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Buy iMac now, or wait?
- Thread starter boombox15
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me too, waiting. I have a maxed out late 2012 thoughBut switching every second model I think is a good plan when using it professionally. Hope it will be out before summer,....I´m always eager when I know Im gonna buy it. But if it comes out fall 2015 thats fine too, it´s not like Im suffering with the current model. But i7 8 core and 8gb of VRAM will actually make some difference for me in work speed.
But IF apple will include the new intel i7 and the new geforce 880m they should release it quite soon though...if those will be the only upgrades to the iMac...no point waiting to sell older hardware. 880m is out and the new haswell i7 will be out early may....so Im guessing may-june for the upgraded iMac....Unless apple choose to skip this years hardware updates from nvidia and Intel.
I have a maxed out late 2012 as well. If I were going to upgrade, which I'm not, I'd wait for Broadwell. However, I'm also in the market for a new iMac for my office and am trying to decide whether to wait until June to see if Apple releases an iMac with the newest Haswell and 880M. Not that the performance would be much better than the current gen, but I'd like to have the latest.
Well, I meant they might skip this generation entirely. It has happened before.
Though it wouldn´t make much sense, since Apple will most definately make no new design on the iMac this year....So wouldn´t make sense doing so and miss out on a few more extra units sold, only by upgrading the CPU and GPU.
I do think we'll see an update, the current iMac has TB1, so I think they will upgrade to TB2. This, and an updated CPU and GPU will probably be the only (minor) updates. Unless they'll go all out and introduce a new (4k) TB display, chances are that the high-end iMac will also get this update. But then the update is more likely at the end of the year.
Unless you REALLY need a new one right now, I'd wait. I didn't have the luxury, so I just got a new (2013 refurb) i5 3.4. I figured out I didn't really need the i7 for the work I do, so I went with the i5 this time.
If you can, I'd definitely wait for Broadwell.
If you can, I'd definitely wait for Broadwell.
I don't see any reason for waiting. Both CPU and GPU upgrades are going to be minor concerning performance. Broadwell is going to be great for the MacBooks because of the better power efficiency, but don't bother for the iMac. Buy one if you want/need one and go for the SSD.
My expected iMac roadmap:
Mid-summer/Early-fall...spec bump
....1 year passes...
Fall 2015 event...4K iMac with new case design. This would be inline with the typical 3 year life cycle of case designs and the current model was released in Late-2012.
So, unless you want to wait 1.5 years for a significant change to the iMac from it's current state, I think it's safe to buy now.
Mid-summer/Early-fall...spec bump
....1 year passes...
Fall 2015 event...4K iMac with new case design. This would be inline with the typical 3 year life cycle of case designs and the current model was released in Late-2012.
So, unless you want to wait 1.5 years for a significant change to the iMac from it's current state, I think it's safe to buy now.
I also had a maxed out 2011. I converted the 256SSD/1TB combo to a Fusion Drive and took that machine to the office to use as a target display for my MBP when I got my nMP for home. I love having a display that is a full computer for wham I don't want to pull out the laptop.
For the record, every single benchmark says that the rMBP SHOULD be faster than the 2011 iMac, but frankly, most of the time the iMac is much faster in daily use Especially using VM's and AutoCad LT.
I like this setup so much that I think I'll move to a MBA laptop and just use the iMac for the heavy lifting on the desktop.
I guess my point is that the last few upgrades have been pretty incremental. The 2011 is still a beast of a machine. I don't really understand why it would be "getting slow".
For the record, every single benchmark says that the rMBP SHOULD be faster than the 2011 iMac, but frankly, most of the time the iMac is much faster in daily use Especially using VM's and AutoCad LT.
I like this setup so much that I think I'll move to a MBA laptop and just use the iMac for the heavy lifting on the desktop.
I guess my point is that the last few upgrades have been pretty incremental. The 2011 is still a beast of a machine. I don't really understand why it would be "getting slow".
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I highly recommend OP take the same approach. I did this with my 2010 iMac and it's like a brand new machine. I didn't really need a CPU upgrade at all.