Who else is still using a 2017 iMac?

[Feek]

Just wondering who else is using their 2017 27" iMac?

I bought mine back in August 2017 and specced it to the best available at the time, the 4.2GHz quad core i7 with the 8Gb Radeon Pro 580 and a 1Tb SSD.

I retired it from my radio shack last year when I got a Mac Studio and moved it to my office where it's been running perfectly since then and because I need Windows 10 for a minor task (don't ask), I've just rebuilt it so I can set up a dedicated partition. It's never had an OS rebuild since it was initially installed, I always just upgrade the OS when the new version comes out.

The latest version this will run is Ventura.

Obviously, it's nowhere near Apple Silicon speeds but for what I need, in the office, it's absolutely perfect.

The SSD isn't bad, speed wise.

And despite it being a good few years old, there's plenty of life left in this SSD.

It'll be a sad day when I have to retire this old beast

Intrigued to know how many people are still using a 2017 iMac and whether you have any immediate plans to change.

 

[Tdude96]

The base model 2017 is still my daily desktop at home, although I've long since upgraded it with an external TB NVME drive and 64GB of RAM, which has extended its useful life.

The plan is to get a Mac Studio to replace it in 2024. I think I'll miss the beautiful 5k display terribly, but as of now I can't justify spending $1,600 on a "smart" display with the guts of an iPad and all the unnecessary bells and whistles that involves.

Right now I'm trying to think of ways to repurpose the iMac when it's retired, since it does still have life left in it, it's just no longer useful for more modern workflows. I do wish Apple had not disabled the ability to use iMacs as external displays without extensive modification. They're all about recycling/upcycling until they want to sell you an overpriced, overspecced Studio Display.

 

[Fishrrman]

A 2017 iMac -- IF it has an internal factory-installed SSD -- should remain a very competitive Mac for general usage.

A friend got a 27" (with an SSD), and it's just as nimble today as it was when new...

 

[3xBoom]

Just swapped my 27" 1 TB SSD 2017 iMac beauty for 14" M3Max MBP. What a screen it had!

 

[drrich2]

Yes. Recently the 3-TB Fusion Drive went out, so after soliciting input from more knowledgable MR Forum members, I bought an on-sale $200 Samsung T7 portable external SSD (4 TB) and plugged it into a USB-C port. There some some drama getting the OS on that and then using a Carbon Copy Cloner backup as a source for Migration Assistant to get up and running on the new SSD as start up disc, but that's going fine now. When I click Apple Photos (I've got a bunch) or load Blurb's BookWright software with a big photo book, they pop open fast, so the 'how it feels' performance is better, which surprised me.

I, too, dread the day I need relinquish this 27" 5K very nice display.

 

[keithwoolford]

My beautiful 27" 2017 iMac is still giving great service.

Well, following a normal OS update some 12+ months back, it was like walking thru' tarmac – everything was in slow motion. It would go off for a cuppa, come back, play with its 'beach ball', then finally think about doing the most basic of tasks and eventually condescend in opening that folder/file or whatnot. Hell would be similar, I'd image.

Then, a couple of months back my eldest suggested upgrading the original 2TB Fusion drive (and removing a half ton of fluff). We stuck in a 4TB SSD, threw in another 16MB of RAM (now 40GB) and it's at least as good as new.

Despite adding a new 27/30" iMac, (which doesn't actually exist), to my wish-list letter to Father Christmas this year (again) I'll be just fine with the 'ole 27" 2017 love of my life.

 

[Feek]

The base model 2017 is still my daily desktop at home, although I've long since upgraded it with an external TB NVME drive and 64GB of RAM, which has extended its useful life.

The plan is to get a Mac Studio to replace it in 2024. I think I'll miss the beautiful 5k display terribly, but as of now I can't justify spending $1,600 on a "smart" display with the guts of an iPad and all the unnecessary bells and whistles that involves.

I upgraded mine to 40Gb when I got it and that's always been plenty for me - Along with the 1Tb Apple SSD and it's never missed a beat.

Initially I intended to have it as my main computer for a couple of years longer but I happened to come into some money last year which paid for the Studio (I went M1 Ultra) and two (!) Studio Displays. I expect that setup in my shack to last at least another six or seven years and then hopefully I'll not need to buy any more displays.

Right now I'm trying to think of ways to repurpose the iMac when it's retired, since it does still have life left in it, it's just no longer useful for more modern workflows.

I guess it depends what your workflow is. In my office, it's mainly used to RDP into a work laptop so it's more than adequate for that. I'm going to install Windows 10 on the other half of the SSD and use it to play ETS2 and ATS because Apple still haven't sorted out the native steering wheel support that was promised.

A 2017 iMac -- IF it has an internal factory-installed SSD -- should remain a very competitive Mac for general usage.

A friend got a 27" (with an SSD), and it's just as nimble today as it was when new...

As you can see from my screenshot above, the SSD is an Apple one and it's no slouch.

Just swapped my 27" 1 TB SSD 2017 iMac beauty for 14" M3Max MBP. What a screen it had!

Yeah, the screen is fantastic.

My beautiful 27" 2017 iMac is still giving great service.

Well, following a normal OS update some 12+ months back, it was like walking thru' tarmac – everything was in slow motion. It would go off for a cuppa, come back, play with its 'beach ball', then finally think about doing the most basic of tasks and eventually condescend in opening that folder/file or whatnot. Hell would be similar, I'd image.

Then, a couple of months back my eldest suggested upgrading the original 2TB Fusion drive (and removing a half ton of fluff). We stuck in a 4TB SSD, threw in another 16MB of RAM (now 40GB) and it's at least as good as new.

Despite adding a new 27/30" iMac, (which doesn't actually exist), to my wish-list letter to Father Christmas this year (again) I'll be just fine with the 'ole 27" 2017 love of my life.

The early Fusion drives where the SSD was actually 250Gb were actually half decent, I had a 2011 iMac with a Fusion drive but the later ones were pretty rubbish. You've done a good job with that one, it should last you for a decent time yet.

 

[aj_niner]

Many are keeping their 27" running as the 24" is a smaller screen.

5 years after the 2019 32" 6K display I can see a 2nd gen 32" 6K panel parts lowering to ~$500.

 

[Andrey84]

Yes. We have the 2017 27" iMac i5/64GB/2TB SSD, but it's on its way out, replaced by the 2020 i9 iMac. It's served my wife really well for 3 years for professional use. She had to upgrade as she was unable to work in AdobeXD on a large file, and share the screen in Zoom at the same time. This caused a massive lag.

Ventura is the last OS that'll run on this Mac. It's been dropped from Sonoma. Support will run out in just under 2 years as well.

We have the 2017 and 2020 iMacs in 'parallel run' mode at the moment, and the 2017 is going to be listed on eBay within 1-2 months.

Still a great machine for light use!

 

[MacsRgr8]

Just wondering who else is using their 2017 27" iMac?

I bought mine back in August 2017 and specced it to the best available at the time, the 4.2GHz quad core i7 with the 8Gb Radeon Pro 580 and a 1Tb SSD.

I retired it from my radio shack last year when I got a Mac Studio and moved it to my office where it's been running perfectly since then and because I need Windows 10 for a minor task (don't ask), I've just rebuilt it so I can set up a dedicated partition. It's never had an OS rebuild since it was initially installed, I always just upgrade the OS when the new version comes out.

The latest version this will run is Ventura.

Obviously, it's nowhere near Apple Silicon speeds but for what I need, in the office, it's absolutely perfect.

The SSD isn't bad, speed wise.

And despite it being a good few years old, there's plenty of life left in this SSD.

It'll be a sad day when I have to retire this old beast

Intrigued to know how many people are still using a 2017 iMac and whether you have any immediate plans to change.

I still use the exact same iMac (with 32 GB RAM) for running 32 bits Mac games (running 10.13 - which also enables usage of other apps I like to use... don't ask 😁) and for Windows 10 Boot Camp (yes, that's how I play ETS 2 with full G27 support...)

My Mac Studio is for all the other stuff.
This 2017 iMac with Radeon 580 has served extremely well over the years! Still love it.

 

[martint235]

Good to read this thread as I’m just about to give my 2017 27” iMac to my father in law. He won’t be overly pushing its abilities but reassuring to know there is life in it yet

 

[Feek]

and for Windows 10 Boot Camp (yes, that's how I play ETS 2 with full G27 support...)

Although I've got my Boot Camp partition set up now, I've not installed Steam yet, never mind ETS2/ATS.

What level of detail are you running ETS2 at and how's the frame rate looking?

 

[pavelk_39472]

I’ve just bought it two weeks ago
I’m going to run it from an external SSD via Thunderbolt and I think it’s going to work OK for photography etc.
I’m not sure yet if I’m going to install a nostalgic win11 partition

 

[dborja]

How about a 2009 27" iMac? I have it as a backup and in case, for some reason, I need an Intel machine.

Actually, I also had a 2017 i7 27" iMac. It was still going strong except for a slight display degradation on the lower right corner (I think some dust crept in there). However, when the Studio came out in 2022, I saw it still had a decent trade-in value and that support would be ending in the not-too-distant future so I traded it for a Studio before its value went down further.

 

[Benhama]

I am still running my 2017 5K iMac. i5, Radeon 570 4GB, 24GB RAM & 512GB SSD. It's doing okay, but my M2 Macbook Air feels a lot snappier!

 

[Tjmckay4]

I was using my 2017 27" iMac (i5, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 4GB GPU) quite happily up until about a fortnight ago. However, it struggled to run an external 4k monitor (Dell U2723QE), was overheating causing the fan to go crazy. The brutal weather here in Perth (Western Australia) was adding to the overheating with regular 40+ degrees C days. So, I've temporarily retired it.

I'm now using the Dell as the primary monitor along with my newly purchased Mac Mini M2 pro (16, 512) and my MBP 14" M3 pro. It's a great setup, sure the screen isn't as good but the monitor has the built in hub for my keyboard, mouse, printer and scanner. I can swap easily between my MM and MBP, using the same keyboard/mouse. And, the MM is silent!

I can't see me getting rid of the iMac though, just love the screen too much.... I'll probably remove my 4k screen at work (that I use with my MBP) and use the iMac there instead. I also have a Luna display and a small Thunderbolt USB C 3 cable, to occasionally connect the MBP to the iMac and make use of the 5k screen. I'm also thinking about converting the machine to screen only as many people have done, including YouTuber Luke Miani.

 

[Feek]

was overheating causing the fan to go crazy.

Could it just be a bit dusty? It doesn't take much to clog those narrow intakes on the bottom and then once the ambient temperature goes up, it's going to get quite toasty in there.

I occasionally wonder about replacing mine with an Apple Silicon Mac mini but I'd also need another display. I need two screens and I'm using mine with a 28" Asus 4K display as the second. It's decent but not quite as good as the iMac screen.

So it really is just an occasional ponder.

 

[Feek]

Windows 10 Boot Camp (yes, that's how I play ETS 2 with full G27 support...

And this thread being bumped reminds me....

What level of detail are you running ETS2 at and how's the frame rate looking?

You never did answer this

 

[Tjmckay4]

Could it just be a bit dusty?

Probably. But how would you clean it without taking it completely apart?

 

[Feek]

Probably. But how would you clean it without taking it completely apart?

Compressed air. Either the ridiculously expensive stuff they sell in cans or the free version that comes from your lungs. Take it outside, have a really, really good blow through the air intakes, you'll get clouds of dust puffing out from all orifices.

 

[Tjmckay4]

Compressed air. Either the ridiculously expensive stuff they sell in cans or the free version that comes from your lungs. Take it outside, have a really, really good blow through the air intakes, you'll get clouds of dust puffing out from all orifices.

Yeah, OK. I'll do that before I take it to work. I should have done it long ago but it's just been a well used fixture on my table.

 

[Grymbok]

Never mind 2017, I'm still using a 2015 27" (4GHz i7 and AMD Radeon R9 M395X). It still runs fine for what I need, but will be out of support for even security updates in a few months so I'm considering an upgrade this year.

 

[rin67630]

Compressed air. Either the ridiculously expensive stuff they sell in cans or the free version that comes from your lungs. Take it outside, have a really, really good blow through the air intakes, you'll get clouds of dust puffing out from all orifices.

Even better: the compressed air from your gas filling station.

 

[Feek]

Even better: the compressed air from your gas filling station.

Even better still (and I do this), a divers bottle, but be I have to be really careful as mine are pressurised to 300 bar which is over 4000psi

 

[Aggamemnon]

Yep, use it daily and it's still great. Waiting until there's a 27" 5K display with ProMotion before I upgrade.