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Can I turn my 2009 - 2011 27" iMac into a beast?

E

everson38

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2021
7
1
Hey guys,
My first post on here so apologies for breaking any faux Pas.

As the title suggest I'm looking to beef up my iMac 2009 - 2011 27inch. In the time I got it brand new it hasn't skipped a beat and has been great. But I am always wondering is it time for a newer system or can the one I have been turned into something pretty decent to last me many more years?

I'm not very techky with what is needed , but am quite comfortable with replacing components if there is a decent YouTube video to follow.

So my question is what can I do to it, that a beginner to intermediate level person to supe up my system to ensure for best performance and usage whilst working (I am a graphic designer so I use software by adobe)?

Details of my current set up if it helps.


Thanks in advance
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CPU: Can be replaced with Core i7-870 or 880
RAM: Can be increased to 32GB (8GB x4)
Storage: Can be replaced with 2 x 2.5" SATA SSD drives running in RAID 0 for speed.
The above are easy

GPU: Can be replace with Quadro P4000m (For High Sierra only)
Or check the notorious (longest) thread in this forum about GPU upgrade if you want to get Big Sur.

Connection:
Can be upgraded to USB 3.0, AC standard wifi & Bluetooth 4.0
 
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Nguyen Duc Hieu said:
CPU: Can be replaced with Core i7-870 or 880
RAM: Can be increased to 32GB (8GB x4)
Storage: Can be replaced with 2 x 2.5" SATA SSD drives running in RAID 0 for speed.
The above are easy

GPU: Can be replace with Quadro P4000m (For High Sierra only)
Or check the notorious (longest) thread in this forum about GPU upgrade if you want to get Big Sur.

Connection:
Can be upgraded to USB 3.0, AC standard wifi & Bluetooth 4.0
Click to expand...


Thanks for this. I had a a quick look at replacing the "easy" components and the SSD some not too bad. The CPU seems alittle more involved which I may leave until more comfortable with disassembly of my iMac.

Do you know if anything needs to be saved or back up etc? I won't loose any of My installed pieces of software by doing any and all of these changes?
 
everson38 said:
Thanks for this. I had a a quick look at replacing the "easy" components and the SSD some not too bad. The CPU seems alittle more involved which I may leave until more comfortable with disassembly of my iMac.

Do you know if anything needs to be saved or back up etc? I won't loose any of My installed pieces of software by doing any and all of these changes?
Click to expand...

You need to prepare well before attempting any change.
1. Everything must be saved/back-up before proceeding. Clone the HDD to the SSD (USB box), then boot from the external SSD to confirm it works smoothly.
After installing the SSD inside the iMac, keep the HDD for a while as fail safe solution.

2. Watch several Youtube video to be familiarized with the steps and cautions before actually open your own iMac. Viewing the best video (to your own judgment) while you are doing it is advisable.

3. You can start searching around you for second hand parts from now, if you are a cost-concerned person.
 
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chabig said:
The best thing you can do is trade it in for a new 2021 iMac. I honestly wouldn't bother trying to upgrade that old machine.
Click to expand...

It's kind of a hobby. For light jobs like word processing, media consumption, audio etc, his current iMac still serves him well.
And it'd cost much less to upgrade with 2nd parts.
If OP is ready to spend 699$ (minus the discount, etc), I would just advise to buy a mini M1 and use his current iMac as the monitor.
 
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Yeah I can't knock my Mac in all fairness to it, eve as a work station for work it has always delivered and I'm fine. I just happened to stumble across some info about performance etc that led me to see you can boost your current setup. I was under the naive impression that if you never configured it at as a"beast" from day one from Apple, it would of been thousands to have them to upgrade it for you, so never looked into it.

But now I want to give it some majorly overdue love if it is simple enough and if it can prolong it.
 
everson38 said:
Yeah I can't knock my Mac in all fairness to it, eve as a work station for work it has always delivered and I'm fine. I just happened to stumble across some info about performance etc that led me to see you can boost your current setup. I was under the naive impression that if you never configured it at as a"beast" from day one from Apple, it would of been thousands to have them to upgrade it for you, so never looked into it.

But now I want to give it some majorly overdue love if it is simple enough and if it can prolong it.
Click to expand...

Below is the list of the expenses when I upgraded my iMac 2010 last year. All are second hand parts.
2x8GB DDR3: 50$
Core i7-870: 36$
1TB SSD: 60$ (20k-hour old SSD salvaged from decommissioned servers)
Wifi-BT card set: 40$
Cable, accessories, screw drivers: 30$

GPU: WX4150 4GB = 80$ (You probably wouldn't be able to buy this item at this price anyhow)
GPU Heatsink: 36$
 
I would improve anything older 
boy do I miss my igloo iMac and might get one to run Mojave

my MacBook Air 2010 rocks!
catalina flies and Mojave is solid and can run my graphic design software I don't have to relearn!
I would rather buy a new battery, ssd drive and pentablobe screws the get a free MacBook Air M1

oh I don't do emojees, so that might be a problem with older  devices.
 
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I'm intrigued by the idea of buying a newer "older" 27" iMac , say 2017 -2019 models to get that initial performance bump and then looking to upgrade that model, i.e more RAM , upgrading the SSD storage? . Thinking this could be a great affordable way to upgrade things and not spend the earth via apple?
 
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Nguyen Duc Hieu said:
Below is the list of the expenses when I upgraded my iMac 2010 last year. All are second hand parts.
2x8GB DDR3: 50$
Core i7-870: 36$
1TB SSD: 60$ (20k-hour old SSD salvaged from decommissioned servers)
Wifi-BT card set: 40$
Cable, accessories, screw drivers: 30$

GPU: WX4150 4GB = 80$ (You probably wouldn't be able to buy this item at this price anyhow)
GPU Heatsink: 36$
Click to expand...
From what I'm seeing with the 2010 models you have the ability to upgrade the main HD to an SSD , (I assume with this process it requires you to clone over from old to new?). :

Then also seen that you can run a secondary SSD in conjunction with the primary HDD, with regards to this way are you able have the SSD be the main driver but use your HDD as basically a back up which holds all your original apps & software, having no need to clone anything? :

Thanks.
 
everson38 said:
From what I'm seeing with the 2010 models you have the ability to upgrade the main HD to an SSD , (I assume with this process it requires you to clone over from old to new?). :
Click to expand...
Yes, if you replace the HD with an SSD you'll have to clone over the contents of the HD to the SSD.

everson38 said:
Then also seen that you can run a secondary SSD in conjunction with the primary HDD, with regards to this way are you able have the SSD be the main driver but use your HDD as basically a back up which holds all your original apps & software, having no need to clone anything? :
Click to expand...
You could set up both drives in a mirrored pair so both the HD and the SSD will always have identical contents, but...

1. That will slow things down compared to just running everything from the SSD. That's because everything has to be written twice, and the slow HD will slow this down.

2. If you accidentally delete something, it'll instantly be deleted from both the HD and the SSD. A mirrored pair is not a replacement for a proper backup - it will only protect you from losing your data when one of the drives fails.

My course of action would be replacing the internal HD with an SSD, benefitting from the healthy performance boost, and either keeping the old HD internally as a secondary or backup drive, or putting it in an external FireWire 800 enclosure to use as a backup drive (your only options for hooking up external drives to the 2010 iMac are FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 - the latter is painfully slow).
 
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My view is that it’s a great idea to upgrade it, but only if you enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of keeping old hardware going. I do. I have a 2011 27 iMac and over the years I’ve added 8GB ram (to make 16GB), a 2TB SSD and just recently a new graphics card (NVIDIA K3100m), heatsink and an i7 CPU. To do all of that now, using a mix of new and used parts would probably cost around £400, so not cheap. But… it has resulted in a very well-performing machine that runs macOS Big Sur beautifully.
 
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If I were you I’d upgrade it to a 2011 first, then soup up the 2011. This will give you thunderbolt which is way faster than the usb2. Just get a thunderbolt dock on eBay and you can have very fast USB speeds, not quite max usb 3 speed but pretty close.
 
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everson38 said:
From what I'm seeing with the 2010 models you have the ability to upgrade the main HD to an SSD , (I assume with this process it requires you to clone over from old to new?).
Thanks.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't require.
At first, I cloned my HDD to SSD because I was too lazy to re-install the OS.
Later on, I had to install Big Sur anyway. The High Sierra volume is just there for me to use the iMac in Target Display Mode.
I don't keep my permanent data on the iMac. I already have a 8TB Windows 10 NAS + 5TB Google Drive.

2009 iMacs and 2010 iMacs are quite similar, they both have 3 SATA ports. You can build your own storage structure at will.
- 3 SSDs to try various OS version
- 1 HDD, 1 SSD, 1 ODD to keep using the DVD, or upgrade to Blueray drive (quite rare, but still available)
- 2 SSD in RAID 0 for speed + 1 HDD for data
etc.
 
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The_Croupier said:
If I were you I’d upgrade it to a 2011 first, then soup up the 2011. This will give you thunderbolt which is way faster than the usb2. Just get a thunderbolt dock on eBay and you can have very fast USB speeds, not quite max usb 3 speed but pretty close.
Click to expand...

My first thought on my iMac 2010 (and 2009) was to use a long SATA cable + extended SATA power cable to the outside of the iMac, and connect directly the SSD there. Not quite hotswapable, but usable and convenient.
 
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trawkinss said:
My iMac 27 mid 2010 with upgrade Graphics Card WX4150 4gb , Bluetooth 4.0 , 32gb ram , 3 ssd . Everything by works perfect with OpenCore Patcher. Monterey or Big Sur and windows 10


Click to expand...
Very nice pal, may pick your brain abit when doing some work to mine
 
everson38 said:
Very nice pal, may pick your brain abit when doing some work to mine
Click to expand...

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

forums.macrumors.com

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

iMac 2009 to 2011 MXM3 graphics card upgrade (Lastest update 10/13/2023 - this is the official documentation page - you found it finally!) This is the single and only documentation post. During the last years we constantly updated this post to reflect the lastet development of vBIOS and OCLP...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
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