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What iMac to get

K

Karan2kx

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 31, 2011
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I am looking to buy my first iMac 27" and have a budget of around £1200. I have found a used 2009 iMac i7 2.8ghz for that price with 8gb ram. But I can also get the new i5 2.7ghz for around the same price from apple.

I was wondering if someone could advise me on what one to choose. Thanks.
 
Karan2kx said:
... have a budget of around £1200....I can also get the new i5 2.7ghz for around the same price from apple.
Click to expand...


The i5 2.7GHz starts at £1400, so I guess you're claiming the VAT back, or getting a discount?

To answer your question, the newer i5 chip uses a slightly more efficient design (Sandy Bridge) than the i7 in the second hand iMac. But the i7 supports hyper-threading to give you up to 8 threads. The newer i5 iMac will have a faster graphics card as well. But will only come with 4GB memory compared to the used iMacs 8GB (unless you're getting 8GB in that £1200 deal as well).

So it really comes down to your workload. Personally, I'd probably just get a new one.

EDIT: I just noticed you said 2009 iMac instead of 2010, in that case, I'd definitely get a new one.
 
Between the 2009 and the new(2011) iMac, I also say go for the new one. Many improvements.

Also, you'll have a warranty and the ability to get Applecare.
 
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The old one comes with 1 year AppleCare left. And I plan to upgrade the i5 to 8gb ram myself. The biggest dilemma I am having is the lynnfield vs sandy bridge and whether the hyper threading on the i7 would make a difference.
 
Karan2kx said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

The old one comes with 1 year AppleCare left. And I plan to upgrade the i5 to 8gb ram myself. The biggest dilemma I am having is the lynnfield vs sandy bridge and whether the hyper threading on the i7 would make a difference.
Click to expand...
1 year of Applecare vs a possible 3 years.

Depending on what you run, the hyper threading may make no difference. Then again a newer i5 could be faster than an older i7. Look for benchmarks of both systems. Processor clock speed and hyper threading don't tell the whole story.

Also depending on what you run the graphics card might make more of a difference.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

I decided to to put in the little extra and get the 3.1ghz i5, which benchmarked higher than the 2009 i7 anyway.
 
Will it matter?

I'm finally ready for my upgrade as well next week, and I have two options to replace my 2001 733 MHz PowerPC G4 Quicksilver, 768 MB SDRAM, running 10.4.11 (!). Yeah, I'd say it's time, too.

Anyway, I'm choosing between the 2010 iMac 27" 3.2 GHz i3 550 processor or the 2011 iMac 27" 2.7 GHz i5 2500S processor. I will primarily use it for your standard web, email, music, photo, school work (no major gaming, high-tech editing, graphics, etc.); however, I do want it to remain relevant for a few years and not be obsolete in a generation or two.

I've seen the bench test scores, know the on-paper differences when comparing the two, blah blah blah, but the other catch: the 2010 is 15% cheaper ($1396) than the 2011 ($1650).

TO ME, is the newness of the latter worth the possible savings by going once-removed?
 
Karan2kx said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I am looking to buy my first iMac 27" and have a budget of around £1200. I have found a used 2009 iMac i7 2.8ghz for that price with 8gb ram. But I can also get the new i5 2.7ghz for around the same price from apple.

I was wondering if someone could advise me on what one to choose. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I personally don't think you need the new iMac unless you really want to get it to "have it." I mean what do you really do on your computer? You have to keep in consideration if you play games, edit videos/photos, etc.
 
dont do it

Hi my advise/opinion and current experience with apple and the new imac 27" is dont buy one and if you have one don't turn it on because it will get contaminated if you use it, make sure you have apple care because you will need that to cover the 8 or 9 new screens you will probably need over the 3 year course, or sell it as quick as possible and cut your loses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVok1MBNJqE&feature=related

It seems that dust inside the LCD and on the backlights is a widespread problem. From the thousands of posts on Apple Support and the numerous forums YouTube videos, this is a design defect!

There seems to be no solution as apple where unwilling to help and blamed the grey smudge marks on environmental issues and my fault because i use my mac in my house, When i asked if i paid for a new screen would it be fixed or will it happen again, Apples response was we can't guarantee it won't. The only solution i am now left with, is to follow this link below and pry open the LCD and directly clean the insides and backlights. https://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...1#post11976152

I will be opening my LCD and wiping away the dust that has leaked inside the sealed LCD display
I will video document my repair and see apple in the small claims court

Will keep you posted
 
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