| Joined: | Sun Apr 8th, 2012 |
| Location: | Adelaide, Australia |
| Posts: | 187 |
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There doesn't seem to be much difference in performance between the new and old iMacs. Both max out with a 3.4 GHz quad-core i7.
The major difference is that the new ones are thinner, don't have a Superdrive, and have some different I/O ports (no more FireWire).
I'd consider getting an older one depending on your I/O needs. Here are the specs:
Was and Still is: Configurable to 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Was: Configurable to 2TB HD or 256GB SS second drive; Now: Configurable to 3TB HD or 768GB SS second drive Doug says - and Fusion Drive*
Was: Max RAM 16GB; Now: 32 GB Doug says - 27" Only - User upgradeable, the 21.5 only offers 16GB max as a factory option*
Was and Still is: Two Thunderbolt ports on 27-inch iMac
Was: Mini DisplayPort (none mentioned on new iMac) Doug says - Thunderbolt IS mini displayport*
Was: One FireWire 800 port (none mentioned on new iMac) Doug says - Still available via Thunderbolt adapter/hub etc - this is a non issue*
Was: Four USB 2.0 ports; Now: four USB 3.0 ports Doug says - Yay
Was: SDXC card slot (none mentioned on new iMac) Doug says - SDXC card slot (in awkward rear location!).*
Was: Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive; (none mentioned on new iMac) Doug says - No Superdrive in these models - Optical is the new Floppy, if you need it buy an external or share the drive from another Mac*
Was and Still is: Gigabit Ethernet
Edit: Max RAM on the old iMac (Mid-2011) can supposedly be bumped to 32 GB. The value of doing so is questionable. Doug says - if by questionable you mean advantageous for some, pointless for many**
I have 12 GB in my 27" 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and it's plenty fast (standard 4GB + $40 8GB module from Crucial). I threw some Photoshop Liquify filters at a 100 MB D800 file and it took it only a few seconds. Then I up-rezzed the file to make it stupidly large and did some more Liquifying and it only took a few more seconds. Finally, I did an Oil Painting effect on the stupidly large file and that took 40 seconds, not really all that long considering it was creating jillions of fake brush strokes.
*More Info here
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20121023_2-new-iMac.html
and here**
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120725_3-MacPro-80GB-memory-Photoshop-usage.html
Last edited on Mon Nov 5th, 2012 14:44 by Doug
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