Considering replacing my early 2008 Mac Pro with an iMac.

[Rychy]

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 Quad Core with 6GB RAM. I upgraded the graphics card to a Radeon 5770 and have a SSD as my boot drive.

I'm considering replacing it with this refurbished 2011 iMac.

Refurbished iMac 27-inch 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Originally released May 2011
27-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB memory
1TB hard drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics with 512MB memory

Built-in FaceTime HD camera

$1419

The thing is I'm not using my Mac Pro like I was ... I was doing a lot of video editing and stuff before and now not so much. I've moved into graphics design and illustration, though I do still use Final Cut Pro some. I don't do any gaming on my PC.

Guess I'm not so much worried about the specs, but the HDD ... I think I might regret going back to regular HDD as the boot drive. Even though I'm fairly sure I could do it, the thought of cracking open a "new" iMac and installing a SSD scares the heck out of me.

I'd really love to have a nice screen though, which I currently don't. I'm also trying to be a bit more minimal with things in general, so the iMac fits that nicely. I think selling my current setup cover most of the cost of the iMac. I'd keep my SSD though.

Good idea? Sounds like the current iMacs are pretty capable machines.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

You'll be fine.

"Boot drive" ssd? How often do you boot? You shouldn't need to restart your computer other then for system updates that require it.

As far as starting up apps... start them up once and leave them open. 16 gigs of RAM for that machine is $100.

 

[derbothaus]

You'll be fine.

"Boot drive" ssd? How often do you boot? You shouldn't need to restart your computer other then for system updates that require it.

As far as starting up apps... start them up once and leave them open. 16 gigs of RAM for that machine is $100.

This post is funny.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

This post is funny.

Because it's so correct?

I have a Mac Pro with 8 gigs of ram and a 60gig SSD, and I watch my pageouts religiously, and I rarely get any. And that's using the full CS5 host of programs and a Windows VM.

 

[iSayuSay]

iMac is a capable machine indeed. But since you own a decent and upgraded MacPro, why not stick with it? Use the money to buy a cinema display instead, it's the same size n resolution as iMac, plus you keep a mac with good upgradeability. Something an iMac doesnt have.