Which iMac to buy ?

[masterking]

Hello,

I'm thinking to buy me an imac which one should i buy ? Will the 21.5 2,7 ghz enough for me i'm an programmer who really works at localhost.And i liked it more than windows it really feels better i tried it.

Regards

 

[AndyB]

Will the 21.5 2,7 ghz enough for me

Indeed it will be plenty. Great choice.

 

[TPerry]

I hate the iMacs - I'm not a fan of the "all in one" machines.
Currently my "little" Mac Mini does all I need it to (since I don't require high end graphics). I have a 1TB HD in it currently and have the kit to put another drive in (haven't gotten around to using it yet). For the price I paid for it I've been very happy. Been running fine since I purchased it when this model was first released (2012) and have had not one problem.

 

[RickM]

Personally I'd say skip the iMac and get a rMBP + a screen. It's a way more powerful setup, and will be a lot more useful.

The newer iMacs are pretty poorly specced compared to the rMBP. I moved from an iMac to an rMBP when they came out and would never switch back now.

 

[masterking]

Indeed it will be plenty. Great choice.

I hate the iMacs - I'm not a fan of the "all in one" machines.
Currently my "little" Mac Mini does all I need it to (since I don't require high end graphics). I have a 1TB HD in it currently and have the kit to put another drive in (haven't gotten around to using it yet). For the price I paid for it I've been very happy. Been running fine since I purchased it when this model was first released (2012) and have had not one problem.

View attachment 108894

Thank you for your replies.I read that mac mini late 2012 have an quad core processor which isn't the case in 2014 what about mac mini 2014 2,6 ghz 8 gb ram is it good too ?

 

[masterking]

Personally I'd say skip the iMac and get a rMBP + a screen. It's a way more powerful setup, and will be a lot more useful.

The newer iMacs are pretty poorly specced compared to the rMBP. I moved from an iMac to an rMBP when they came out and would never switch back now.

I've already a screen.Do you recommend rMBP because of it's ssd ?

 

[Arty]

21.5 might be a bit small. If you can afford to, get a bigger iMac.

More space to open multiple windows makes coding much much easier. CPU, memory, hard drive are not as important as display size, unless you want to use Mac for stuff that is CPU intensive like gaming.

 

[digitalpoint]

The screen on the 5K iMac almost makes me want to get that instead of a Mac Pro.

 

[Naz]

Picked this up when my old laptop died on me. While I do regret not spending a lil more for an rMBP, it's still chugging along great almost three years later. Latest OS X update has definitely improved performance and given it a new lease of life but it does understandably choke on larger, more intensive, tasks such as building/compiling an app. Need to up the RAM and add an SSD to the mix and it'll probably keep me going for a while.

 

[Carla Birch]

The screen on the 5K iMac almost makes me want to get that instead of a Mac Pro.

The screen is great, i love it. It's really handy for image/video editing, defo when dealing with 4k. Plus you got the desk top space to lay windows out to see more than one at once, handy when cross checking things and so on.

 

[Mike Edge]

What is this OS X you speak of? My old original Bondi Blue G3 iMac I still use to idle on EF Net...

 

[Chris D]

Picked this up when my old laptop died on me. While I do regret not spending a lil more for an rMBP, it's still chugging along great almost three years later. Latest OS X update has definitely improved performance and given it a new lease of life but it does understandably choke on larger, more intensive, tasks such as building/compiling an app. Need to up the RAM and add an SSD to the mix and it'll probably keep me going for a while.

Pretty much the same

Can tell you that the RAM upgrade and moving to an SSD is worth it. Especially as El Capitan should be supporting the TRIM command properly for third party drives (though it hasn't affected performance on here as far as I can tell).

 

[digitalpoint]

I hope they work out getting the 5K iMac to work in target display mode (basically use it as a monitor for the Mac Pro). That would be nice.

 

[Naz]

View attachment 109037

Pretty much the same

Can tell you that the RAM upgrade and moving to an SSD is worth it. Especially as El Capitan should be supporting the TRIM command properly for third party drives (though it hasn't affected performance on here as far as I can tell).

El Cap has definitely improved performance noticeably compared to the hell Yosemite gave me so I'm eager to see what it performs like with the hardware upgrades. In terms of the SSD, which one did you go for? Leaning towards a Samsung 840/850.

 

[Carla Birch]

When I upgraded my old 2011 iMac with a SSD the speed of launching apps was greatly faster over what the old HDD give, same with system boot up. I still think ram upgrades is one of the best upgrades to do with any computer that only has the min for the OS.

 

[Carla Birch]

Btw the Ei capitan beta is out next month right for them that are signed up for beta? I know the Dev accounts have it but my access to that run out and don't see point in paying for access again as no longer have any apps on store.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

OK, some personal observations. I owned a late 2009 27-inch iMac and upgraded RAM and the hard drive to a 1TB SSD. It became amazingly fast, although current models are probably 50% faster (except for hard drive speed).

I reviewed the iMac with Retina 5K display, and the screen is just plain awesome. There's nothing like it out there. 5K displays, without the computer, are really expensive ($1,299 for an HP, $2,499 for a Dell). The 5K iMac starts at $1,999. The original $2,499 model is now $2,299 after a price reduction this year. The latter's CPU is slightly faster, but the biggest advantage is the 1TB Fusion Drive. This is a regular 1TB hard drive with a 128GB SSD that speeds up day-to-day performance to nearly the level of a dedicated SSD. It's worth the extra $299.

Remember, too, that a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is $1,999, but offers the advantage of portability.

Still, if you want the best bang for the buck, it's still a 5K iMac.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

About El Capitan: The public beta program starts in July (and that includes iOS 9). So don't worry 'bout missing out on the developer release. It's real ragged, as a first developer release is apt to be.

 

[Chris D]

El Cap has definitely improved performance noticeably compared to the hell Yosemite gave me so I'm eager to see what it performs like with the hardware upgrades. In terms of the SSD, which one did you go for? Leaning towards a Samsung 840/850.

I had a Samsung 840 for a while, that's now in my PC.

I had some problems so I'm actually running with a 1TB traditional disk at the moment. Though I actually have no reason not to put my SSD back in, now. I bought a Crucial 256GB SSD because it was cheap but they're getting even cheaper, fast, so it's worth getting the biggest size, best brand possible

 

[masterking]

So after some months finally i'm purchasing my mac in 2 weeks hopefully.