i am currently looking for a used mac for home use. I was settled on a 2011 mac mini with i5, but I am still intrigued by the iMacs. However there seems to be a gap at my desired price range and there are mostly cheaper c2d imacs available. I wonder what is their weekest point? Is it the cpu or rather the gpu? I can always add a ssd or max out the ram, but maybe they are really just old. The mac will be used for photography, but only scanned images - no raw digital files etc, so it shouldn't be that gpu intensive.
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C2D or i5?
- Thread starter Tha Professor
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I think a lot of people here will recommend the i5, but it really depends on your budget. I am still humming along on a 2009 2.8 GHz C2D Macbook Pro, I recently installed an SSD and the computer still feels really fast to me. I do some light photo stuff (Photoshop, Snapseed, etc.), and a lot of general office/productivity tasks. I don't consider myself a power user, but use my MBP a lot.
Obviously the higher resolution you go with your scans, the more horsepower you will need.
Since you're going used I think whichever Mac you find the best deal on (relative to market price), is what I'd probably go for. A C2D iMac may be all you need, but you'll be able to trade up and not lose money on it if you get it at a good price. If you go that route, I would try to find one with a dedicated GPU rather than integrated (which could be a weak point.)
Obviously the higher resolution you go with your scans, the more horsepower you will need.
Since you're going used I think whichever Mac you find the best deal on (relative to market price), is what I'd probably go for. A C2D iMac may be all you need, but you'll be able to trade up and not lose money on it if you get it at a good price. If you go that route, I would try to find one with a dedicated GPU rather than integrated (which could be a weak point.)
Mine is on Yosemite and will be able to run El Capitan, but yeah you should do your research on that. For iMacs, Mid 2007 or newer will be able to run El Capitan- I assumed OP was looking at newer than that.
Yeah I was looking at those 2009 iMacs, where there were already i5s available as the higher end option.
Thanks for your input! This computer is for my gf, I think she won`t be giving it too heavy use, apart from some lightroom and negative scanning... It might be the way to go, because, she "decides on the aesthetics"
Mac Mini's from 2009 onwards will just fine. They benefit immensely from an SSD upgrade.
Core2Duo is 64-bit and can run all the latest versions of Mac OS X. Mac with Core2Duo CPUs and can't go beyond Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.x) are due to GPU requirements.
I have a 1970 3.06 C2D Imac that runs Yosemite just fine, only 4 g of ram and I run Xp in Parallels along with Safari with 4 - 5 windows, Excel, Calendar, Mail and Msg. Sometimes more and no problems.
The first Core 2 Duo Minis are limited to 10.7.5. Only the 2009 and newer Minis can run 10.8 or later.
I have a C2D 2009 Mac mini with an SSD and 8GB of RAM. It runs Yosemite well enough but it would be nice if it was a little faster. Vastly improved over the original HDD and 4GB of RAM though. When buying an second hand Mac, the newer the better frankly and personally I like the mini's because I started with a G4 way back in 2005 and apart from replacing the mini itself with the 2009 model I've kept everything else I bought at the time. It was a toss-up whether I bought the mini and ACD or a G5 iMac because the cost was about the same but I'm very glad I went the route I did because in the long term it has proven a much better choice. Will definitely buy another mini.
No Macs with a 32-bit EFI, are stuck on Lion. Apple just used the GPUs in the old Macs, as a way to stop them from booting
with Mountain lion.