one upgraded an i3 iMac to i7-860, if that is possible anyways.
 
Mackilroy said:
Just to point out, the i7 860 goes with the 1156 motherboard. It's the 920 and 930 that are 1336 processors.
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This is true. Mainly due to the i7 9 series supports triple channel memory. Any board that is 1366 supports triple channel memory.
 
Cox Orange said:
well maybe it would be more cost effective, if one upgraded an i3 iMac to i7-860, if that is possible anyways.
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sorry, missed this. at the time of writing the 2010 iMacs were not out, so the i5 was the only option. now that the i3 is out im sure you could do that! however im not sure if the i3 uses different cooling to the quads.
 
iamthedudeman said:
This is true. Mainly due to the i7 9 series supports triple channel memory. Any board that is 1366 supports triple channel memory.
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plus, that mainboards with 1156 socket do not have the ability to utilize USB3 and SATA-III fully (i.e. by loss of PCIe-lanes for the graphics card resulting in 8 instead of 16 lanes).
DoFoT9 said:
(...) im not sure if the i3 uses different cooling to the quads.
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this could well be.
 
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