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Now or Wait for Snow? Plus, other questions on upgrading

R

RogueHero

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 30, 2009
4
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I've been wanting to get a new iMac for ages now. I currently have a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 iMac with 1 GB of RAM. It's been good to me these past seven years, but I need something more powerful as I'm starting work on a documentary series soon and my computer is showing it's age as it struggles to keep up with videos. My main question is this: I plan to get the 24-inch 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac (the current top of the line iMac), but should I wait until Snow Leopard is released or just get it now? Some are saying Snow Leopard might be out in the Fall now, which is too long of a wait, but June would work. The other dilemma is that there are talks of a Quad Processor for the iMac to be released later this year. How big of a performance increase will there be with the Quad vs. the Duo I'm interested in? Basically in short, if I get the new iMac today, how much will kick myself for not waiting until later this year?

How big of a pain would it be to upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6? I've upgraded my iMac from 10.2 to 10.4, but when I did that, I opted for the reformat and started from scratch.

I also have some questions about transferring stuff from an old Mac to a new one. I have an iPod Touch and I've bought several apps for it. How would I go about transferring all of my iTunes stuff, music library's included, to a new Mac? I kind of like keeping track of my play counts. Oh, and how would I transfer my iCal events and Safari and Firefox bookmarks?

Anyway, I think that's all of my questions. Thank you in advance to anyone who offers his or her advice.
 
There's always the question of buy now or wait for something better. How much would it be to max out the memory in your g4, and maybe put in a faster rpm hard drive? This may squeeze a little extra life out of your current rig until you can see about 10.5.6.

OTOH, there's no doubt that the current iMac will run rings around the G4 PM. If you're getting paid to work on the video, pull up some benchmarks on the two systems and figure out how much time the current system will save you. Figure out how much your time is worth, and see how long the new iMac will pay for itself.

Trying to make current decisions on future events that may or may not happen will drive you mad. We can't compare current systems with chips that haven't shipped yet. Snow Leopard may be the greatest thing since sliced bread, or it may turn out that it will benefit only certain applications. Your software manufacturer may have upgrades immediately to 10.6, or it may take weeks or months to happen.

You'll have to do the math, and make the decision. Good luck with your choice.
 
RogueHero said:
I also have some questions about transferring stuff from an old Mac to a new one. I have an iPod Touch and I've bought several apps for it. How would I go about transferring all of my iTunes stuff, music library's included, to a new Mac? I kind of like keeping track of my play counts. Oh, and how would I transfer my iCal events and Safari and Firefox bookmarks?

Anyway, I think that's all of my questions. Thank you in advance to anyone who offers his or her advice.
Click to expand...

Migration Assistant should be the easiest way (hook the two machines with a FW cable).... if it's not, I'm sure some kind sould will say I'm an idiot for suggesting it ;)
 
You'll be happy you waited, and if you can wait, you'll be especially glad if you buy right after the update. If you can't wait, then I guess you can't... June is not that far off, neither is August. :cool:
 
I believe that they will preview Snow Leopard in June, but I don't think they will release it quite that early. Probably around August.
 
Honestly I think you should get it. Yes August is only 5 months away but if this is for work and you really cant use your computer I would recommend updating. And playing the wait game could get you dizzy. I wanted to buy a new iMac last Fall and someone told me to wait because they were going to update the entire line so I did. Then I figured, well now I will wait until Snow Leopard comes out, but instead I bought one last week. I could keep waiting for the next rumor forever. You could always just get one now, read the reviews and see if it's worth it to you, and then upgrade. Appleinsider.com has a link to clubmac's 3% off of on all iMacs, deal ends today and will not be renewed. 24" 3.06GHz for only $1,955.42. Good luck.
 
"if you need it now, get it now"
The above is a very solid piece of advice that you should pay attention to.


If snow leopard comes in June like people say, let's be realistic and say it'll take about a year(when 10.6.1 or 10.6.2 comes out) before snow leopard becomes very solid for production work.

if by then you feel it is worth upgrading do it. The machine you buy today won't have any issues running snow. And you'll have an entire year of productivity.

but of course if your new machine is just going to sit around collecting dust, then you are better off just waiting.
 
Get the Mini now with a ultra cheap monitor. It will run rings around your G4. Then when it snows in August with new iMacs and Snow Leopard then sell your Mac Mini and get your iMac with 4 cores.
 
Thanks

Thank you everyone. I am just going to go forward with getting the new iMac now. It will run circles around my current computer, my mine was pretty good with handling Final Cut. I figured that the quad would cost a lot more and I could wait until 10.6.1 to upgrade.

Though, I still need help on transferring my iTunes and iPod Touch stuff over. Know of a guide or another topic somewhere you could point me towards?
 
BornAgainMac said:
Get the Mini now with a ultra cheap monitor. It will run rings around your G4. Then when it snows in August with new iMacs and Snow Leopard then sell your Mac Mini and get your iMac with 4 cores.
Click to expand...

This is the route I went. Got a mini, put 4GB of ram in it, bought a 22" cheap Acer TN panel ($150) I'll hold on to this until the Quad iMacs come out (even if it is the middle of 2010 or 2011). Sell the Mini and put it towards the new AEBS or Time Capsule to go with my new 24" iMac. :D
 
I have one more question. On the Final Cut Studio page it says: "Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors"

And on the iMac there are these options:

# NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512MB
# ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB

Which one should I pick or will FCP not work on the iMac?
 
If it's not user upgradeable, and I don't think it is, then pick the best performing part, which is supposed to be the 4850. So far I haven't seen any reviews comparing to the GT 130, how much better is it, we don't know.
 
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