Is a 2011 A1311 EMC 2428 worth buying?

[Oldmopars]

I have the option of buying a 2011 A1311 EMC 2428 iMac. It is the i7 2.8GHz with the Radeon HD6770M, 1TB HDD and 4GB RAM.
I already have a few other computers, so it is really not needed. But, for the price $30, it is really tempting.
Is it upgraded as far as it can go as is, or is there more that can be done to it?
Is this the kind with a removable glass screen or the ones that are glued down?
Looks like it comes with 4gb RAM, it it able to be upgraded to more, or is the CPU limited to that?
It just seems like a fun project for $30. I suppose worse case, I have a NUC and an Optiplex 3090 that are both much newer and very small. I could get an adapter for the screen and put the guts from one of those inside.

 

[russell_314]

Maybe turn it into a kitchen TV. It can’t be that hard to gut it and put a TV tuner inside.

 

[gymrat2k]

From https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...inch-aluminum-mid-2011-thunderbolt-specs.html

"Officially, this model supports four 4 GB modules -- one in each slot for a maximum of 16 GB of memory. However, third-parties have discovered that it actually will support 32 GB of memory using four 8 GB modules."

 

[Oldmopars]

Well, it may have been a dumb idea, but I bought it. $30 free shipping. I figure I can always sell it local and get my money back.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Maybe turn it into a kitchen TV. It can’t be that hard to gut it and put a TV tuner inside.

I think you can do it on software base TV turner app and Internet connection, rather than modding a TV turner and aerial antenna/cable. Am I wrong?

 

[Terraaustralis]

An ideal Mac model for graphic designers wishing to run Adobe creative suite 5 or 6 on Lion, Yosamite or later.

 

[Oldmopars]

So, I did buy it and I got it going. It was sold on Ebay from a Goodwill in Florida. $30 including shipping. When I got it, I powered it on and there was no OS. So, I started with Mt Lion and moved it up to Monterey. However the screen would flash and it was clear the GPU was not good.
I removed it, baked it at 375 for 10 minutes and put it back in. It is now working perfectly.
I kind of fell in love with it, but really wanted the bigger screen. So, I think I am going to give this one to my wife, as I just bought a 27in off Ebay for $90.

 

[carl varley]

So, I did buy it and I got it going. It was sold on Ebay from a Goodwill in Florida. $30 including shipping. When I got it, I powered it on and there was no OS. So, I started with Mt Lion and moved it up to Monterey. However the screen would flash and it was clear the GPU was not good.
I removed it, baked it at 375 for 10 minutes and put it back in. It is now working perfectly.
I kind of fell in love with it, but really wanted the bigger screen. So, I think I am going to give this one to my wife, as I just bought a 27in off Ebay for $90.

These iMacs are still very usable and fun to tinker with. I had two until recently, I installed macOS 14 using OCLP and kept High Sierra for dual boot and it runs really well. One other plus is that they can run MacOS all the way back to Snow Leopard and rosetta can be installed ( at least it used to be available to downloaded ) great for PPC compatibility. Should also mention that these iMacs have Target display mode, which can still be handy.

These can be upgraded quite easily. I put a 512 SSD and swapped out the 2.7 i5 for a xeon ( 1270 from what I remember). It is just like the i7 2700 but without the intel graphics and cost around £10. Enjoy! They are a great machine!