Blown Away: 27" iMac i7 16GB RAM

[SandboxGeneral]

Wow! That is all I can say about my new iMac. This thing is a screamer and by far the most powerful computer I've ever had the pleasure of owning.

It just replaced my 24" iMac (8,1) C2D 3.06GHz 6GB RAM (800MHz) 1TB HDD, which isn't a bad machine at all. In fact I am just moving it to another location to continue using it.

Does anyone recall those old Maxell commercials where there is a guy sitting in a chair with a scarf on and the sound/light from their "quality" product blows him away? Well that's how I felt when I first powered up this 27" iMac (11,3) and the first visual thing you get is the brilliant white screen with the OS/X startup sound. (See Maxell photo attached).

I bought this as a refurb item from Apple. It came with 4GB RAM installed, Magic Mouse and wireless keyboard, Core i7 CPU (2.93GHz) 1TB HDD. The only other thing I bought was the AppleCare and 16GB (1333MHz) of RAM from OWC.

The iMac w/AppleCare was $2,181.94 and shipping was next day for free. The 16GB of RAM from OWC was $233.98 for a grand total of $2,415.92. Had I bought this as new from Apple with the RAM from Apple as well I would have paid $3,368.00. So I figure I saved $952.08 by buying refurb and getting RAM from OWC. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Plus the built-in speakers sound much better than the 24" iMac; it's more pleasurable to listen to.

I can't wait to start rendering video with this to see how quickly it accomplishes it.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

Glad your happy with it and hope you enjoy your new machine. It sounds like you saved some dough, which is good for most, but there's just something about the smell of a brand spankin' new Apple box and peeling the plastic off the new product that I am just willing to pay extra for.

I like knowing that I'm the only person to have ever touched and used the machine. To each his own I suppose Enjoy your 27" monster.

 

[excommie]

with refurbs, you get to peel-off the plastic too. The experience is identical in my book.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

with refurbs, you get to peel-off the plastic too. The experience is identical in my book.

Yep, true story. I bought the older 24" iMac brand new and I got to peal the plastic off and all. This refurb 27" came the exact same way. Nice white Apple box, plastic and foam wrappings, new car smell and all!

 

[TheGenerous]

cool

 

[David085]

nice love

 

[Deeya]

Run that geekbench in 64bit so you can see 10000+

 

[SandboxGeneral]

Run that geekbench in 64bit so you can see 10000+

I bet. But I'd have to pay for it to run in 64 bit.

 

[smithrh]

Community Service Announcement

RAM is dirt cheap right now - I'm maxing out all my Macs as soon as UPS gets here tomorrow!

 

[SandboxGeneral]

RAM is dirt cheap right now - I'm maxing out all my Macs as soon as UPS gets here tomorrow!

It sure is; as long as you don't buy it from !

I maxed out both my iMac's and MBP.

 

[chris98vf]

Dammit, now I wanna get 16GB. But I want my motorcycle more this spring

 

[wordoflife]

So refurbs really do feel like brand new?
I'm thinking the next computer I'd get would be a refurb 15" MBP because the discounts are just amazing. The only thing I want out the 15" is the screen size (screw the specs). However, this is an upgrade I plan on doing in 3 years time haha. Getting a little ahead of myself

 

[SandboxGeneral]

So refurbs really do feel like brand new?
I'm thinking the next computer I'd get would be a refurb 15" MBP because the discounts are just amazing. The only thing I want out the 15" is the screen size (screw the specs). However, this is an upgrade I plan on doing in 3 years time haha. Getting a little ahead of myself

Oh yeah! This thing looks and feels brand new. If the paperwork didn't say refurbished on it, I would not have ever known it wasn't brand new.

I looked it over quite well. No scratches, dings, dents, discolorations, dead pixels, yellow tinting, distorted speakers, no software glitches, pinwheels, no cracked or scratched glass... nothing at all wrong with it that I can see.

It is as close to perfect as man can make it.

 

[wordoflife]

Oh yeah! This thing looks and feels brand new. If the paperwork didn't say refurbished on it, I would not have ever known it wasn't brand new.

I looked it over quite well. No scratches, dings, dents, discolorations, dead pixels, yellow tinting, distorted speakers, no software glitches, pinwheels, no cracked or scratched glass... nothing at all wrong with it that I can see.

It is as close to perfect as man can make it.

Glad that it worked out!
Just thinking about it, I forgot my iPhone is refurbished. Came out like new!

Just so we're on the same page, there are absolutely no indications of it being a refurbished product on the hardware?

I got something refurbished from Sandisk (replaced under warranty) and it said RB on the back. And my friend got a refurbished MP3 player from them, and it said REFURBISHED in big letters on the back s

 

[SandboxGeneral]

Glad that it worked out!
Just thinking about it, I forgot my iPhone is refurbished. Came out like new!

Just so we're on the same page, there are absolutely no indications of it being a refurbished product on the hardware?

I got something refurbished from Sandisk (replaced under warranty) and it said RB on the back. And my friend got a refurbished MP3 player from them, and it said REFURBISHED in big letters on the back s

Nope. To look at it physically, it looks exactly like a brand new unit. The only way I know it was a refurb, is by the paperwork only. For all I know, it could really be a brand new one and they just gave me a discount and called it refurbished.

 

[windowpain]

Nope. To look at it physically, it looks exactly like a brand new unit. The only way I know it was a refurb, is by the paperwork only. For all I know, it could really be a brand new one and they just gave me a discount and called it refurbished.

My experience too.
Would never buy a 'new' one again.
Mine (a macbook) looked liked someone had opened the box, took one look at it and decided they didn't like it and closed the box again. Absolutely no indication whatsoever that it was a refurb. (not even a fingerprint on it!) Original box too, with just a small refurb sticker in one corner.

The discount was great, and they feeling that I was 'only' using a refurb lasted until the first bootup. (a good minute or so.)

 

[fortunecookie]

Congrats!

 

[coolspot18]

Don't all iMac have the same benchmarks? They're all cookie cutter no?

 

[SandboxGeneral]

Don't all iMac have the same benchmarks? They're all cookie cutter no?

Essentially, yes. One can get different configurations, but customization is limited.

 

[NeoCracer]

I hope you realize that without SSD you still have a much slower computer. HDD's are the bottlenecks of today's computers.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I hope you realize that without SSD you still have a much slower computer. HDD's are the bottlenecks of today's computers.

Well aware of that; thank you.

 

[bigjnyc]

Well aware of that; thank you.

Yeah an SSD would be the icing on the cake for that beast. Definitely try to save up some cash and upgrade to one down the road.

 

[CrAkD]

im going to be getting one with my taxes your making me impatient! do you get the white imac box with a refurb? or does it come in just a plain brown box? Also I dunno if I should get it right away or wait for the sandy bridge refresh.

 

[mrsir2009]

Using my friend's new 21" iMac I was quite amazed at how much faster and snappier it was than my 13" MacBook Pro. Here are the spec difference:

MBP: 4GB RAM, 2.26 core duo processor, 7200RPM 500GB Hard drive
iMac: 4GB RAM, 3.06 i3 processor, 5200RPM 1TB hard drive.

It must have been a combo of the newness of the hard drive and the i3 3.06 processor that made it faster and smoother and snappier than my MBP. Because the RAM is the same and my hard drive is faster than the iMac...

The new iMacs are fabulous, the 27" i7 must be a dream...

 

[hayesk]

It must have been a combo of the newness of the hard drive and the i3 3.06 processor that made it faster and smoother and snappier than my MBP.

The newness of the disk was likely not it. The faster bus speed was likely more relevant.