Which 1? 2013 27 or 2012 27...?

[magbarn]

I have 2 potential used iMacs to pick from:
1. 2013 27 base model for $1500 local pickup - has 10 months of warranty left.
2. 2012 27 i7, 8gb ram, 1TB 7200 rpm (not fusion), and GTX 680M 2GB for $1600 approx 3 months of warranty left.

I do some light gaming like WoW and D3. Plan on using an external TB 512GB SSD with either one.

 

[carr1on]

What I bought

I have 2 potential used iMacs to pick from:
1. 2013 27 base model for $1500 local pickup - has 10 months of warranty left.
2. 2012 27 i7, 8gb ram, 1TB 7200 rpm (not fusion), and GTX 680M 2GB for $1600 approx 3 months of warranty left.

I do some light gaming like WoW and D3. Plan on using an external TB 512GB SSD with either one.

I just bought a new, in-box late-2012 27" iMac i7 3.4GHz with a 1TB Fusion drive from MacMall. It's new and has full Apple warranty, even though it's last years model. I paid $1899.

My budget was $2000. I could either buy the lower speed 2013 or the high-end 2012 with Fusion drive. I went the latter. I don't think the improvements from 2012 to 2013 justified the additional money.

I gotta tell you, the Fusion drive is very nice. Rebooting OSX is way fast. But I also have lots of storage space for video files, etc.

My old iMac was a loaded mid-2010 i7 model.

 

[adamneer]

I just bought a new, in-box late-2012 27" iMac i7 3.4GHz with a 1TB Fusion drive from MacMall. It's new and has full Apple warranty, even though it's last years model. I paid $1899.

My budget was $2000. I could either buy the lower speed 2013 or the high-end 2012 with Fusion drive. I went the latter. I don't think the improvements from 2012 to 2013 justified the additional money.

I gotta tell you, the Fusion drive is very nice. Rebooting OSX is way fast. But I also have lots of storage space for video files, etc.

My old iMac was a loaded mid-2010 i7 model.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take for them to ship it to you? I tried buying this exact model from them just before christmas and they gave me a big runaround about how it was backordered. The customer service rep kept trying to tell me it would ship out on the following monday, even though at the time i purchased it, the site said in red letters up top that it would ship out that very day (a friday). My auto generated purchase email also had red lettering informing me it would ship that day. The site also listed it as not being in stock and that they wouldn't know when it would be available again, on the very same page that said it would ship that day. It appeared to me that the CSR was simply telling me the day that the red lettering currently said would ship, which i believe is just an auto generated day based on in-stock merch. I ended up canceling because i wanted it sooner and didn't trust their lack of knowledge on when it would actually ship.

 

[inhalexhale1]

I have 2 potential used iMacs to pick from:
1. 2013 27 base model for $1500 local pickup - has 10 months of warranty left.
2. 2012 27 i7, 8gb ram, 1TB 7200 rpm (not fusion), and GTX 680M 2GB for $1600 approx 3 months of warranty left.

I do some light gaming like WoW and D3. Plan on using an external TB 512GB SSD with either one.

I picked up a 2012 iMac with an i7/680/1TB fusion from Apple's refurb store for $1999. Before that I owned a 2013 iMac with an i7/780/ with both fusion and SSD (had issues with audio on all units so I went through a few). I have noticed 0 performance differences between the two models in day to day stuff, audio work (Ableton Live), and games. The refurb also ships with Mountain Lion if you don't want Mavericks for whatever reason. Refurbs have the same warranty as a new Mac (12 months).