Upgrading from early 2008 iMac (2.4ghz) - Advice needed

[Ojwp]

Hi all,

I've often found myself relying on these forums for information and advice regarding all the apple hardware i use at the moment, but this is my first actual post !

I currently am running an iMac (bought in 2008) with specs:
2.4 ghz processor
3g ddr2 ram
Radeon HD2600
160gb HD

A friend of mine at university was looking at buying a mac for general use, and some light programming/games development software and offered to buy mine off me. So I am looking to get a new Mac desktop.

I was looking at the new Mac Minis, the one i had in mind being this spec:
2.6ghz processor
4g ddr3 ram
GeForce 9400M
160gb HD


After searching and browsing through alot of forums and discussion boards i have seen mixed conclusions. I use my mac for everyday use, some 3D modelling software and games development, and a few games like Spore and World of Warcraft. I am wondering if this is a) a worthwhile upgrade and b) will i notice any performance increase for example when playing World of Warcraft. I dont really know much about hardware, i understand my current graphics card is discrete with its own memory and the 9400M is integrated, but in this example will it make any difference for me, bearing in mind i dont run heavy rendering software or top end games.

Any help and advice would be much appreciated, I do not want to end up buying the wrong machine and regretting it !

Thanks alot,

Oli

 

[Hellhammer]

Mini will be about as fast as your iMac is, maybe little slower due the GPU. If your 3D modeling and game developing is pretty light stuff, then Mini won't have any problems. I wouldn't "upgrade" though, your iMac is still a good one, especially if compared to Mini. Your friend is also better off getting a new iMac, they have way more power than yours

 

[Ojwp]

Thanks for the quick reply !

Would the faster processor and more/faster RAM warrant the upgrade ?
I imagined that would have had an impact.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks for the quick reply !

Would the faster processor and more/faster RAM warrant the upgrade ?
I imagined that would have had an impact.

The CPU is only 260MHz faster which ain't much nowadays so I doubt you will see any difference. DDR3 giver ~5-10% better performance in real life than DDR2 but I doubt you will notice that either. Your iMac can take 4GB of RAM as well. The GPU is worse though so in games you will get poorer performance.

In a summary, you won't notice any difference really.