Old 20" iMac and new 27" iMac

[Sapphire08]

I've had my 20" iMac for just over 3 years (I love it to bits but I need a bit more power, waiting for spreadsheets to open takes soo long, beach ball during safari use with lots of multi-tasking and wanting to play better games) and i'm thinking of buying a new 27" iMac - is it possible to use the 20" as a second monitor for the new one?

I'm so use to dual screens that I couldn't go back to 1 monitor although I'm hoping the bigger one will be better for screen real estate, although other threads lead me to wonder about the 27" being too big???

If i can't use it - i'm wondering about making into a server so that other users in the house can share documents and software - is that possible?

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts, comments, suggestions and help please?

PS I tried using my Mac book pro with 2nd monitor for a little extra power but the fan noise drives me to distraction after the nearly silent operation of my iMac

 

[piatti]

27 is pretty slow too. Buying a MacBook Air and then using the 20'' as a display might work better. Or if you increase the RAM of the 20''.

 

[Sapphire08]

I've already upgraded the Ram to max spec set my Apple.

In the nicest possible way how can a 1.7ghz macbook air with a second monitor possibly compare to a 3.1ghz 27" iMac ??

Are really telling me that a new 1.7ghz macbook air is going to be more powerful than my old 2.4ghz iMac??

 

[Ayemerica]

I've had my 20" iMac for just over 3 years (I love it to bits but I need a bit more power, waiting for spreadsheets to open takes soo long, beach ball during safari use with lots of multi-tasking and wanting to play better games) and i'm thinking of buying a new 27" iMac - is it possible to use the 20" as a second monitor for the new one?

I'm so use to dual screens that I couldn't go back to 1 monitor although I'm hoping the bigger one will be better for screen real estate, although other threads lead me to wonder about the 27" being too big???

If i can't use it - i'm wondering about making into a server so that other users in the house can share documents and software - is that possible?

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts, comments, suggestions and help please?

PS I tried using my Mac book pro with 2nd monitor for a little extra power but the fan noise drives me to distraction after the nearly silent operation of my iMac

i think you have a 2008 iMac which runs off the Core 2 duo processor. the new i5's and i7's are around 30% faster. i Have a 2010 imac and a 2011 mac mini and multi tasking is a breez.

 

[AdrianK]

Are really telling me that a new 1.7ghz macbook air is going to be more powerful than my old 2.4ghz iMac??

CPU wise, yes. Your iMac scores 3338 in geekbench, while a 13" i5 2011 MBA scores 5349. The Core2Duo to Core i step-up was substantial, and the sandy bridge CPUs were also a massive improvement from the previous generation.

 

[Sapphire08]

ok thank you guys - that's opened my eyes up to the power increases made in the last 3 years

a) Any other uses for my old iMac then??

b) Would it work as a server? (We currently use file sharing from my drop box but its no good for files that need altering by more than 1 computer with a different user - so many times we have permission issues - its infuriating )

c) Am I correct it can't be used as a 2nd screen for the new one? (without 3rd party screen sharing apps that use a wifi network as our internet is just not fast enough - only get 1mb on a good day )

 

[JRS21015]

Get the HDD tested in the old iMac.

When my 4 year old 24" iMac did as yours is doing, slow opening docs, beach ball during browsing I took it to Apple. It was still under Apple care. Took them all of 5 minutes to diagnose a poor performing ( dying ) HDD.


A new Macbook Air may blow away your old iMac, however .....

A new iMac will blow away a new Macbook Air.

My new 27" iMac Geekbench score is 11668.



.

 

[AdrianK]

b) Would it work as a server? (We currently use file sharing from my drop box but its no good for files that need altering by more than 1 computer with a different user - so many times we have permission issues - its infuriating )

Whenever you have multiple users reading and writing to the same file you'll have permissions issues. Using a different kind of file server won't solve that problem.

Running a small server for only your household will use very little resources anyway, you don't need a dedicated server for it (though I understand that you may still want it dedicated, for whatever reason).

c) Am I correct it can't be used as a 2nd screen for the new one? (without 3rd party screen sharing apps that use a wifi network as our internet is just not fast enough - only get 1mb on a good day )

Correct, you can't. There is software for the iPad which will trick your Mac in to thinking that there's a second display attached, which is then displayed on the iPad. It's entirely possible for someone to create something similar for Mac OS X, and I imagine the performance would be pretty decent if linked over gigabit ethernet. I just don't know if something like this exists.

 

[piatti]

Get the HDD tested in the old iMac.

When my 4 year old 24" iMac did as yours is doing, slow opening docs, beach ball during browsing I took it to Apple. It was still under Apple care. Took them all of 5 minutes to diagnose a poor performing ( dying ) HDD.


A new Macbook Air may blow away your old iMac, however .....

A new iMac will blow away a new Macbook Air.

My new 27" iMac Geekbench score is 11668.



.

What is the specs of your 27''iMac?

 

[JRS21015]

What is the specs of your 27''iMac?

27" i7 / 3.4 Ghz / 8 GB Ram

Here are the results of Geekbench ( 32 bit mode )

Geekbench Score 11644

Section..............Description.........................................Score
Integer..............Processor integer performance...............9756
Floating Point......Processor floating point performance......18007
Memory.............Memory performance...........................6459
Stream..............Memory bandwidth performance.............6359

System Information ......

Operating System.......................Mac OS X 10.7.3 (Build 11D50b)
Model.......................................iMac (27-inch Mid 2011)
Motherboard.........Apple Inc. Mac-942B59F58194171B iMac12,2
Processor.............Intel Core i7-2600
Processor ID.........GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processors 1.........Threads 8
Cores 4.......Memory 8.00 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Processor Frequency.....3.40 GHz........Bus Frequency.....100.0 MHz
L1 Instruction Cache.....32.0 KB x 4..............L1 Data Cache.....32.0 KB x 4
L2 Cache 256 KB x 4........L3 Cache......8.00 MB
BIOS Apple Inc. IM121.88Z.0047.B1E.1110201314

 

[piatti]

How do you do the 32 bit mode as opposed to 64

 

[JRS21015]

How do you do the 32 bit mode as opposed to 64

I went to Geek Bench website ..... http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/

Downloaded the software.

For FREE they only allow you 32 bit mode.

If you want to run 64 bit mode you have to pay for the software.

Geekbench Software Version = Version 2.2.6 (202006)

 

[Sapphire08]

Apart from the obvious screen size difference physically - is there much difference in performance / use of the two following machines please??

21.5" 2.7ghz i5 with 6770m 512mb and the 27" 3.1ghz i5 with 6970m with 1GB

 

[Sapphire08]

Incase anybody is thinking of making the switch - Do it !!!!

My new 27" iMac is awesome - everything just works so much faster and better and the huge screen is sooo beautiful - its stunning and I don't think I'll need my second monitor anymore = bonus!!!!

 

[harcosparky]

Incase anybody is thinking of making the switch - Do it !!!!

My new 27" iMac is awesome - everything just works so much faster and better and the huge screen is sooo beautiful - its stunning and I don't think I'll need my second monitor anymore = bonus!!!!

Agreed!

I was hesitant about getting the 27", but I sold my 17" MBP and made the jump.

I was thinking of running an external 27" Apple display on the MBP, but I am really happy I did not do that.

I opted for the processor upgrade and slapped an additional 8GB of ram in the 27".