iMac Upgrade

[volley13]

hello,

I have a mid-2007 that I'd like to upgrade as a backup desktop. It's a 20", with a 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. For memory, it has 5 GB667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. I'm looking for confirmation that I can upgrade to either 6 or 8 GB of memory, and whether it's worth it to upgrade the processor, if possible.

thanks....

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, you can upgrade memory to 6 GB. Probably not worth doing that if you have 5 GB now.
As is usual in these forums - your best update is swapping a hard drive for an SSD.

Maybe someone else will add some info about a CPU upgrade

 

[velocityg4]

CPU: You can upgrade to a Penryn CPU which will enable you to patch it for later versions of macOS. Must be Penryn, Socket P. https://lowendmac.com/2018/penryn-t9300-9500-cpu-upgrades-for-the-2007-imac/

GPU: You can upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT. Must be for iMac from Apple.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/315773/GPU+Upgrade+for+20"+iMac+(mid+2007)

RAM: Officially it only supports 4GB but you can push it to 6GB. Although it would be absurd to buy new RAM. Since a 2GB module is dirt cheap used.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/Intel_Core_2_Duo

HDD: You can replace the HDD with a 2.5" SATA SSD. You'll also want a properly aligned 2.5 to 3.5 adapter.
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Adapte...d_r=ZB6GQ89VAJS33TJ9TH6C&psc=1&qid=1583876250

The question is how much do you want to spend? It's woefully obsolete. At it's age any component could fail. Every once in a while you can get a 2011 working for $150 and a 2012 for $250. Although they are hard to come by at those prices.

 

[volley13]

Thanks all for the input. Yeah, not looking to spend too much. I have a 2016 27" iMac as the primary; this one, I'm just not ready to get rid of it. My wife would like to use it more in her office instead of her MacBook pro all the time. It's running Yosemite, it's just a little slow, even with a wired connection.

 

[r6mile]

RAM and CPU will give you a marginal improvement at best, probably not worth it. An SSD will feel transformative, and they are dirt cheap at the moment. You can so install OSX El Capitan officially - I remember that being a better OS than Yosemite anyway.

 

[Nunon311]

CPU: You can upgrade to a Penryn CPU which will enable you to patch it for later versions of macOS. Must be Penryn, Socket P. https://lowendmac.com/2018/penryn-t9300-9500-cpu-upgrades-for-the-2007-imac/

GPU: You can upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 2600XT. Must be for iMac from Apple.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/315773/GPU+Upgrade+for+20"+iMac+(mid+2007)

RAM: Officially it only supports 4GB but you can push it to 6GB. Although it would be absurd to buy new RAM. Since a 2GB module is dirt cheap used.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac/Intel_Core_2_Duo

HDD: You can replace the HDD with a 2.5" SATA SSD. You'll also want a properly aligned 2.5 to 3.5 adapter.
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Adapte...d_r=ZB6GQ89VAJS33TJ9TH6C&psc=1&qid=1583876250

The question is how much do you want to spend? It's woefully obsolete. At it's age any component could fail. Every once in a while you can get a 2011 working for $150 and a 2012 for $250. Although they are hard to come by at those prices.

Hi,
I'm looking into upgrading my mid 2007 24" iMac too but need some help....
i have 4GB RAM 667Mhz installed already, but Ive learned i can upgrade it to 6GB.
In the Hardware Overview it says the bus speed is 800Mhz. does that mean that i can upgrade the RAM to 6GB DDR2 SDRAM 800 MHz instead of 6GB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz?
If yes, is there a big difference in performance?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, you can upgrade the RAM to 6GB. It's likely that PC2-6400 (800 MHz) RAM should work.
The biggest question would be value of that upgrade. The 4GB PC2-5300 (or PC2-6400) is often more expensive than the small increase in total RAM installed that you receive. If you can find that for a good price, then get it.
But, as usual, the more significant upgrade is replacing a spinning hard drive with an SSD, particularly if you already have 4GB of RAM installed. IMHO, you won't have any noticeable change in performance by upgrading from 4GB to 6GB, even if you choose the slightly faster RAM (and assuming your iMac actually upclocks to the faster RAM speed. You would have to test that out.) Measureable? probably. But, noticeably faster in any real-world way? That's doubtful, particularly if you compare to the change when you have an SSD, which affects most everything that you do

 

[Nunon311]

Yes, you can upgrade the RAM to 6GB. It's likely that PC2-6400 (800 MHz) RAM should work.
The biggest question would be value of that upgrade. The 4GB PC2-5300 (or PC2-6400) is often more expensive than the small increase in total RAM installed that you receive. If you can find that for a good price, then get it.
But, as usual, the more significant upgrade is replacing a spinning hard drive with an SSD, particularly if you already have 4GB of RAM installed. IMHO, you won't have any noticeable change in performance by upgrading from 4GB to 6GB, even if you choose the slightly faster RAM (and assuming your iMac actually upclocks to the faster RAM speed. You would have to test that out.) Measureable? probably. But, noticeably faster in any real-world way? That's doubtful, particularly if you compare to the change when you have an SSD, which affects most everything that you do

Thx DeltaMac.
you're right. The 4GB RAM is expensive, specially here in Europe. OWC as a reasonably priced one, but the shipping costs me an arm and a leg.... Going to stick with the SSD upgrade. I also got a Penryn-based Core 2 Duo T9300 CPU so that i can use a Catalina Patcher and that way get Catalina running on this old iMac.... Worth a try?What do you think?
quick question, in the system report it says BUS speed 800Mhz, is that refering to the maximum RAM speed it can run?
Thank you so much!!!

 

[DeltaMac]

...
quick question, in the system report it says BUS speed 800Mhz, is that refering to the maximum RAM speed it can run?
Thank you so much!!!

No, that's the system bus, not the RAM, or memory bus. Related, but system bus speed doesn't really tell you much about memory chip compatibility.
Some computers can run slightly faster RAM than the original specs. It depends on the particular chipset whether the higher speed is recognized (or is simply clocked down the the proper speed by the memory controller) Some chipsets can accept, and run the memory at the higher speed, and it also depends to some extent on the design of the individual memory stick.
bottom line: the memory speed depends on more than just the speed of the memory stick that you might use. I think the only thing you can be sure of, is that memory, with the correct specs, should work correctly. If you try outside of those specs, then you can usually expect a good result, and the memory works. Beyond that, all you can do is try it to see if it works.
Your best choice: use memory that is within published specs for your Mac.

 

[Nunon311]

No, that's the system bus, not the RAM, or memory bus. Related, but system bus speed doesn't really tell you much about memory chip compatibility.
Some computers can run slightly faster RAM than the original specs. It depends on the particular chipset whether the higher speed is recognised (or is simply clocked down the the proper speed by the memory controller) Some chipsets can accept, and run the memory at the higher speed, and it also depends to some extent on the design of the individual memory stick.
bottom line: the memory speed depends on more than just the speed of the memory stick that you might use. I think the only thing you can be sure of, is that memory, with the correct specs, should work correctly. If you try outside of those specs, then you can usually expect a good result, and the memory works. Beyond that, all you can do is try it to see if it works.
Your best choice: use memory that is within published specs for your Mac.

Again, thank you for the crash course in iMacs. I don't think I'm doing the RAM upgrade any time soon thou... Unless i find a dirt cheap deal down the line... What i can tell is, last night, I did the SSD upgrade as per your recommendation and let me tell you... WOW! I even got one of those childish smirks on my face!!! LOL! What a massive difference in speed...! ...Thank you again!
Without wanting to abuse of your kindness, regarding that Catalina Patcher I mentioned, have you heard about it? Is it something you'd recommend?
i already bought the CPU upgrade...
Also, i read about swapping the useless optical drive for a 2nd SSD, but, this iMac being mid 2007, the optical drive connection is a PATA instead of SATA which apparently is much slower than SATA.... Is there a way to somehow get a 2nd SSD in there not using PATA?

Catalina Patcher instructions:

 

[DeltaMac]

The PATA optical drive uses a different connector. You need an ATA to SATA adapter, which has the electronics on the adapter to change the SATA drive to connect to the IDE/ATA bus in the iMac.

Yes, if you have already upgraded the CPU to a Penryn series CPU, dosdude1's Catalina Patcher app should work, as your iMac7,1 with upgrade CPU is specifically mentioned -- without that (or one of a couple of other "patching" options) you are stuck on El Capitan. I have used dosdude1's patcher a couple of times on different Macs. It does what it says it will do.

 

[Nunon311]

The PATA optical drive uses a different connector. You need an ATA to SATA adapter, which has the electronics on the adapter to change the SATA drive to connect to the IDE/ATA bus in the iMac.

Yes, if you have already upgraded the CPU to a Penryn series CPU, dosdude1's Catalina Patcher app should work, as your iMac7,1 with upgrade CPU is specifically mentioned -- without that (or one of a couple of other "patching" options) you are stuck on El Capitan. I have used dosdude1's patcher a couple of times on different Macs. It does what it says it will do.

Got it! I undesrstand the speed would be much slower than SATA?

 

[DeltaMac]

That would depend on what you would be using for an SATA drive.
Ultimately, you would be limited by the speed of the ATA bus on that 2007 iMac.
The fastest ATA bus is 133 MB/s. Your iMac will operate at ATA-33 or ATA-66 (66 MB/s), but actual drive throughput, even if connected at 66 MB/s, would be maxed out at probably 45-50 MB/s - if you are lucky. And, way less than the potential throughput that you might see for an SATA drive of probably a max of just over 500 MB/s (6.0 Gbit/s bus).

So, an SSD might be slowed down to 25%, maybe even just 10%, of the speed that you would see on a "real" SATA bus.

 

[Nunon311]

thx!

 

[Berenod]

Again, thank you for the crash course in iMacs. I don't think I'm doing the RAM upgrade any time soon thou... Unless i find a dirt cheap deal down the line... What i can tell is, last night, I did the SSD upgrade as per your recommendation and let me tell you... WOW! I even got one of those childish smirks on my face!!! LOL! What a massive difference in speed...! ...Thank you again!
Without wanting to abuse of your kindness, regarding that Catalina Patcher I mentioned, have you heard about it? Is it something you'd recommend?
i already bought the CPU upgrade...
Also, i read about swapping the useless optical drive for a 2nd SSD, but, this iMac being mid 2007, the optical drive connection is a PATA instead of SATA which apparently is much slower than SATA.... Is there a way to somehow get a 2nd SSD in there not using PATA?

Catalina Patcher instructions:

Regarding the Catalina patcher, I am not sure it's worth it on a machine with a graphics card without metal support.

I recently bought a 2nd hand 2011 21.5" iMac, which is several generations faster then your 24" and it had Catalina running on it, and it ran like a dog.
According to the video you posted it should run smooth, but that one sure as hell didn't, but since I didn't do that upgrade myself I have no idea if it was caused by badly doing the patch, or that the machine simply is not up to it.

In general it seems that most people wanting to run Catalina, also do the graphics card update (see what I guess is one of the longest threads on this forum). And that is a rather expensive route with ********s of hurdles to make it work properly.

That said, with the support for High Sierra coming to an end on 30/11/2020, and me having a still perfectly smooth running high end (back in the day anyway) 2011 27" model with all regular upgrades done like SSD etc, I might have a go trying to patch that one to Catalina on an external drive installed OS (so i don't mess up my HS current installation) and see how it performs.

Fact is that running a patched OS on a non supported mac, leaves you open to constantly run into strange issues.
The Zoom video conferencing software is one of those, Dosdude did create a seperate patch to make that particular software work on non-metal card macs, but there are likely many more programs where you potentially run into issues with.

 

[Nunon311]

Thx!
According to DosDude, this iMac is actually the only 2007 machine that can handle the patcher, providing you do a CPU upgrade to a Penryn-based Core 2 Duo, such as a T9300 ( got it for 16 Eur). Did the SSD upgrade already and boy this fossil can run now...Might do the RAM later coz the diff in speed is not noticeable....
So in your case, you going to have to upgrade the GPU in both 2011 iMacs?

I might have a go trying to patch that one to Catalina on an external drive installed OS

Now, this is a great idea. Didn't think of that. thx!
Now, check this guy doing the exact same upgrade to the same machine. End result looks pretty good, and Im not going to use mega heavy apps. just light use. Don't really use zoom either on this one...
For bigger jobs i just use my 2019 macbook pro. theres not much i trow at it that it cant handle....
check it out:

also watching this guy handling the process was great! sounds Russian!
Thx again!

 

[ECONORAM]

That would depend on what you would be using for an SATA drive.
Ultimately, you would be limited by the speed of the ATA bus on that 2007 iMac.
The fastest ATA bus is 133 MB/s. Your iMac will operate at ATA-33 or ATA-66 (66 MB/s), but actual drive throughput, even if connected at 66 MB/s, would be maxed out at probably 45-50 MB/s - if you are lucky. And, way less than the potential throughput that you might see for an SATA drive of probably a max of just over 500 MB/s (6.0 Gbit/s bus).

So, an SSD might be slowed down to 25%, maybe even just 10%, of the speed that you would see on a "real" SATA bus.

SSDs were a bit pricey when I upgraded, so I bought a 10k rpm Velociraptor drive. That with a T9300, and 6GB RAM this 2007 runs great. Although, when I installed High Sierra via the patcher, it seemed to be a little quirky. El Capitan runs well. Maybe I should run a speed test, but I don't have any of those apps.

 

[mdgm]

That said, with the support for High Sierra coming to an end on 30/11/2020, and me having a still perfectly smooth running high end (back in the day anyway) 2011 27" model with all regular upgrades done like SSD etc, I might have a go trying to patch that one to Catalina on an external drive installed OS (so i don't mess up my HS current installation) and see how it performs.

There is no graphical acceleration for the stock card in that iMac so it will perform very poorly on anything newer than High Sierra. Someone did claim to have written some 3rd party drivers for it, but those drivers haven't appeared so probably don't exist.