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Life span of this iMac prediction?

E

ezatech

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 1, 2011
24
0
3.4Ghz Quad-Core i7
2 TB Hard Drive (+ 2TB Back up Drive)
16 GB DDR 3 1333Mhz ram
2 GB Radeon Graphics Card
27 inch iMac

Would it be unreasonable to think that this piece of hardware could last 10 years and still do tasks quite well?

(obviously not gaming) but i mean for general use plus some video, web design, photo editing purposes.

How long would you think this system would last?
 
I've got a 10 year old ibook and it continues to function. What you'll find is that over time, the software companies will stop supporting their products on your aging machine so in 10 years you'll be using mostly legacy software......which may or may not be fine for your needs
 
erockza said:
3.4Ghz Quad-Core i7
2 TB Hard Drive (+ 2TB Back up Drive)
16 GB DDR 3 1333Mhz ram
2 GB Radeon Graphics Card
27 inch iMac

Would it be unreasonable to think that this piece of hardware could last 10 years and still do tasks quite well?

(obviously not gaming) but i mean for general use plus some video, web design, photo editing purposes.

How long would you think this system would last?
Click to expand...

This will be fast enough for a long time. I actually just ordered the same build except with 1TB hard drive (will add SSD myself) and 4GB Ram (will upgrade ram self also). I am a heavy user with photoshop, lightroom and adobe after affects. With thunderbolt it will make add on's limitless, (hopefully).
 
erockza said:
3.4Ghz Quad-Core i7
2 TB Hard Drive (+ 2TB Back up Drive)
16 GB DDR 3 1333Mhz ram
2 GB Radeon Graphics Card
27 inch iMac

Would it be unreasonable to think that this piece of hardware could last 10 years and still do tasks quite well?

(obviously not gaming) but i mean for general use plus some video, web design, photo editing purposes.

How long would you think this system would last?
Click to expand...

Performance-wise it will easily be enough for 6+ years, but I wouldn't count on it lasting 10 years. The reasonable life time of a machine is the duration of its warranty, which is 3 years with Apple Care. After these three years, I would strongly advice you to dump it and get a new one. Realistically, it should hold for at least 5 years before it fails, but it very well might fail before then. Hardware is unpredictable. Also, the HDD is bound to fail within 6-7 years, and you know how much it costs to replace a HDD on an iMac, don't you?

If I might suggest something: get the iMac and sell it after 2-3 years. You will easily get at least 60% of the original value, maybe more (Macs have very high resale value). If the machine costs 3000 (whatever your currency is) new and you sell it for 1500 after three years, you have effectively payed 40 per month, which is less than the cost of your average internet subscription. After that, buy yourself a new latest and greatest machine, rinse and repeat. I have been doing this for 4 years now, selling my machine after 1 year and getting a new one, and I was always able to get at least 80% of the original value back, which resulted in laughable monthly usage cost. This way, you *always* have a latest and greatest machine under warranty and still have minimal expenses. Bottom-line: never own a computer beyond its warranty, if something happens and it breaks down, the repair costs will kill you (especially with macs).
 
While the hardware might last ten years I'm not sure about the software. If after ten years there's some legacy support for software you should be able to surf the web or use it for e-mail at least.
 
10 years..is really pushing it....

i have a G3 ibook from 2001...and although fun to play with...for day to day use it would be painful...

were as i have a imac from 2006 that im using now (2.0,1 gig ram,160hd,snow leopard...could upgrade ram and run lion),and it works great...

so maybe figure 5-7 years
 
....and I have my only machine G4 eMac which I've had for about 15 years...love the quality of the screen...going to upgrade soon...but hard to put dear old eMac away...;)
 
i dont know if possible to last 10 years man..
I hope for u but maybe in 10 years technology will be far away from what is now..
i got my imac 21.5 base model this year and im hopping to kepp it 3 to 4 years..:)
 
nedlah said:
....and I have my only machine G4 eMac which I've had for about 15 years...love the quality of the screen...going to upgrade soon...but hard to put dear old eMac away...;)
Click to expand...

the G4 emac wasn't released until 2002 so yours can't be 15 years old!

It was a great machine in its day though.
 
The problem you will have is Apple's lack of legacy support for the operating system. Unlike Microsoft, which support it's OS for over 10 years (XP come to mind). Apple only support OS that is couple of generations old, and those OS will have minimum hardware requirements that are unlikely to support any Apple machines older than 6 years.

I'd suggest you look to run the imac for 5-6 years maximum.
 
My main desktop is an iMac mid 2007 and its honestly no different in speed to the the most recent Macs I have worked on.. Also Have a 20" iMac G5 with 2TB as storage for all data photos etc going strong working side by side with my iMac 2007 .... obviously its been left way in the past but perfect for what I need it to do!
 
going with no SSD makes this system slow and outdated day 1. Throw in an SSD and you should easily make it last 5 years. Then upgrade to a larger/faster SSD at that time and pull another couple years out of it I would imagine.
 
Absolutely agree SSD was the first thing I did with it, As its the mid 2007 it has an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB so its incredibly smooth on Mavericks and I really am pleased with it, I also have a macbook pro 2010 and again SSD was a must.. Battery life almost doubled!
 
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