Since my beloved 24" mid-2007 iMac died a year and a half ago, I've been suffering with Hackintoshes of various flavors. I've recently got a new job that pays a little more, and I can now afford a used Mac. A new one is out of the question ... I'm not made of money. I also like playing games, though some of the ones I like are now a bit old. Anyways, here are a few that I've found for sale locally.
1) 2010 27" iMac - i3, 4GB RAM, Radeon 5670 512MB VRAM, hard drive unspecified. Screen glass has slight damage, but not in viewable area. The main attraction of this one is that it can be used as a mini-DP monitor with my gaming PC. The seller is also willing to do trades and I have a ton of PC hardware. I have 4GB of RAM in my collection I can add to bring it up to 8GB. Asking $300
2) 2011 Mac mini server. 2.0 Ghz i7, 250GB SSD + 750GB spinner, 8GB RAM. This would be nice for basic desktop stuff, or possibly virtualization with all those threads. Drawback is I would need a $79 adapter to connect to my 30" Dell monitor that only has one input - a dual-link DVI port. I have 16GB of RAM I can use to upgrade this. Asking $400.
3) 2012 27" iMac - 3.4GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB spinner, Nvidia 675MX 1GB VRAM. Also has USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. USB 3.0 is nice because I can install macOS to an SSD and boot from that rather than tearing it apart and installing the flash drive. I can also add 16GB of RAM from my collection to bring it to 24GB RAM. This would be really nice for virtualization or light Windows gaming. It can't be used as a DisplayPort monitor, BUT I could use Steam in-home streaming to play games. The drawback is the price, which is a real stretch for my budget. Asking $550.
I will primarily be using this Mac for media consumption and gaming, either natively or with Steam streaming. If I get one of the quad core Macs, I might be doing some virtualization with it.
I'm struggling with the choices here. Am I missing any angles on these machines?
1) 2010 27" iMac - i3, 4GB RAM, Radeon 5670 512MB VRAM, hard drive unspecified. Screen glass has slight damage, but not in viewable area. The main attraction of this one is that it can be used as a mini-DP monitor with my gaming PC. The seller is also willing to do trades and I have a ton of PC hardware. I have 4GB of RAM in my collection I can add to bring it up to 8GB. Asking $300
2) 2011 Mac mini server. 2.0 Ghz i7, 250GB SSD + 750GB spinner, 8GB RAM. This would be nice for basic desktop stuff, or possibly virtualization with all those threads. Drawback is I would need a $79 adapter to connect to my 30" Dell monitor that only has one input - a dual-link DVI port. I have 16GB of RAM I can use to upgrade this. Asking $400.
3) 2012 27" iMac - 3.4GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB spinner, Nvidia 675MX 1GB VRAM. Also has USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. USB 3.0 is nice because I can install macOS to an SSD and boot from that rather than tearing it apart and installing the flash drive. I can also add 16GB of RAM from my collection to bring it to 24GB RAM. This would be really nice for virtualization or light Windows gaming. It can't be used as a DisplayPort monitor, BUT I could use Steam in-home streaming to play games. The drawback is the price, which is a real stretch for my budget. Asking $550.
I will primarily be using this Mac for media consumption and gaming, either natively or with Steam streaming. If I get one of the quad core Macs, I might be doing some virtualization with it.
I'm struggling with the choices here. Am I missing any angles on these machines?
