imac 2009 limitations/expectations

[leolb2615]

What would limitations of a 2009 iMac with an SSD and 16GB RAM be? I would upgrade macOS (unoficially) via a patcher to Mojave. What will I be able to do, what will I not be able to do? I am only looking at work such as web browsing, videos, text processing, emails and such, no gaming or video editing.

I am thinking that the only limitations would be the older mother board and CPU, which is an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz, not very good.

Thank you!

 

[stevecc]

What would limitations of a 2009 iMac with an SSD and 16GB RAM be? I would upgrade macOS (unoficially) via a patcher to Mojave. What will I be able to do, what will I not be able to do? I am only looking at work such as web browsing, videos, text processing, emails and such, no gaming or video editing.

I am thinking that the only limitations would be the older mother board and CPU, which is an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz, not very good.

Thank you!

Try Ben Sovas Patcher...Download Patched sur..Open it an follow...its every step bye step easy and you will have the newest version of OS Big Sur 11.6.2..all you need is a 16gib USB stick..Let me no want happened ok!

 

[CooperBox]

Try Ben Sovas Patcher...Download Patched sur..Open it an follow...its every step bye step easy and you will have the newest version of OS Big Sur 11.6.2..all you need is a 16gib USB stick..Let me no want happened ok!

I'm a little confused by your advise as the OP is referring to his 2009 iMac. Ben Sova specifically stated, "At this point (with a 2009 iMac) it gets really confusing, and I don't have a definitive answer to whether they do or don't work. Either way, chances are your Mac will not boot with Big Sur.......etc"
Having experience with a 2009 iMac my advise is stay with High Sierra. With a good SSD and 16Gb Ram it should run very well.

 

[pshufd]

I have the exact model that you are looking at and I use it daily though I am buying a 2014 iMac 27 tomorrow morning.

I have an external USB 2.0 SSD and 16 GB of RAM and it runs High Sierra. I know that I can upgrade it to later versions using OCLP but I like the ability to use it in Target Display Mode with two of my laptops. I use the iMac for watching videos (it has better speakers than my other PC speakers), and I like the screen.

I also use it for iCloud Notes, Mail, Calendar and Reminders. I generally have four pinned tabs in Firefox and I usually have YouTube up. A bunch of YouTube tabs will cause it to really slow down. I also have an M1 mini hooked up to a 4k monitor next to it and a big Windows desktop where I run my trading programs on 2 4k monitors.

I would also like it to run Numbers but I can't download and install a version that works with High Sierra. Stuff that runs too slow on the iMac gets run on the M1 mini or Windows desktop. I use Synergy KM so that one keyboard and mouse control all three computers.

I am a big fan of what I consider a computing cluster using a couple of old, slower systems, combined to get a decent amount of work done.

The main weakness of this system is CPU performance. Geekbench 5 Multicore is 673. The i5 version has it at 1,484 and the i7 version has it at 1,827. So you get a lot more compute with the i5 and i7 models. And you can put in 32 GB of RAM.

I watch my local Craigslist market for iMacs (have been doing this for two years), looking for really good values. Really good values are gone in 1-3 hours. There was a 2013 iMac 27 for $200 two weeks ago which went really fast. There was another for $280 (had a lot of RAM) and it went fast too. There are a bunch of 2010 and 2011 iMac 27s for sale from $350 to $400 and they have been for sale for a long time. The asking prices are way too high. I saw a nice system for $285 and then looked at the CPU - it was an i3 and not that much more than the Core 2 Duo 3.06.

A lot of iMacs are coming on the market in anticipation of the Apple Silicon large iMacs. The person that I'm buying from tomorrow also listed a 2015 iMac 27 for 50% more than the 2014 that I'm buying tomorrow. The thing is that the 2014 has an i7 while the 2015 has an i5 and the i7 is significantly faster. The 2014 also has a slightly more powerful GPU. So you really need to know your specs. I have the CPU, GPU, RAM and Max RAM for many models in a spreadsheet to figure out the relative value for a deal.

You should try to be patient looking for a model as good deals are snapped up quickly while high asking prices hang around forever - you may think that they are reasonable because you see a bunch of models at those prices but they would clear if they were reasonable.

One last thing about this iMac - I use it in an unheated basement and the iMac helps to warm it up. If you put it at a high CPU load, it can get noisy. I would not recommend using it in an environment where it gets pretty hot.

 

[MBAir2010]

pshufd:​

I would also like it to run Numbers but I can't download and install a version that works with High Sierra. Stuff that runs too slow on the iMac gets run on the M1 mini or Windows desktop. I use Synergy KM so that one keyboard and mouse control all three computers.

if you have a high sierra time machine copy with pages, you can drag that to your iMac.
i needed to do this with a Mojave install from El Cap last nite that did not have pages, etc.
i can also send you a copy if i have the means, if this helps.

 

[pshufd]

pshufd:​

I would also like it to run Numbers but I can't download and install a version that works with High Sierra. Stuff that runs too slow on the iMac gets run on the M1 mini or Windows desktop. I use Synergy KM so that one keyboard and mouse control all three computers.

if you have a high sierra time machine copy with pages, you can drag that to your iMac.
i needed to do this with a Mojave install from El Cap last nite that did not have pages, etc.
i can also send you a copy if i have the means, if this helps.

I just run Numbers on the M1 mini for now and I'll have a 2014 iMac tomorrow if the deal doesn't fall through. I can even run it on the Windows desktop using Docker-OSX (Hackintosh in a Virtual Machine). I still have iLife CDs but I don't remember what was on them. I don't backup the iMac so no High Sierra Time Machine backups.

 

[MBAir2010]

I just run Numbers on the M1 mini for now and I'll have a 2014 iMac tomorrow if the deal doesn't fall through. I can even run it on the Windows desktop using Docker-OSX (Hackintosh in a Virtual Machine). I still have iLife CDs but I don't remember what was on them. I don't backup the iMac so no High Sierra Time Machine backups.

well let me know if me can provide a copy, that frustrated me in 2018 big time!
good luck on the iMac tomorrow, these  machines are fun!

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

What would limitations of a 2009 iMac with an SSD and 16GB RAM be? I would upgrade macOS (unoficially) via a patcher to Mojave. What will I be able to do, what will I not be able to do? I am only looking at work such as web browsing, videos, text processing, emails and such, no gaming or video editing.

I am thinking that the only limitations would be the older mother board and CPU, which is an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz, not very good.

Thank you!

Your GPU (probable the HD4850) would run a little hot when watching online videos at 2k solutions, as web-pages nowadays are infested with ads. Other than that, your work is fine.

 

[EugW]

What would limitations of a 2009 iMac with an SSD and 16GB RAM be? I would upgrade macOS (unoficially) via a patcher to Mojave. What will I be able to do, what will I not be able to do? I am only looking at work such as web browsing, videos, text processing, emails and such, no gaming or video editing.

I am thinking that the only limitations would be the older mother board and CPU, which is an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz, not very good.

Thank you!

In that context with your described usage, I might suggest just sticking with 10.13 High Sierra. Your primary browser would be Chrome or else Firefox, as both still officially support High Sierra. (Chrome requires 10.11 El Capitan, and Firefox requires 10.12 Sierra.) I would recommend installing AdBlock which will speed up browsing on that machine considerably.

What specifically are you looking for in Mojave?

I would also like it to run Numbers but I can't download and install a version that works with High Sierra.

If you own Numbers (even from a previous software bundle from an old purchased Mac) you can download the High Sierra version. Sign into the App Store in High Sierra and go into your list of "purchased" items in your account. In there should be Numbers. Click on it to download and it will warn you your machine is too old to run the latest version, but that you can download an older version. (AFAIK, it won't work if you try to download it from the main Numbers link page. You have to do it from your Purchased items page.)

Your GPU (probable the HD4850) would run a little hot when watching online videos at 2k solutions, as web-pages nowadays are infested with ads. Other than that, your work is fine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your taxing anything, it would mainly be the CPU.

h.264 - Runs mainly on GPU but it's hardware accelerated so it won't tax the GPU much.
VP9 - Runs on CPU and can get these old machines toasty.
HEVC - Runs on CPU, but the CPU is too slow for this.

 

[pshufd]

Your GPU (probable the HD4850) would run a little hot when watching online videos at 2k solutions, as web-pages nowadays are infested with ads. Other than that, your work is fine.

I use Ublock Origin with Firefox which helps a lot.

 

[CooperBox]

In that context with your described usage, I might suggest just sticking with 10.13 High Sierra. Your primary browser would be Chrome or else Firefox, as both still officially support High Sierra. (Chrome requires 10.11 El Capitan, and Firefox requires 10.12 Sierra.) I would recommend installing AdBlock which will speed up browsing on that machine considerably.

What specifically are you looking for in Mojave?


If you own Numbers (even from a previous software bundle from an old purchased Mac) you can download the High Sierra version. Sign into the App Store in High Sierra and go into your list of "purchased" items in your account. In there should be Numbers. Click on it to download and it will warn you your machine is too old to run the latest version, but that you can download an older version. (AFAIK, it won't work if you try to download it from the main Numbers link page. You have to do it from your Purchased items page.)


Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your taxing anything, it would mainly be the CPU.

h.264 - Runs mainly on GPU but it's hardware accelerated so it won't tax the GPU much.
VP9 - Runs on CPU and can get these old machines toasty.
HEVC - Runs on CPU, but the CPU is too slow for this.

Firstly, I personaly would not recommend using Adblock. My preference is uBlock Origin on all my Macs. It's fairly well-known that although Adblock and Adblock Plus do a reasonable job, they are heavier on system resources.
Overall uBlock Origin is the better option for most users, it automatically blocks all ads and with an older computer (such as a 2009 iMac) imho it's the best choice.
Secondly, I tend to agree with Nguyen Duc Hieu (who appears to be the reference for earlier iMacs) that watching on-line videos would tax the GPU more in terms of heat than the CPU. I recall that in one post he also advised that downclocking the GPU would give it an easier ride. For info I'd like to know if this is a hardware or software change - by flashing the card, and if the latter how that's performed.

 

[EugW]

Firstly, I personaly would not recommend using Adblock. My preference is uBlock Origin on all my Macs. It's fairly well-known that although Adblock and Adblock Plus do a reasonable job, they are heavier on system resources.
Overall uBlock Origin is the better option for most users, it automatically blocks all ads and with an older computer (such as a 2009 iMac) imho it's the best choice.

I run AdBlock on a Core 2 Duo 2.26. It’s fine performance-wise. However, if you prefer uBlock Origin, that’s fine too, and may use slightly less resources, but AdBlock vs uBlock origin is not the bottleneck. It’s more a matter of personal preference IMO.

Secondly, I tend to agree with Nguyen Duc Hieu (who appears to be the reference for earlier iMacs) that watching on-line videos would tax the GPU more in terms of heat than the CPU. I recall that in one post he also advised that downclocking the GPU would give it an easier ride. For info I'd like to know if this is a hardware or software change - by flashing the card, and if the latter how that's performed.

Which file types are you talking about?

 

[pshufd]

Brave Browser runs well on really old systems too but I just prefer Firefox. I watch videos daily on the 2009 iMac and, yes, it does get warm but I don't hear the fans just watching videos. This is running YouTube directly or watching videos that I've downloaded. I subscribe to several financial services and they produce videos daily. I download them on my M1 mini using Downie and store them on the NAS so that anyone in my household can watch them and just stream them to the 2009 iMac - that works fine too. It's already run over a decade, it will probably run for another decade.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

For info I'd like to know if this is a hardware or software change - by flashing the card, and if the latter how that's performed.

Undervolting GPU is a software solution.
You don't need to open the iMac to do, but as OS environment is Windows, you need to run Windows on your iMac.
1. Use GPU-Z or Atiflash to extract the vBIOS from the GPU.
2. Use Radeon Bios Editor to edit the vBIOS. Cutting of 5~10% of the MHz will result in drastically decrease of heat. Cutting off too much may render the system unable to boot.
3. Use Atiflash to write back the vBIOS to the GPU.

AMDVBFlash / ATI ATIFlash 5.0.567 Download

AMD AMDVBFlash is used to flash the graphics card BIOS. The version released by ATI was called ATIFlash or just WinFlash. It supports all AMD Radeo

www.techpowerup.com

TechPowerUp

RBE is a handy tool to modify several interesting parameters in ATI BIOS files (HD 6000 and earlier).

www.techpowerup.com

 

[CooperBox]

Undervolting GPU is a software solution.
You don't need to open the iMac to do, but as OS environment is Windows, you need to run Windows on your iMac.
1. Use GPU-Z or Atiflash to extract the vBIOS from the GPU.
2. Use Radeon Bios Editor to edit the vBIOS. Cutting of 5~10% of the MHz will result in drastically decrease of heat. Cutting off too much may render the system unable to boot.
3. Use Atiflash to write back the vBIOS to the GPU.

AMDVBFlash / ATI ATIFlash 5.0.567 Download

AMD AMDVBFlash is used to flash the graphics card BIOS. The version released by ATI was called ATIFlash or just WinFlash. It supports all AMD Radeo

www.techpowerup.com

TechPowerUp

RBE is a handy tool to modify several interesting parameters in ATI BIOS files (HD 6000 and earlier).

www.techpowerup.com

Thanks for this info.

 

[leolb2615]

Your primary browser would be Chrome or else Firefox, as both still officially support High Sierra.

Yes, I also have a 2010 MBA running High Sierra and Firefox, it runs great with 2GB, absolutely no complainets at all. And yes, staying on High Sierra probably is the best bet even though I was thinking about going to Catalina via Patcher because of lacking app support in terms of Office and Teams, for example. Does anyone have experience with Catalina on these old machines?

Overall uBlock Origin is the better option for most users, it automatically blocks all ads and with an older computer (such as a 2009 iMac) imho it's the best choice.

Yes, also agreed, uBlock Origin is the best choice by far in my opinion.

Your GPU (probable the HD4850) would run a little hot when watching online videos at 2k solutions, as web-pages nowadays are infested with ads. Other than that, your work is fine.

I have the GeForce 9400M and I have not experienced any problems with running video on sites like YouTube at 1080 HD. Am also able to stream via VPN on other sites and experience no problem either.

Any other tips for using High Sierra then... or experience with Catalina on a 2009?

 

[EugW]

Dunno about the C2D 2009 iMac but I backed my C2D 2008 MacBook and 2009 MacBook Pro machines back from Catalina down to High Sierra.

High Sierra feels native on my C2D Macs. Catalina felt kinda Hackintoshy. However, these are just secondary machines for us. All of our main machines are Monterey so we don’t actually need later OSes on the C2D Macs.

 

[pshufd]

Dunno about the C2D 2009 iMac but I backed my C2D 2008 MacBook and 2009 MacBook Pro machines back from Catalina down to High Sierra.

High Sierra feels native on my C2D Macs. Catalina felt kinda Hackintoshy. However, these are just secondary machines for us. All of our main machines are Monterey so we don’t actually need later OSes on the C2D Macs.

For me, TurboTax requires Catalina but I have Big Sur on my M1 mini which is my hub and so I don't have to worry about operating systems for specific software. My 2015 MacBook Pro is running Mojave as I skipped everything afterwards. I ran Monterey on an external drive and liked it but I want to wait until loaned out computers get returned to me before I decide on operating systems for my Retina MacBook Pros.

 

[leolb2615]

Yeah, well I will probably stay on High Sierra. I'll try Catalina out before as I have a Catalina USB downloader/installer, but if preformance is not like that on High Sierra I'll just restore from a backup I have.

I've seen some running the original OS X like 10,6 Snow Leopard on old iMacs like mine that would go much higher. Some also use Mavericks. But it probably is better for me to go as high as possible, like High Sierra or Catalina, right?

I have an install disk for 10,6 so installing wouldn't be a problem.

What would any advantages be when using 10,6 or 10,9 instead of High Sierra? I do not have any software that I want to use that needs PowerPC or that is 32-bit.

 

[pshufd]

Yeah, well I will probably stay on High Sierra. I'll try Catalina out before as I have a Catalina USB downloader/installer, but if preformance is not like that on High Sierra I'll just restore from a backup I have.

I've seen some running the original OS X like 10,6 Snow Leopard on old iMacs like mine that would go much higher. Some also use Mavericks. But it probably is better for me to go as high as possible, like High Sierra or Catalina, right?

I have an install disk for 10,6 so installing wouldn't be a problem.

What would any advantages be when using 10,6 or 10,9 instead of High Sierra? I do not have any software that I want to use that needs PowerPC or that is 32-bit.

Some software that you use, like web browsers, may not work with operating systems that old. There may be some convenience programs bundled into the OS that you won't find on older versions.

 

[EugW]

Yeah, well I will probably stay on High Sierra. I'll try Catalina out before as I have a Catalina USB downloader/installer, but if preformance is not like that on High Sierra I'll just restore from a backup I have.

I've seen some running the original OS X like 10,6 Snow Leopard on old iMacs like mine that would go much higher. Some also use Mavericks. But it probably is better for me to go as high as possible, like High Sierra or Catalina, right?

I have an install disk for 10,6 so installing wouldn't be a problem.

What would any advantages be when using 10,6 or 10,9 instead of High Sierra? I do not have any software that I want to use that needs PowerPC or that is 32-bit.

10.6 is essentially unusable. No support for anything in 2022. It is blistering fast though!

10.9 is also essentially unusable IMO, but others may disagree. There are lots of workarounds to get things working, but IMO it's not worth the aggravation.

I used to say 10.11 was fairly usable, but it now has issues with SSL certificates, which can cause problems for surfing, even though the OS is supported by Chrome. Again, there are workarounds, but it's not an ideal situation. There are other compatibility issues with various software too, with some applications just not supporting 10.11 at all anymore.

10.13 High Sierra is very usable. It supports current versions of both Chrome and Firefox, and it supports the APFS file system and HEIC/HEIF file formats (which current iPhones and iPads use) as well as HEVC. Speed is very good on High Sierra. Numerous current features of OS X are still fully supported on High Sierra. This is what I use on my Core 2 Duo machines now, booting in HFS+ to keep the normal boot process with dosdude's patcher for 10.13, but it has APFS support for external drives if necessary. Most software out there seems to support 10.13, although there are exceptions, so it depends on what you are using, but most of the mainstream stuff is fine on 10.13.

10.15 Catalina can be very usable, but while I don't own that specific machine, I have found that on my Core 2 Duo machines, Catalina doesn't really feel like a fully legit Mac experience. You need hacks to boot APFS and there are various things that kinda make them feel like hackintoshes. Chrome was also buggy in my case on Catalina, on both those C2D Macs, but Chrome runs perfectly on High Sierra on the same machines. My C2D machines are lower clocked than yours though at 2.0 GHz and 2.26 GHz, and they feel a bit more sluggish on Catalina than on High Sierra. They are already sluggish on High Sierra of course but it's worse on Catalina. However, I think a 3.06 GHz C2D could feel relatively OK performance-wise on Catalina.

tl;dr:

The options to try are 10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, or 10.15 Catalina, but I personally would recommend High Sierra unless there are some specific features or some specific software support you need in Mojave or Catalina.