Ideal computing setup?

[Artful Dodger]

When I ordered my iMac Apple CS verified the part about the SSD being "blocked off" or unavailable to upgrade per se and www.macsales.com might be able to add more light on that in one of their videos or comments section. If the iMacs get updated soon then who knows but if down the road you do the swap you will then have an SSD to put into it's own case which ends up being a bonus

 

[Laird Knox]

My understanding was that if I wanted a two-disk iMac solution I had to order it from Apple with both an HDD and SSD as the space for the SSD would be blocked off otherwise - I remember this being an issue when the SSD first appeared in the iMac, has this changed?



It's a tough one - though I am very pleased with my D300 I have consistently missed film and full-frame. Having said that the reviews of the Tokina 11-16 are quite good and I could satisfy the wide-angle need with it and sell when I move to full frame.

Photography has turned out to be one hobby in which budgeting is critical!

Wow, I didn't know that about the SSD. OWC has some solutions but it is still a pain. When the current machines came out a 256GB SSD for $500 wasn't that bad of a deal. However, I just picked up a 120GB for $119 to setup in a RAID 0 setup with an identical drive I already had. These are SATA3 500MB/s drives so the Apple offering is getting a bit long in the tooth. Still would make for a sweet machine.

I'm in the same boat as you - I'm using the Tokina on a D7000 (and D60 and D70) but am trying desperately to get my hands on a D800. I know exactly what you mean about the budget squeeze.

 

[Droid13]

Just a little more patience...

Compared my current machine to what may possibly be a new iMac:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/657744/667754

Here's hoping the price at release will not be completely beyond what I have saved up so far...

 

[snberk103]

Compared my current machine to what may possibly be a new iMac:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/657744/667754

Here's hoping the price at release will not be completely beyond what I have saved up so far...

IF that iMac actually exists... the Apple pattern is that new machines are introduced at the same price points as the machines they are replacing. So if you can afford an iMac now you should be able to afford the new one.

Luck.

 

[Laird Knox]

Compared my current machine to what may possibly be a new iMac:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/657744/667754

Here's hoping the price at release will not be completely beyond what I have saved up so far...

I see that sports an i7 processor. If it comes down to price then you probably won't notice a difference between a similarly clocked i5 and i7. The i7 is a better chip but Photoshop doesn't get a lot out of the hyperthreading. When I built my photo machine I went with the i5 and 16GB RAM and it runs wonderfully.