late 2009 iMac vs 2011 iMac

[Arkious]

the iMac i have is the Late 2009 27" model with the i7 & HD3670 (I think thats right i cant rememer im at work lol).

Is there a great deal difference between the newest imac and what i have apart from the GPU and new thunderbolt port?

im going to fit a blu-ray player and 8GB 1333MHz RAM (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Komputerbay-SODIMM-1333Mhz-Heatsink-cooling/dp/B0031GI958) to my imac at the end of the month and was just wondering if its worth selling and upgrading. i was just ready to spend the extra few ££ on upgrading the GPU as i dont raelly have a use for the thunderbolt as i want to upgrade to an internal SSD and use my Time Capsule for storing all videos, songs, pictures etc

 

[Arkious]

4850 sorry

 

[mpe]

the iMac i have is the Late 2009 27" model with the i7 & HD3670 (I think thats right i cant rememer im at work lol). with 8gb upgraded 1333mhz ram.

Is there a great deal difference between the newest imac and what i have apart from the GPU and new thunderbolt port?

im going to fit a blu-ray player to my imac at the end of the month and was just wondering if its worth selling and upgrading. i was just ready to spend the extra few ££ on upgrading the GPU as i dont raelly have a use for the thunderbolt as i want to upgrade to an internal SSD and use my Time Capsule for storing all videos, songs, pictures etc

If you have high-end 2009 configuration with i7 CPU then there is no reason for upgrade. Even Radeon 4850 is quite powerful for vast majority of games.

If you have skills to upgrade internal drive for SSD, go for it (it is not as easy though). It would make your computer much faster. I would rather use external fw800 drive instad of time capsule because of performance.

 

[Arkious]

If you have high-end 2009 configuration with i7 CPU then there is no reason for upgrade. Even Radeon 4850 is quite powerful for vast majority of games.

If you have skills to upgrade internal drive for SSD, go for it (it is not as easy though). It would make your computer much faster. I would rather use external fw800 drive instad of time capsule because of performance.

yeah i maxed out what i could get on the iMac when i bought it. im a mainteance technician by trade and was well into modding my PC in the day so im iching to have a go (smash goes the screen haha).

Ive just been comparing chips and there not a great deal different apart from the dmi? and that its 32nm rather than 45nm.

as for the time capsule, its the 1TB one, is that hard drive the same as the standard one inside my iMac? I want to have all my music/ videos on the time capsule so that the Apple TV can just stream them directly (the time capsule is like a mini server there great!)

surely there wouldnt be anything noticable when streaming HD videos over Wi-Fi?

 

[Spadoinkles]

Hey there.
I stream HD video from my Macs to my PS3 into my TV in the lounge via wireless-G and it's pretty great!! A bit of audio loss but nonetheless... my home theatre seems to cover it up.

Really pointless to upgrade. I'd say your Mac is good to go until haswell/rockwell unless you're waaay up there in hardout video-intensive productions or some ridiculous gamer, in which case you probably shouldn't have bought an iMac anyway.

 

[Arkious]

yeah exactly. the only thing i never liked when i bought the imac was the graphics card, the ability to upgrade though makes me smile. i know it comes with a price but i cant see it costing more than £250 for an upgrade graphics and then just flog the old one for a bit. i just need to find out where the heck to buy the upgrade lol

wouldnt mind getting the HD facetime cam fitted too lol

 

[Spadoinkles]

Heh.
1. Pretty hard to replace your graphics. You need to remove your logic board, which voids warranty and literally makes screen replacement impossible (to get it pinpoint accurate anyway)

2. M graphics are so rare and overpriced, you might as well buy another iMac

Other than that though. I wouldn't expect resale values to be so good and see my iMac as a thunderbolt 27" IPS display after a good 4-5 years of thorough use

 

[tsugaru]

Mine (2009 iMac) is being replaced by Apple.

I do play games, so the 2GB 6970m will be a nice step up from the 512MB 4850m.

Seeing how as Apple decided to put a stonking 3.7M pixels in front of your face, they should have put more VRAM in the thing in the beginning.

Mostly though, the jump from Nehalem to Sandy Bridge is quite a good one. A hefty jump in performance in the same, and sometimes, lower, power envelope is good enough for me.

And the return of jumbo frames makes me happy. Still boggles me why Apple decided to cheap out and use a NIC that didn't offer it in the P55 series iMacs, when previous generations (nForce based, initial Intel iMacs) offered it.

 

[Arkious]

How is it being replaced by apple? Replaced for a 2011?

 

[Jony Mac]

I'm actually looking to buy an iMac now, but Im debating should i go with the new model, or get one of the 2009 or 2010 refurbs.

I'm upgrading (giving my wife my MacBook '09) so going from a C2D to any of these should be an improvement, but I'm not sure what to do.

The '10 mode is now $929 as a refurb for the i3 model..that seems tempting. Is there really that much more performance on the '11 models that makes it worth just going to the latest release?

 

[makingmusic]

Other than that though. I wouldn't expect resale values to be so good and see my iMac as a thunderbolt 27" IPS display after a good 4-5 years of thorough use

I have the same system as the poster and would love the new system. Can get more from Apple ReUse program than my usual source. Not sure I need the new model or just would like the newest model. SSD might improve speed?

 

[Spadoinkles]

I have the same system as the poster and would love the new system. Can get more from Apple ReUse program than my usual source. Not sure I need the new model or just would like the newest model. SSD might improve speed?

So marginally I wouldn't justify the cost of it right now. + SSD prices are tumbling...