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Looking for an iMac for my dad

M

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 4, 2008
5,682
277
My baby boomer dad's iMac G5 has probably bitten the dust. Therefore, I'm going to get him one of the new ones and was hoping someone else here had used the new models and could give some input.

I'm going to get him one of the 21.5" models. I just want to know if the extra 500GB of hard disk and the video card upgrade are worth $150 more -- I'm going on education pricing. I'm pretty sure they are, but I know nothing about the video adapter used in the higher model -- the ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. I notice that it has dedicated memory instead of shared memory, which I know is a plus. I was just hoping for input.

If you know of anything else I can look for when tricking the machine out, let me know. I don't see anything worth the upgrade except changing to a wired keyboard with the numeric keypad and maybe adding a remote. Thanks for the help!
 
I would probably get the upgrade, as it will further the "future Proof" the computer. I remember when i bought my MBP as was telling myself that i would never fill up 250GBs.. my iTunes library is 85GB...

What are his uses on the computer? Look at it like this. If you are getting the student discount, than it is like you paying for the specs you want, and getting the add-ons for free (the card and upgraded storage)..
 
HBOC said:
I would probably get the upgrade, as it will further the "future Proof" the computer. I remember when i bought my MBP as was telling myself that i would never fill up 250GBs.. my iTunes library is 85GB...

What are his uses on the computer? Look at it like this. If you are getting the student discount, than it is like you paying for the specs you want, and getting the add-ons for free (the card and upgraded storage)..
Click to expand...

He uses it a lot to browse Web sites for stuff like football recruiting, watch videos in the same genre, e-mail stuff, and for listening to his old school music. That's why he wasn't in a hurry to upgrade from his G5 until it went kaput this morning with the same issue he had a couple of years ago that took weeks to fix.

When I can teach him better, he's going to take home videos on VHS and put them either on DVD or in mpeg video format. He's also got the hardware to do the same with old LPs into mp3/aac.
 
marcin0903 said:
So if G5 was enough for him, it's not necesarry to upgrade gpu and storage :).
Click to expand...

Well, "enough" as in he wasn't ready to rush out and spend money on a new computer as if his life depended on it. There's always something new in the next update, so I always advised him to think about that. The G5 got the job done, but it could be slow as molasses when opening iPhoto and when loading some Web sites. My C2D MacBook Pro is obviously faster at the same tasks.

I ended up going with the better GPU and doubled the HDD. It was still less than he spent on the G5 more than 4 years ago.
 
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