What specs do you recommend?

[godzilla1200]

I am planning to buy an iMac soon. I want to buy the 27" but I don't know what is better to upgrade. The processor, the memory and/or the graphics card.

If you could only upgrade two of them, say processor and graphic card for example what would it be.

The processor I would upgrade it from i5 3.1 to i7 3.4 GHz
Memory would be upgraded from 4Gb to 16Gb
Graphic card from AMD 6970 1Gb to 2 Gb

Now, you would ask what it what I do on a mac. I actually do some work and a little bit of gaming. The reason I ask about the upgrades though is because I was offered to do it, so why not take advantage of it, right?

So what two things would you think are the best to upgrade and why? I can only choose two of them
Edit: Or if you have any other recommendation, is welcomed too.

P.S. Would it be safe to buy an iMac now, or do you think one is coming out soon (like before the end of the year)?

Thanks for the help

 

[A Macbook Pro]

8GB of RAM and an i7 is more than enough. The new iMacs came out about 2 months ago so don't worry about buying an outdated one! Unless you're planning to play the latest games ie Battlefield 3 then it would be better to go with the 2GB graphics card because of the iMacs resolution. Me being a hardcore gamer I went with 8GB RAM and 2GB video card upgrade. I get great framerate so I'm happy with it.

 

[Bearxor]

What are you going to be doing with it?

Unless you have some specific purpose, I would tell you that the best thing you can do to make your machine purr would be to upgrade to a SSD but that's not on your list.

I mean, for just general web browsing and work-related purposes, I would say pick the base and get the SSD. You can upgrade to 12GB of RAM (2x4GB sticks in addition to the 2x2GB that comes with it) for less than $60 aftermarket.

So unless you say you have something very specific you want to do that will tax the processor or video card...

 

[Bearxor]

8GB of RAM and an i7 is more than enough. The new iMacs came out about 2 months ago so don't worry about buying an outdated one! Unless you're planning to play the latest games ie Battlefield 3 then it would be better to go with the 2GB graphics card because of the iMacs resolution. Me being a hardcore gamer I went with 8GB RAM and 2GB video card upgrade. I get great framerate so I'm happy with it.

The difference in frame rates on a high-resolution monitor with a 2GB video card are not significantly higher than a 1GB card... Like less than 5fps on average.

 

[accessoriesguy]

It's safe to buy an iMac now, honestly, this baby has a LOT of power. a standard iMac will do everything you need and more.

Unless you want Best quality gaming, then you should invest in a better GPU. Even if you want to do high level work, you could get away with just investing on RAM.

However if you want to do HD video editing, or 3D designs, and 3D HD rendering, GET THE BETTER GPU.

But a stock iMac is plenty power enough