Looks possible. To what processors could the i7 users upgrade?
Or, would it be cheaper to buy the i5 and upgrade to i7 yourself?
Or, would it be cheaper to buy the i5 and upgrade to i7 yourself?
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Upgrading iMac CPU
- Thread starter chukronos
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justperry
macrumors G5
Galatian
macrumors 6502
While it looks possible it really is not very easy to swap out a CPU as you carefully have to remove every heat paste and reapply it after you put a new one in.
That being said: what exactly do you want to upgrade from a i7 to? The 3.1 GHz i7 of the 21.5" tops out at 65W. I guess you really can't put a 77W part in there.
That being said: what exactly do you want to upgrade from a i7 to? The 3.1 GHz i7 of the 21.5" tops out at 65W. I guess you really can't put a 77W part in there.
The current i7 is more than enough for me now. I am wondering, however, if this new generation of iMac's could have a longer lifespan due to upgradeable internals. What I don't know is if there is anything above the current i7 offering due to Haswell coming out soon. The CPU may have the ability to upgrade, but is there actually anything to which to upgrade?
Galatian
macrumors 6502
justperry
macrumors G5
I am also quite positive (read somewhere) it will need a different Logic board so that is probably out of the question.
Buy the model you want now. There will not be any faster processors made and the top-end one has the fastest CPU from Intel.
Exactly. That is why I was wondering if there was anything out there/on the way that is faster and could be considered an upgrade to the current i7 BTO.
That is what I was wondering. Thanks.
Considering that now the i7 870 or i7 880 are around 300-500$ on ebay and the i5 760 might fetch from 50-100$ it seems it's cheaper to go with apple rather than wait and do it yourself 2 years down the road.
Those are the chips the 27" i5 2010 high end(non bto) model can take, there might be a faster i7 that can be used later on for ivy bridge, but the benefit might be marginal.
The only warranty sticker is on the CPU socket. Upgrade CPU will void your warranty, while remove your screen and swap HDD/SSD won't.