Thinking of buying an iMac

[Finchj05]

I am currently all mac with a 2008 macbook (not the unibody), an iphone and an ipad. I am looking to buy a new desktop since I do a significant amount of work at home and would like more screen real estate. I have a few questions. I am looking into the iMac series. What is the benefit of quadcore when the gigahertz are a lower number. I have about 2300-2500 to spend, so if I buy the high end I can get just the base model and some software with it. I plan to use it as your standard computer that will do what the average user will do plus some gaming, light photo editing, and some light video editing plus some other random items here and there. This will also become sort of the base for my computing with all of my media being placed on this computer.

I realize that the high end will outdo almost all of my computing needs but I am also looking for a computer that will last a significant period of time. I want to keep the imac as sort of the base and upgrade my other items later while still having the imac.

For those of you who are mostly apple people and have ventured out of the apple realm for a desktop, how does synchronization work? Things like iCal have become a pretty integral part of my life. I am not above looking into non-apple desktops and have already looked into a few dells and realize I can get a little more bang for my buck.

Also, I would be waiting for the new iMacs to be released because I want some thunderbolt action and am looking for longevity and this close to the end of the cycle, it just makes sense to wait.

How important is ram??? Is 8 gigs too much for what I am looking at doing. I was thinking of going the 8 gig route just for future gaming and keeping the comp around a little longer.

P.S. just because I have a certain amount to spend doesn't mean I wouldn't love saving some money.

 

[alust2013]

I would suggest waiting and seeing what the next revision brings. I'm guessing it's going to bring a good bit more power, without raising prices. I don't know that 8GB is necessary at the moment, unless you like to do all that at once. Gaming doesn't use a whole lot of memory, so don't worry about that. The nice thing about the iMacs is that the memory is very easy to upgrade yourself. So if later down the line you need more, you can just pop more in.

Pending the revision, I think I would likely go with at least a quad core model, as stuff is starting to become multithreaded, plus they typically have better graphics. I don't think I'd go all out and get the top of the line model, but somewhere in the midrange should do you well, plus you can get software and save some money.

 

[TMRaven]

Even though quad cores have a lower base clock rate, they have higher headroom for intel's turboboost technology, which means a quadcore cpu can get pretty close to a dual core cpu in single threaded tasks.

For instance, the current i7 lynnfield in the top end iMac has a base clock of 2.93ghz, but can get up to 3.6ghz while turboboosted in single threaded tasks.

I can't comment on the software questions. Even though I adore using apple computers, I don't really use their iLife suite.

Ram can be a very important thing to upgrade, but if I were you I'd spend the money on an SSD in a middle grade iMac. I'm thinking lower end 27 inch with SSD would be nice for you. You can upgrade ram to 8gigs later on if you see you need more (activity monitor will tell you if you need more)

For now wait until upgrade.