the most upgradable iMac

[zoran]

If you were to place in order the most upgradable iMacs that have been produced till date, in which order would u put them? By most upgradable i mean that they are able to upgrade its most parts, HDD/SSD, CPU, GPU etc. IMHO the first in line as the most upgradable would be the 2009-2011 series... im i right?

 

[apostolosdt]

I have an iMac 2017 27” and I recently upgraded its CPU and GPU (new M/B), RAM, and it’s PCIe and SSD disks.

 

[marius_3d]

If you were to place in order the most upgradable iMacs that have been produced till date, in which order would u put them? By most upgradable i mean that they are able to upgrade its most parts, HDD/SSD, CPU, GPU etc. IMHO the first in line as the most upgradable would be the 2009-2011 series... im i right?

you are correct, but I'm willing to trade the GPU slot for the NVME slot found in iMac 27inch late 2015.

 

[zoran]

Trade? Can the iMac work without its gpu?

 

[pshufd]

iMac Pro. It can take 8-18 core Xeons and you can put in up to 512 GB of RAM.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If this is an intellectual exercise, OK. But if this is going to influence a purchase, my advice would be to don't be tempted to buy old iMacs. Apple really only gives them about 7 years... so even if you buy 2020, that's 2 years on the clock now. The Intels are the most upgradable, so that's 2020 and older. Find the one that has flexibility about both RAM & SSD instead of either being soldered.

But again, 2020 is in the 2-years (to go) window, 2019 is in the final year, 2018 is computing dead, etc. IF you want Apple updates without leaning on the OCLP hack. The hack seems to make very old Macs run new macOS just fine but you are still depending on a hack layer to pull that off... which seems to offer easy imagination about security risks.

If it has to be iMac, Silicon is the way to go (but ZERO upgradability inside). Else, recreate an iMac-like setup by choosing a great monitor and maybe sticking a Mac Mini Base or Pro behind it. It too is not upgradable after you own it, but then you replace the whole puck instead of the entire setup as is the case with Silicon iMac.

If you OP are asking as a potential buyer, Caveat emptor! It's over for the Intels. It's complete lockdown for the Silicons.

 

[pshufd]

If this is an intellectual exercise, OK. But if this is going to influence a purchase, my advice would be to don't be tempted to buy old iMacs. Apple really only gives them about 7 years... so even if you buy 2020, that's 2 years on the clock now. The Intels are the most upgradable, so that's 2020 and older. Find the one that has flexibility about both RAM & SSD instead of either being soldered.

But again, 2020 is in the 2-years (to go) window, 2019 is in the final year, 2018 is computing dead, etc. IF you want Apple updates without leaning on the OCLP hack. The hack seems to make very old Macs run new macOS just fine but you are still depending on a hack layer to pull that off... which seems to offer easy imagination about security risks.

If it has to be iMac, Silicon is the way to go (but ZERO upgradability inside). Else, recreate an iMac-like setup by choosing a great monitor and maybe sticking a Mac Mini Base or Pro behind it. It too is not upgradable after you own it, but then you replace the whole puck instead of the entire setup as is the case with Silicon iMac.

If you OP are asking as a potential buyer, Caveat emptor! It's over for the Intels. It's complete lockdown for the Silicons.

Price is a key factor.

If you can get a 2020 for $100, is that cost worth getting two more years of feature updates and then three years of security updates? It would be for me. But that's why 2020s cost a lot more than $100. If you use your system for revenue generation, then it's a matter of how much you can make vs the cost of the device.

It's also useful to know the known problems with individual years. With 2014s, there's the issue of thermals, particularly with the i7s. 2014 and 2015 models have the ghosting issue. Late 2015s have the pink tinge issue.

 

[salamanderjuice]

If you were to place in order the most upgradable iMacs that have been produced till date, in which order would u put them? By most upgradable i mean that they are able to upgrade its most parts, HDD/SSD, CPU, GPU etc. IMHO the first in line as the most upgradable would be the 2009-2011 series... im i right?

Original 1998 tray loading G3 iMac Rev. A and B. You can in theory upgrade everything. There are G3/G4 CPU upgrades, one even comes with a Firewire port! You can of course upgrade the RAM, HDD and CD-ROM drive. For the "Mezzazine" slot there was a Voodoo 2 card made for it.They also had a floppy drive connector on the board so it's possible to add an Apple "Superdrive" and write 800K discs! The only iMacs capable!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If price is the dominating factor, 2025 Mac Mini base for the Mac parts, external (off the shelf) storage and then whatever size & shape monitor OP desires- used or new. Ride that for 7+ years and then replace just the Mac part for another period of time using the same "the rest."

Old iMac already has years on everything. If any one part conks that is not easily replaceable, the whole thing is junked. For example, if he chose about 2015, the monitor is 10 years old. If an iMac monitor conks, it's pretty much over.

Consolidate the Mac portion down into a Mac Mini purchase and get "the rest" as separate pieces that can survive Mac "vintaging" or any one part conking without sinking the entire ship.

I used to be a BIG fan of iMac 27" myself. They are great going in but terrible at the end. Used ones have unknown amounts of wear on the non-repairable/replaceable parts. I wouldn't do it if I was OP... but of course, that's up to OP.

If OP just needs a great computer for less, modern Mac is priced for profit maximization over value (thus now the Studio Display- the former screen of an iMac- is sold at the old iMac price for that display only). Perhaps OP should consider going PC where the same money could buy new PC without the 3X-5X markups for RAM, Storage, etc? PC is quite capable- most of the world's computing by far is done on it. I also have a PC with a Mac and find Windows 11 is quite good, increasingly throwing the heavier-lifting tasks to the PC for it's Power (speed) over PPW (power efficiency) benefits... even when some of those tasks can run on Mac too. If budget dominates all, PC can be a great choice.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

If this is an intellectual exercise, OK. But if this is going to influence a purchase, my advice would be to don't be tempted to buy old iMacs. Apple really only gives them about 7 years... so even if you buy 2020, that's 2 years on the clock now. The Intels are the most upgradable, so that's 2020 and older. Find the one that has flexibility about both RAM & SSD instead of either being soldered.

But again, 2020 is in the 2-years (to go) window, 2019 is in the final year, 2018 is computing dead, etc. IF you want Apple updates without leaning on the OCLP hack. The hack seems to make very old Macs run new macOS just fine but you are still depending on a hack layer to pull that off... which seems to offer easy imagination about security risks.

If it has to be iMac, Silicon is the way to go (but ZERO upgradability inside). Else, recreate an iMac-like setup by choosing a great monitor and maybe sticking a Mac Mini Base or Pro behind it. It too is not upgradable after you own it, but then you replace the whole puck instead of the entire setup as is the case with Silicon iMac.

If you OP are asking as a potential buyer, Caveat emptor! It's over for the Intels. It's complete lockdown for the Silicons.

If Mac OS is not usable in those intel-based AIO computers, Windows & Linux are still functioning well. Those are hardware nonetheless, with compatible OS and software, they are still pretty useful to many people, providing that they are offered at reasonable prices.