21.5", buy low or high end?

[Vinfanatic]

Hello together,

After a long time of waiting and saving, i am finally going to order a new imac.

I'm already sure about the size, but not so sure about the specification.

What i intend to do is the following:

Itunes
Internet & mail
Iphoto, not really photoshop
Gaming: just occasionaly, games like cs, anno or the new simcity.

Since i think the Gaming will be the most challenging part for the hardware, do u think the low end 21" will fit my needs or do u think the funfactor on the highend version will be much higher?

Fusion drive will also be ordered, no matter which configuration.

Thx alot

 

[Chuckstones]

I have the base 21.5". And although I have yet to try gaming, everything else (itunes, safari, iPhoto etc) is lightning fast.
35 seconds at most boot time.
Very pleased with performance, and suits my needs perfectly!

 

[jtrainor56]

Go for the high end and add the memory, the 21" is not upgradeable and you don't want to second guess yourself afterwards.

 

[jonfarr]

I went from a rMBP (16GB ram and 768 SSD) to a base 21.5" with 16GB Ram and 1TB fusion and absolutely love it. I have run Counter strike on the mac side and on windows 7 using parallels and haven't had an issue at all. It is a fine machine.

 

[Dr Charter]

On the gaming end, I would imagine it's the better graphics card, not the CPU that makes the biggest difference. I'm not sure how the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M and 650M compare.

 

[phoenixsan]

I would say.....

go for the 27 inch, because that option gives you the power to choose a better graphic card. And more screen real estate. RAM can be upgraded aftermarket (cheaper than pay to Apple).

 

[Whackintosh]

I went from a rMBP (16GB ram and 768 SSD) to a base 21.5" with 16GB Ram and 1TB fusion and absolutely love it. I have run Counter strike on the mac side and on windows 7 using parallels and haven't had an issue at all. It is a fine machine.

That's amazing! Were you coming from a 15-inch RMBP or a 13-inch model?

 

[Vinfanatic]

Go for the high end and add the memory, the 21" is not upgradeable and you don't want to second guess yourself afterwards.

is there actually anything that would require the 16gb of ram? at least for doing those things i have listed above...? i cant imagine the 8 wouldnt be enough.

i'm tending to buy the highend 21 with the fusiondrive. as I read the thread about the 650m, this should fit my needs quit well.

thank u for your opionions

 

[marc11]

is there actually anything that would require the 16gb of ram? at least for doing those things i have listed above...? i cant imagine the 8 wouldnt be enough.

i'm tending to buy the highend 21 with the fusiondrive. as I read the thread about the 650m, this should fit my needs quit well.

thank u for your opionions

You uses will not come CLOSE to using 16 GB of ram. That poster just said since it is hard, not impossible, but hard to upgrade the ram you might want to consider doing it now. But for your stated uses, even 4 GB of ram would be enough.

As a point of reference I ran the following test on my 2010 MBP with 8 GB of ram before I ordered my iMac, I ran the following programs:

Safari with 15 tabs open
Premiere Elements Photo editing two pictures
Premiere Elements video editor with one HD movie open
1Password
iTunes downloading 2 HD movies
Email
Aperture
A bunch of services like Backblaze, Dropbox, OneTouch, etc
App Store

With all that open and running, I still had over 2 GB of memory free and was using less than 30% of my CPU power and the computer never lagged and no spinning wheels. I think the average user, even the occasional heavy user can easily get by with an i5 quad and 8 gb of memory for a good long time.

 

[jonfarr]

that's amazing! Were you coming from a 15-inch rmbp or a 13-inch model?

15

 

[Johnf1285]

is there actually anything that would require the 16gb of ram? at least for doing those things i have listed above...? i cant imagine the 8 wouldnt be enough.

i'm tending to buy the highend 21 with the fusiondrive. as I read the thread about the 650m, this should fit my needs quit well.

thank u for your opionions

I have a 21.5" with the GT 650m, Fusion Drive, and only 8gb of ram. Your work load is similar to mine.

I never got it using more than 5gb under an above average workload. Some programs will tear through ram, like Handbrake or X Lossless Decoder, but the usual programs will play nice with 8gb and never use too much.

The way I see it is after Apple Care is up, I will either upgrade again to the latest and greatest and 16gb will probably be standard, or I will open the iMac once the warranty is up and pop more ram in myself and stretch it again for a few more years (hopefully then the 2012 iMac Repair Kits do not cost over $100!)