Refurb now, or wait?

[mavis]

Hey guys,

I'm really on the fence here and wanted to get some other opinions.

I'm upgrading from a mid-2007 iMac (2.8C2E, 4GB RAM, painfully slow on ML) and have been waiting for the Haswell iMacs to be released, until I saw this refurb last night: 3.4GHz i7, 16GB (2x8GB sticks), 3TB Fusion, 675MX - all for about $600 less than if new.

So do I pull the trigger on it, or continue waiting?

The 675MX kind of makes me hesitant, although I never actually play games on my iMac - basically all I use it for is Photoshop CS6, Lightroom, and Handbrake (LOTS of 1080p conversion - MKV to M4V - which currently takes about 12hrs per movie) ... I'm thinking the 680MX wouldn't really help the way I use the computer. That, and the RAM (I'd rather pay Apple for the minimum 8GB and buy the extra RAM from a third party) ... Still, $600 is nothing to sneeze at. So, I ordered the refurb last night but it won't arrive for four days, so I have until then to change my mind. Any opinions? I'm really conflicted here ...

 

[benjamwes]

Hey guys,

I'm really on the fence here and wanted to get some other opinions.

I'm upgrading from a mid-2007 iMac (2.8C2E, 4GB RAM, painfully slow on ML) and have been waiting for the Haswell iMacs to be released, until I saw this refurb last night: 3.4GHz i7, 16GB (2x8GB sticks), 3TB Fusion, 675MX - all for about $600 less than if new.

So do I pull the trigger on it, or continue waiting?

The 675MX kind of makes me hesitant, although I never actually play games on my iMac - basically all I use it for is Photoshop CS6, Lightroom, and Handbrake (LOTS of 1080p conversion - MKV to M4V - which currently takes about 12hrs per movie) ... I'm thinking the 680MX wouldn't really help the way I use the computer. That, and the RAM (I'd rather pay Apple for the minimum 8GB and buy the extra RAM from a third party) ... Still, $600 is nothing to sneeze at. So, I ordered the refurb last night but it won't arrive for four days, so I have until then to change my mind. Any opinions? I'm really conflicted here ...

That's a great computer - I'd stick with it!
I just ordered a 21.5" 2.9GHz i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB Fusion Drive a few days ago.

 

[Bear]

...
So do I pull the trigger on it, or continue waiting?
...

If you don't play games, go for it. The i7 will really help with Video conversion. And depending on your use, 16GB may be more than enough. Otherwise, go third party to fill the other 2 memory slots.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Hey guys,

I'm really on the fence here and wanted to get some other opinions.

I'm upgrading from a mid-2007 iMac (2.8C2E, 4GB RAM, painfully slow on ML) and have been waiting for the Haswell iMacs to be released, until I saw this refurb last night: 3.4GHz i7, 16GB (2x8GB sticks), 3TB Fusion, 675MX - all for about $600 less than if new.

So do I pull the trigger on it, or continue waiting?

The 675MX kind of makes me hesitant, although I never actually play games on my iMac - basically all I use it for is Photoshop CS6, Lightroom, and Handbrake (LOTS of 1080p conversion - MKV to M4V - which currently takes about 12hrs per movie) ... I'm thinking the 680MX wouldn't really help the way I use the computer. That, and the RAM (I'd rather pay Apple for the minimum 8GB and buy the extra RAM from a third party) ... Still, $600 is nothing to sneeze at. So, I ordered the refurb last night but it won't arrive for four days, so I have until then to change my mind. Any opinions? I'm really conflicted here ...

Taking into consideration the rumour going around that Mavericks won't be out until late October (and that's just the OS), we might not see new Macs until then and Apple could probably even wait it out longer with the release of new Macs further down like late November. The company seems to be staggering the releases.

 

[mavis]

That's a great computer - I'd stick with it!
I just ordered a 21.5" 2.9GHz i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB Fusion Drive a few days ago.

Sweet. Have fun with your new rig! I'm thinking I made the right choice and I'm gonna have fun with mine, too. I have a backlog of transcodes to do, so I'll put it work right away

----------

If you don't play games, go for it. The i7 will really help with Video conversion. And depending on your use, 16GB may be more than enough. Otherwise, go third party to fill the other 2 memory slots.

Yeah, I'm planning on using the 16GB for a while - coming from 4GB, that's quite a jump. As for Handbrake, I've got my current iMac running a 1080p transcode today (at 6.5fps average) so that I can directly compare them next week.

----------

Taking into consideration the rumour going around that Mavericks won't be out until late October (and that's just the OS), we might not see new Macs until then and Apple could probably even wait it out longer with the release of new Macs further down like late November. The company seems to be staggering the releases.

Well, knowing my luck, they'll release the Haswells right after my two week return window ends. But that's ok - I think this iMac will hold me through for another five years or so. I hope, anyway.

 

[MacOG728893]

Keep it! Ivy's i7 to Haswell's i7 is negligible, especially for the extra money you're going to spend to get it.

The GPU makes no difference if you don't game at all. I'm holding off (Late 2009 i5 iMac) until haswell for the GTX780m! I'm excited to play Crysis 3 and GTAV!

 

[Serban]

But can you play Crysis 3 on the 780M ? I mean at 1440p with medium or high settings?

 

[elithrar]

But can you play Crysis 3 on the 780M ? I mean at 1440p with medium or high settings?

It's Crysis 3. 780 desktop cards would probably manage the game on high at ~30 FPS, for a certain definition of "high".

You'd probably get away with medium @ 1440p with some tweaks (minimal SSAO, shadows, etc).

Any other modern game that's not from a series known to be incredibly hard on PC's? 1440p on medium-high would not be unreasonable for something like Tomb Raider, Far Cry or Battlefield 4 (beta). BF4 would probably need a few tweaks to keep a steady frame-rate on >= 32 player maps.

 

[zerofour]

Mavis, I have exactly the same issue and have looked at the same equivalent iMac. My iMac is from exactly the same era as yours and is beginning to do a number of things slowly. I've got quite a few pro apps for work so have considered re-installing. My personal view is as most of the other posters on here in that getting a current refurb is the way ahead. I guess there's no guarantee of the future pricing of the iMac (though I expect it will be the same) and so unless the new Haswell offers 'must have' upgrades, the $600 difference is well worth saving and even using to upgrade the RAM from third-party as you say.

 

[mavis]

Mavis, I have exactly the same issue and have looked at the same equivalent iMac. My iMac is from exactly the same era as yours and is beginning to do a number of things slowly. I've got quite a few pro apps for work so have considered re-installing. My personal view is as most of the other posters on here in that getting a current refurb is the way ahead. I guess there's no guarantee of the future pricing of the iMac (though I expect it will be the same) and so unless the new Haswell offers 'must have' upgrades, the $600 difference is well worth saving and even using to upgrade the RAM from third-party as you say.

Well the new computer came today, and so far I'm diggin' it ... Photoshop CC opens in just a couple of seconds, as does every other app I've tried so far. But here's the best part: the specs on this listing were wrong. This iMac apparently has a 680MX, after all!

At least, that's what System Information is telling me. I'll run some benchmarks tomorrow to verify, but I guess it wouldn't say that if it weren't true. So, YAY!! Ended up getting a 3.4GHz i7 with 16GB RAM, 3TB Fusion drive, and a 680MX for about $2250. Not too bad.

Although now that I think about it, I wonder if I should let them know that they sent the wrong iMac (or that the specs were wrong, in any case) ...

 

[Tjosansa]

Well the new computer came today, and so far I'm diggin' it ... Photoshop CC opens in just a couple of seconds, as does every other app I've tried so far. But here's the best part: the specs on this listing were wrong. This iMac apparently has a 680MX, after all!

At least, that's what System Information is telling me. I'll run some benchmarks tomorrow to verify, but I guess it wouldn't say that if it weren't true. So, YAY!! Ended up getting a 3.4GHz i7 with 16GB RAM, 3TB Fusion drive, and a 680MX for about $2250. Not too bad.

Although now that I think about it, I wonder if I should let them know that they sent the wrong iMac (or that the specs were wrong, in any case) ...

Offcourse not.
Live happy with that great computer.. If it should come up later.. you dont know anything.

 

[TwoBytes]

wait

i read on here something about haswell making handbreak even super faster due to new processes it takes

 

[mavis]

wait

i read on here something about haswell making handbreak even super faster due to new processes it takes

Hmm ... I hadn't heard about that. Although a quick Google reveals that while Haswell is indeed faster with Handbrake, there's a regression in quality.

Oh well. I've got this thing set up now, and it's blazing fast. I haven't actually had a chance to do a 1080p transcode yet, but I did start one just to get a quick look at FPS - my old iMac averaged about 4fps on one particular file, the new iMac is doing 18fps. Not too bad ... Although TBH I was really hoping for real-time encodes (24fps or higher).