Upgrading iMac 27" 2010

[L.Shackson]

Greetings fine educated people throughout the cyber space.

I have an inquiring problem. Right now i have an i5 QC 2.59 Ghz iMac "27. With the built in graphic video (1 gig) and 4 GB of RAM. However I have 2 programs that i fill they require a boost. One of them is Final Cut Pro X and the second one is Starcraft.

I'm not sure if i should buy more RAM, change the Video Card or pass from i5 to i7.

In fact, I do not even know if changing the past items is 100% certain.

So far my solution is to have some patience in Final Cut Pro X and to play with lowest setting on starcraft.

Any help will be gladly received.

 

[Papanate]

I'm not sure if i should buy more RAM, change the Video Card or pass from i5 to i7.

Ram Good...go to 16gb. i5 to i7 moderately good for speed - but bang for the buck not really. Video Card...not so much either way - unless you aren't getting the resolution on FCP you want.

I would calibrate your monitor to help with the colors.

 

[srxtr]

IMO you'll want at least 8GB of ram. 4GB is enough for the average casual user, but it sounds like you need more.

As for StarCraft, I'm afraid you'll need a better machine with more power to play it at a decent setting, unfortunately.

 

[robbie12345]

unfortunately do to its design the iMac is not user upgradable which means u r stuck with the i5 and the 5750 u can upgrade the ram to 16gb which should help in fcpx a little bit but not much u may want a new gen mac pro which will have a crazy amount of horse power with the i7x and the 7970s u could keep ur iMac and us it as a monitor and that graphics card and processor will be much faster on fcpx and will be able to play everything on max resolutions on starcraft at 60fps

 

[Papanate]

unfortunately do to its design the iMac is not user upgradable

You should re-phrase that to say the 'iMac is not 'easily' upgraded by users.
Switching out the CPU isn't all that difficult once the iMac is opened up.

 

[leman]

Greetings fine educated people throughout the cyber space.

I have an inquiring problem. Right now i have an i5 QC 2.59 Ghz iMac "27. With the built in graphic video (1 gig) and 4 GB of RAM. However I have 2 programs that i fill they require a boost. One of them is Final Cut Pro X and the second one is Starcraft.

I'm not sure if i should buy more RAM, change the Video Card or pass from i5 to i7.

In fact, I do not even know if changing the past items is 100% certain.

So far my solution is to have some patience in Final Cut Pro X and to play with lowest setting on starcraft.

Any help will be gladly received.

Sell the machine and get a (refurbished) 27" iMac 2011. Will be much cheaper and easier than trying to switch CPU/GPU (and possibly breaking something in the process). 8-12GB RAM is always nice as well, but aftermarket RAM is very cheap anyway.

 

[L.Shackson]

Thank you fine gentlemen. The veredict will be to buy RAM, from 4 to 12. I recall playing SC at ultra-high configuration lacking choppy secuences. I ran iStats to check the actual processing speed and on idle periods, RAM is set at 50%. Whenever i use SC2 where my GPU does not go above 12-13% and processor sustains at 50-60% in battle periods. Also temperature rarely passes 50° Celsius, so i believe it all ends to RAM.

Thanks again.