2011 Imac CPU/GPU upgrade

[drjack76]

Now that years have gone by, many people have upgraded the cpu and gpu on 2011 imacs. (27" of coarse.) I have not bought a new imac because i am not ready to give up 2 ssds in raid 0 just yet.

I have the i7-2600 and the 2gb radeon card. (6970m i think..) I

d love to upgrade to the i7-2700k. Even better would be the i7-3770k. Back in 2012, we found out the sandy bridge upgrade was possible but not the ivy bridge. Have we made any discoveries with the 3770k option? Anyone got it running smoothly with this cpu? Also, are their warnings with the 2700k? Like a recomended OSX?

The more complicated question is the gpu. Years ago, someome put the 680mx in it but couldnt get it to boot. I just read a forum where someone got the 680m to boot with no issues. So what are my gpu upgrade options? 680mx? 6990m? Whats been done and what are some ideas...

 

[Cisco_Kid]

I don't think there would be any point of moving into a "K"/unlocked CPU, seems you cannot overclock it.
It looks as if the 2600 is faster than the 2700K at memory intensive tasks anyhow.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/497/Intel_Core_i7_i7-2600_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-2700K.html

i7 2600 vs 3770K
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/505/Intel_Core_i7_i7-2600_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-3770K.html

You've probably seen these before, but if it were me I'd save the cash for a replacement machine, but thats just me
I remember there was a website at one time selling the MXM Cards, however it looks as if the market was not large enough to keep the doors swinging.
http://mxm-upgrade.com

 

[JPamplin]

Now that years have gone by, many people have upgraded the cpu and gpu on 2011 imacs. (27" of coarse.) I have not bought a new imac because i am not ready to give up 2 ssds in raid 0 just yet.

I have the i7-2600 and the 2gb radeon card. (6970m i think..) I

d love to upgrade to the i7-2700k. Even better would be the i7-3770k. Back in 2012, we found out the sandy bridge upgrade was possible but not the ivy bridge. Have we made any discoveries with the 3770k option? Anyone got it running smoothly with this cpu? Also, are their warnings with the 2700k? Like a recomended OSX?

The more complicated question is the gpu. Years ago, someome put the 680mx in it but couldnt get it to boot. I just read a forum where someone got the 680m to boot with no issues. So what are my gpu upgrade options? 680mx? 6990m? Whats been done and what are some ideas...

I am also the proud owner of a 2011 27", and I've just installed a 2.8Ghz i7-2600S instead of the stock 2.7Ghz i5 (I wanted the 8-threads for virtual machines, and I wanted the same TDP as the i5 for it to stay cool). I will also keep this so I can do 2x 480GB SSDs for a fast SATA3 RAID0 setup.

Now, I'd like to take out the 6770M and replace it with a Metal-compatible GPU. I think the nvidia 600M series is supported - what have you found is the fastest GPU we can stick in these things that a) don't draw too much power, b) is EFI compatible for boot screen, and c) are Metal compatible?