iMac info sought

Faustus

Faustus

Faustus

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2007
Posts
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A friend has just given me a call and asked about the 27” iMac – that is the outgoing model. He wants to know if they are inferior to the new models announced last week? I said that I don’t know enough about them but basically the specs apart from the processor appear very similar, 1TB HD 4 gig of RAM Radeon graphics etc. whereas the new ones have the new Intel i3 i5 processors.

Thing is the outgoing models have around £130 knocked off the price. Anyone?
 
I haven't seen too many performance comparisons yet but from reviews I have read and from testing so far I can tell you that the i3 does make a difference, though whether your friend would notice this difference very much depends on what he'd be using the iMac for. I think the biggest single difference is the improved Radeon graphics card in the new 27". To give an example, the fps in Crysis jumps from 19-20 on the previous 27" graphics card to about 50fps on the new card, on exactly the same settings.

It all really depends what your friend plans on using the iMac for though. If it's for the basics but he wants a big screen then go for the previous gen 27". If it's for Final Cut, CAD, gaming, etc, then he will notice big improvements in the new 27".
 
nicktay2605 said:
I haven't seen too many performance comparisons yet but from reviews I have read and from testing so far I can tell you that the i3 does make a difference, though whether your friend would notice this difference very much depends on what he'd be using the iMac for. I think the biggest single difference is the improved Radeon graphics card in the new 27". To give an example, the fps in Crysis jumps from 19-20 on the previous 27" graphics card to about 50fps on the new card, on exactly the same settings.

It all really depends what your friend plans on using the iMac for though. If it's for the basics but he wants a big screen then go for the previous gen 27". If it's for Final Cut, CAD, gaming, etc, then he will notice big improvements in the new 27".
Click to expand...

Thanks for that info nicktay. He just wants to do office tasks, email, web surfing, photos and the like, just general use.

Games - no he's older just like me, neither of us would know what to do with a controller if you put one in our hands :o

So I can tell him to go ahead and purchase the outgoing model with confidence then. I think the 21.5" like mine would more than serve his needs but I think the 27" has him hooked.
 
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The previous gen 27" i5 is going for £1269 on the refurb store, pretty good deal I think, would more than suffice for most tasks.
 
only difference is a 200mhz speed increase in the CPU and a better graphics card.

200mhz will provide negligible real world performance increase. There will be some in benchmarks obviously, but nothing that is going to make your video rendering complete anything quicker than maybe a second or two.

Graphics isnt much of a concern either. the previous 27" had the 4850 512mb which is more than enough for gaming. I game at 2560 x 1440 on Team Fortress with it no problem.

no aa or af however, but it looks great without it.

I'd say definately pick up a bargain and get the old one.
 
This might seem like a really obvious question so apologies in advance. Does anyone have the measurements for the 27" model i.e. total screen size corner to corner, width and total height including stand?
 
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