Correct iMac for the normal consumer..!

[flopticalcube]

Bear in mind that Apple sees the useful lifespan as 5 years max as shown by their OS support schedule. Your HD is not likely to last beyond that anyhow. PCs are easy to extend the life of as you can always swap components as needed. With Macs, its best to sell just before the warranty expires and buy new (or refurb) again. Rather than opt for a fusion drive, why not just buy an external TBolt or USB3 SSD and roll your own? You won't really notice a difference in CPUs, even in 5 years, and if you do you can always buy an i7 then (they should be cheap as they will be old) and swap it in when you replace the HD and upgrade the RAM.

[mushroomtip]

Originally Posted by CaptMike

Nope,

This is the CURRENT pricing for non HE consumers

You my friend, are incorrect

there is a model priced at 1399.00 , albeit the education store , 1399.00 none the less.

[MacWanter]

Originally Posted by thekev

I think the 27" has more user serviceable parts. This would enable a cheaper overall configuration by doing your own upgrades where necessary. The $1400 21.5" with upgrades is a dismal value when you break it down. I mention that only because you were concerned about this.



This isn't true at all. The i7 is absolutely meaningless to longevity. Hyperthreading which is the major gain with desktop i7s (mobile types have it on all cpus) grants more logical cores. It helps with load balancing on heavy workloads assuming well threaded processes. For your use it will probably be as meaningless years from now as it is today. Apple doesn't update the software forever. Eventually you end up on the last supported version. At that point it just is what it is, and for light use I see little difference. The most likely thing to retire it would be hardware failure prior to the 10 year mark. The other thing is that ram only guarantees longevity in the sense that the OS can become more memory hungry with future versions, and file sizes or applications may follow a similar trend. I think the upgrades in favor of longevity are absurd unless you have a good idea of what will prematurely retire the computer. If you use it for games and one gpu grants 50% higher framerates for a modest upgrade fee, that is longevity. Going to an i7 and bumping ram to check facebook will do nothing. If you have a PowerPC machine today, the biggest problem is lack of compatibility.

i7's are stronger than i5's. They will work better for longer. Being able to run newer programs better than i5's, making them worth the extra money.

[thekev]

Originally Posted by MacWanter

i7's are stronger than i5's. They will work better for longer. Being able to run newer programs better than i5's, making them worth the extra money.

Again if you're looking at the top couple options that are clocked similarly, the difference is basically hyperthreading. It should also be noted that by the time applications can retire one or the other, they'll both be old. I'd wager they'll both be retired on the same generation with lighter tasks. CPU upgrades within the same class of cpus don't really do anything for longevity. Those days passed long ago, and if you're looking for the fastest software under OSX, hardware features and support from Apple and whatever gpu vendor are the things that will retire it or force you to remain on older programs. You said for the normal consumer, which is why I clarify much of this.

[Stetrain]

Originally Posted by mushroomtip

You my friend, are incorrect

there is a model priced at 1399.00 , albeit the education store , 1399.00 none the less.

That's the $1499.00 model with a $100 education discount

Referring to it as "The $1399 model" isn't very clear when most people aren't looking at education pricing.

[CaptMike]

Originally Posted by Stetrain

That's the $1499.00 model with a $100 education discount

Referring to it as "The $1399 model" isn't very clear when most people aren't looking at education pricing.

Yes, this

[Chihawk725]

Originally Posted by lephelps

Sorry, but I sit here thoroughly enjoying this post as I read it on my 2002 dual 1 GHz MDD Power Mac G4 with a 40 GB hard drive and slightly better specs than the rest listed above. It turned 10 in September.

Sure, the Firewire ports are long dead (leaving me with an even slower USB 2.0 connection via an added PCI card for our 1 TB backup drive), the USB ports on the back of the Studio Display went berserk a few months ago, the power button on the front has long been broken (thank heavens for the ADC connector and Studio Display power button), it fights going to sleep more than a 5-year-old who just watched A Nightmare on Elm Street (due to the USB errors constantly thrown up by the aforementioned Studio Display), it has recently decided to sometimes power itself off when it does go to sleep and then require a break before it wants to work again

Well I guess everyone's definition of "lasting" is important haha ! If this thread creator meant that he still wants the thing to turn on in 11 years, I am sure it will. I was assuming he meant something he could use up to date software on and not have a plethora of problems like your computer apparently has. But to each his own!

[Imaginethe]

Spending all that money to get premium now, just so it last 10 years seems to defeat the object of saving money. The upgrades are expensive and you are paying a premium. I would spend less on a base model, which will be fine for a consumer for 4/5 years browsing the web etc. with $800 dollars (+interest) you save, in 5 years time, better technology will be cheaper, and something more powerful will be out and buy that instead. Rather than try and struggle on for an extra 5 years.

Also with this form factor and a piece of hardware breaks, the chances are you will need to replace the machine anyway (or get it fixed for a couple of hundred quid) and as it gets older the more likely that will get.

Buying more now to get longevity isn't always the best thing.

I say this as when I decided to get an iMac earlier in the year I was thinking the same, spending an extra £600 to have it last longer. But I decided that not spending that and going for a lesser model will mean I can save that money, buy a machine I know that will cope for at least 3/4 years. Anything beyond that is a bonus. If it is starting to struggle then I upgrade, and will probably gain access to lots of lovely new features and technological advances.

[cyclotron451]

Originally Posted by MacWanter

i7's are stronger than i5's. They will work better for longer. Being able to run newer programs better than i5's, making them worth the extra money.

Well I have a 2.2GHz Quad Core i7 (2720QM CPU) in my 2011 15" MacBookPro and a 2012 Mac mini with Dual Core i5 (3210M CPU 4 hyper threads) and for all intents and purposes they feel about the same to me!

the biggest difference is that my Qi7 laptop motherboard melted when I tried some serious processor activity! I bought my Dual i5 mini on the basis of it is less unlikely to overheat!!