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How to spec a 27"?

A

akatsuki

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 3, 2010
212
49
So what is the best return on features, etc? I am thinking base with 3TB fusion and add aftermarket RAM, but does it make sense to go higher than that.

I don't game much, but tend to have many things running at once and my wife will use Parallels a decent amount. Does it make sense to bump up to the higher spec?
 
Get it all, EVERYTHING. Full-spec! And if you can't afford it find a way. Sell your kids, mom, pop, uncle, and grandma, even your wife!

Ok jokes aside I personally always buy my new Macs Fully-spec'd, especially given the fact that a lot of the newer Macs coming out are non user-upgradeable. So personally for me if I can't afford to go Full-spec I just continue to tos the pennies on the side for the day I can be able to purchase a Full-spec Mac. And lemme say this I don't game, video edit, photoshop, or pretty much anything other than just browse the web, look at youtube clips, download movies, etc etc. So that being said I can tell you from the get go that I really don't need to go Full-spec but I just do as most of my computers always seem to have a life sentence being I take good care of my things and as they say most people don't need a super fast sports car but that doesn't mean they don't want one or can't have one. I guess I look at my computers being the same way.
 
All depends on what you are planning on doing with it in the next 1-5 years (or for how long you plan on using it).

Take the amount of the iMac and divide the cost by how many months you gonna use it and this way you will see that an upgrade is not that much of a big deal.

Maybe next year you gonna start photoshop or video edit, you neve know. An with the base iMac this might be not possible an you won't buy a new one right away.
 
With the speed and expansion capabilities of ThunderBolt, I think the stock 1TB is pretty good. You should stick with the stock RAM too, as adding your own later on from another website is massively cheap.

There's not much more you can do in terms of expansion - GPU, etc. So those are your only options!! :)
 
I'd upgrade to i7, 2GB graphics and 1TB Fusion Drive. The RAM afterwards yourself.

That's what I'll do.
 
i7, 680mx and 768 flash drive, 8gb of ram and add 32gb of ram from another vendor yourself. That's the only way to go!
 
How easy is it to add your own ram.

iMcLovin said:
i7, 680mx and 768 flash drive, 8gb of ram and add 32gb of ram from another vendor yourself. That's the only way to go!
Click to expand...

Can you just go to a place like new egg and tell them what I have and then do it myself easily if I don't usually do anything with hardware

Also does it negate the warranty at all
 
My BTO spec list for the highly anticipated iMac 27".

3.4 GHz Quad-Core i7.
8GB Memory.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX (with 1GB of GDDR5 memory).
768GB Flash Storage ;)
 
My 27" BTO: i7, 8GB RAM (will of course upgrade to 32GB on my own), GTX 680MX, 1TB Fusion Drive (or 768 GB SSD depending on the price).

Goddamnit Apple. RELEASE IT NOW.
 
Go full spec.

The thing is with an iMac; once you get it, your stuck with it. (I don't mean that in a bad way)

Its just there is no upgrading (outside of RAM) and no real way to improve your iMac after purchase. So go hard up front.

...in 2007 I bought my iMac and it's still going strong... and its going strong because I spec'd the **** out of it then.

Its been near six years now since I first bought the iMac... I can't wait for the new one because I've been saving my $$ for the past two years knowing full well that I'm buying it maxed out (I'll add the RAM myself, thank you very much Apple.)

Max out the graphics card, Max out the processor, Get the 1TB Fusion... max out the RAM yourself... and your set... for at least 5+ years.

Oh and I forgot to mention... my wife and I made a deal when I bought my first iMac six years ago. In the PC world, I used to buy a new computer every two years but Mac's being a bit more expensive she made me commit to a five year plan. So it's been well over five now and she's got nothing to say :)

That's the way to sell it to the spouse.
 
bonafide said:
Go full spec.

The thing is with an iMac; once you get it, your stuck with it. (I don't mean that in a bad way)

Its just there is no upgrading (outside of RAM) and no real way to improve your iMac after purchase. So go hard up front.

...in 2007 I bought my iMac and it's still going strong... and its going strong because I spec'd the **** out of it then.

Its been near six years now since I first bought the iMac... I can't wait for the new one because I've been saving my $$ for the past two years knowing full well that I'm buying it maxed out (I'll add the RAM myself, thank you very much Apple.)

Max out the graphics card, Max out the processor, Get the 1TB Fusion... max out the RAM yourself... and your set... for at least 5+ years.

.
Click to expand...

If you do the math, I am not sure this is the way to go.
Base 27" = $1799
Loaded = ~2500

So you are talking an increment of $700 or so. Which is a long way towards a new base model much sooner. You could shave off two years off your five year cycle and have a new base model every three years and have the same overall cash flow. And a base model in three years will slaughter your top of the line model.
 
Why no i7 for most of you guys? Is it too small of a difference for the price? Or too small alltogether?
 
squan said:
Why no i7 for most of you guys? Is it too small of a difference for the price? Or too small alltogether?
Click to expand...

It would be a small difference for me, I might not even see a difference at all really. i7 is good if you are doing heavy video or photo work since those rely pretty heavily on the CPU. I myself only get into light to moderate video/photo work as a small project every now and then. It doesn't bother me to spend a couple more minutes to encode a video or a few seconds on a photo since my livelihood doesn't depend on it.
 
Hey!

I'm not sure if I should buy the low end or the high end model of the 27' iMac.
The processor is just a minor upgrade (2.9 Ghz vs 3.2 Ghz). I don't need the i7.
Ram is equal and I want to add the fusion drive.

The big difference is the graphics card: 512mb GTX 660m vs 1gb GTX 675mx.
I want to play some games like WoW, Diablo 3 and CSGO in native resolution.

The GTX 660m is okay but I think the 512mb will be a bottleneck in the future. Is the upgrade to the GTX 675mx worth the money? I'm worry about the heat.
Will it melt with the GTX 675mx / GTX 680mx?
 
Why not 3TB fusion drive? Can't add more space later, so get as much as you can at the outset.

Don't most people have more than 1TB of data nowadays?
 
MacDouble said:
Will it melt with the GTX 675mx / GTX 680mx?
Click to expand...

Why do people think Apple would let you pay $2k+ for a computer that would melt (and need to be replaced on Apple's dime)? :confused:

If you're interested in gaming at native resolution and you can spare the change, by all means get the 680mx.
 
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