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2011 iMac or wait for 2012?

D

DaGrandMastah

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 19, 2011
691
27
I know that what is being offered currently is more than enough for my needs but it's always nice to have the most recent equipment.

It looks like the 2011 imacs were released in May so if it's a 1 year life cycle then the 2012's are still a while away.

I'm looking to make the jump from PC to Mac for the holidays and was just seeing if it was worth waiting an extra month or to go all in now.

For what it's worth, I was looking to get this iMac:

21.5-inch: 2.7GHz

2.7GHz Intel Core i5
1920 x 1080 resolution
4GB (two 2GB) memory
1TB hard drive1
ATI Radeon HD 6770M with 512MB

But wanted to upgrade the hard drive to 2 TB's and future proof it with more than enough space. Would anyone recommend a bump in RAM?
 
That's a great system really. I'd almost suggest keeping the stock drive and getting some kind of external storage, though. Cheaper/easier to expand later. As far as RAM, I'd go for 8GB. You can get it for under $50 these days from Amazon and NewEgg. And yes, you can replace RAM yourself - little door on the bottom of the monitor. If Amazon is tax-free for your location, I'd order from there to save a few bucks. You get the same warranty as if you bought straight from Apple. You can shop around for AppleCare within your first year, too :)
 
I had no idea RAM was so easy to expand on your own with these computers. If that's the case then it really doesn't make sense for me to pay all that money when I can get it much cheaper on amazon. Glad I asked here before I ordered. I just looked online and it seems pretty easy. I'll just go with the 4gb now and upgrade later. I'm completely new to everything Mac computers so it's gonna be a learning experience at first.

I know what you're saying about external drives but I'm very particular about space and I like having things saved both locally and externally as a backup (had a scare a while ago and almost lost everything). I have a 1.5 tb external drive that I use as my backup and it'd be nice to have a big 2 tb hard drive so I'll have plenty of space for whatever I need. One thing I've learned is that every time you think you have enough space you find out you need more.
 
DaGrandMastah said:
I had no idea RAM was so easy to expand on your own with these computers. If that's the case then it really doesn't make sense for me to pay all that money when I can get it much cheaper on amazon. Glad I asked here before I ordered. I just looked online and it seems pretty easy. I'll just go with the 4gb now and upgrade later. I'm completely new to everything Mac computers so it's gonna be a learning experience at first.

I know what you're saying about external drives but I'm very particular about space and I like having things saved both locally and externally as a backup (had a scare a while ago and almost lost everything). I have a 1.5 tb external drive that I use as my backup and it'd be nice to have a big 2 tb hard drive so I'll have plenty of space for whatever I need. One thing I've learned is that every time you think you have enough space you find out you need more.
Click to expand...

4GB of ram costs $33, or $8.25 a GB. 8GB ram is $48, or $6 a GB.

Definitely go for 8GB's, you'll thank yourself in the future. I assure you.

8GB Kingston RAM
 
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twiggy0 said:
4GB of ram costs $33, or $8.25 a GB. 8GB ram is $48, or $6 a GB.

Definitely go for 8GB's, you'll thank yourself in the future. I assure you.

8GB Kingston RAM
Click to expand...

This
I figured 8GB would do me and it likely will for awhile but I wish I had gone for 12 (including apple RAM) because now if I want to upgrade to the full 16 I need a 16Gb kit. If I had upgraded to 12 off the bat I would just need another 8Gb to replace the stock RAM, oh well. You haven't mentioned what you'll be using this mac for but, chances are, more RAM won't hurt.
 
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just a slight warning on hard drive space on the iMac. This year apple have made any attempt to replace it yourself OR professionally very difficult by fitting a chip directly to the hd, so whatever configuration you buy it in is how its going to have to stay. I would seriously consider the dual drive 64GB SSD/1TB HD; the performance gains on using SSD as your boot drive and storing all media and files on the 1TB HD are huge. As has been said RAM is upgradable but your hard drives aren't and that SSD will dramatically increase the useful life of your Mac. Its pricey but you might want to at least look into it.
 
AcesHigh87 said:
This
I figured 8GB would do me and it likely will for awhile but I wish I had gone for 12 (including apple RAM) because now if I want to upgrade to the full 16 I need a 16Gb kit. If I had upgraded to 12 off the bat I would just need another 8Gb to replace the stock RAM, oh well. You haven't mentioned what you'll be using this mac for but, chances are, more RAM won't hurt.
Click to expand...

Ill be using it to for multimedia music, pictures, video etc but I'm not into editing. That being said, I'm a windows user right now and my whole thing with buying a Mac is buying a new system and learning about the OS as well as finally having my ipad and iphone playing nice with my computer. I'm not sure I'll need a ton of RAM since I don't do anything to memory consuming but it's always good to have. Glad to hear it's easy to replace. $50 for an 8 gb upgrade sounds like the plan. I'll probably do that right off the bat.

Question: How many slots does it have for RAM? The ones I was looking at on Amazon are 2 4gb sticks. Would I be able to add those to the existing 4 gb's it comes with or are there only 2 slots?
 
Like others have said, up the RAM later by yourself. Easy.

Hard Drive - I recommend getting as big as ... you can.
I replaced the hard drive in my iMac. 640G to 2 T. Not easy.
Video uses lots of hard drive space. Its nice to have the room.
I do have external hard drives on FireWire (800) & USB. But you end up with several drives attached and a bit of pain & ratsnest.

Backup. Good you know. I have a 2T backup drive connected via USB. I have it tucked out of the way. So if my iMac is stolen they wont get the backup drive. I also have another offsite drive, but due to laziness is usually about a month back.

As to buy now or wait ... technology is always progressing, so you could wait forever. What would Apple add or change in the next rev? A processor & a speed bump. Present iMacs are plenty fast. Probably not a good reason to wait. Already have ThunderBolt. Probably will add USB 3. In my opinion, "meh". But do a speed/cost/benefit analysis. TB is fastest & most expensive, USB next for speed & relatively cheap, then Firewire 800, then Firewire 400 & finally USB 2. USB is perfectly acceptable for backups. For cloning, a faster drive is better.
 
DaGrandMastah said:
Ill be using it to for multimedia music, pictures, video etc but I'm not into editing. That being said, I'm a windows user right now and my whole thing with buying a Mac is buying a new system and learning about the OS as well as finally having my ipad and iphone playing nice with my computer. I'm not sure I'll need a ton of RAM since I don't do anything to memory consuming but it's always good to have. Glad to hear it's easy to replace. $50 for an 8 gb upgrade sounds like the plan. I'll probably do that right off the bat.

Question: How many slots does it have for RAM? The ones I was looking at on Amazon are 2 4gb sticks. Would I be able to add those to the existing 4 gb's it comes with or are there only 2 slots?
Click to expand...

There are 4 slots, two of which are populated with the 4Gb that Apple includes. Thus if you get 2 sticks at 4 a piece you can add them in with the ones already there and have 12GB. It doesn't seem like you need that much but its a good price so it won't hurt.
 
AcesHigh87 said:
There are 4 slots, two of which are populated with the 4Gb that Apple includes. Thus if you get 2 sticks at 4 a piece you can add them in with the ones already there and have 12GB. It doesn't seem like you need that much but its a good price so it won't hurt.
Click to expand...

Oh sweet. Yeah so I'll do the upgrade. Glad to hear I don't have to remove the existing RAM. 8 Gigs of Crucial ram is only 49.99 on amazon.com.

That's way better than the 180 apple is charging. I'll up it to a 2 tb drive definitely....always good to have space.

Thanks alot for all the suggestions guys. Really appreciate the help and clarification you've given me.
 
kyledempster7 said:
If I want the to have 16gb of ram in my iMac how much would I buy? Do you buy 12gb of ram? Oh hardware... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You need 12GB, yes, however that would actually be more expensive than buying 16GB. Because of only having 4 slots (2 populated by apple RAM) you would need to get either an 8GB and a 4GB (unpaired which is bad) or two 6GB which would be expensive. For example, on macsales you can get 16GB for $125 but 12GB is $340.
 
Jesus, 4GB is already enough/barelly future proof, 6gb is future proof, 8GB is bragging hard, 12/16GB is crazy

I doubt anyone would go over 6gb, not even considering 8.

Well, the truth is that RAM is surprisinly cheap nowadays, so get a 8GB kit and forget about it, that will be an insane 12GB, you will sell your computer before needing more RAM
 
You know everything you need to know by now, so go ahead and buy it without waiting for the 2012 refresh, you'll be very happy with this iMac.

However, there's one more thing. Although you probably don't really need the extra cash, you can consider waiting until Black Friday, which occurs every last friday in november. That's 4 weeks from now. Apple used to drop all iMac prices by 100$ that day.
But there's no guaranty that they'll do it again this year. Who knows, maybe they'll just offer a software rebate this time? :eek:
 
BobbyCat said:
However, there's one more thing. Although you probably don't really need the extra cash, you can consider waiting until Black Friday, which occurs every last friday in november. That's 4 weeks from now. Apple used to drop all iMac prices by 100$ that day.
Click to expand...

Does this $100 is also off Refurbished models? Thanks.
 
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