iMac 2011 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 review for photographers

[1move]

I am a PC user and have been for most of my life. The only apple product I own is an iPhone. My PC has had over $4000 in upgrades over the past 5 years and it seems like it never stops I always need more memory or faster processor etc. I got ticked off and two weeks ago I purchased a brand new built to order iMac, I found a big lack of reviews on the new iMacs so I figured I would write and help some of you out. I went with the 3.4GHz Quad Core instead of the 3.1GHz because of the hyper-threading ability on the i7 3.4GHz which simply means it has virtual cores that act as an 8 core system vs. true 4 cores, which is much, much faster. I decided to go with 2x4GB of RAM as $600 for 16GB of RAM was a ridicules price to pay. It came with some knock off brand RAM I have never heard of. I decided to go over to CanadaRAM.com and purchase 4X4GB of RAM for $140 with shipping and all and did the install myself. It was fairly easy as you only had to remove 3 screws and pull a tab to remove the old RAM, this does not void your warranty and this is why I went ahead with upgrading it myself at less than ¼ of the price from Apple.
Due to me using this iMac only for my photography I figured I would go all out and get the rest of their options. So the specs are as follows;
iMac
3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16GB RAM from CanadaRAM.com
256GB SSD
2TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB
First impressions,
This thing is blazing fast! I start up in less than 12 seconds with my Solid State Drive. I have 2TB of memory from the other HDD and also purchased a Drobo as Raid1 for my backups. I have Microsoft office installed, photoshop, lightroom, aperture, and PhaseOne all for my photography, as well as a few other Adobe products. (Not showing off just giving you an idea of the programs I run on this thing)

With that said, I started up all of my programs all at once, everything installed from the factory plus the programs I have added, and within 35seconds they were all up and running ready to operate. I have no regrets what so ever this is a blazing fast computer. I have loaded about a gig worth of photos on there already and it is still flawless. When importing photos into lightroom it loads the thumbnails very quickly and efficiently without any lag.
Using photoshop and lightroom,
I use a Wacom Intous 4 medium for my editing and on the PC no matter how fast I got it to be or what was running it seemed like it was lagging all the time the brush strokes on the intous were not responsive as fast and it increased editing time. With the iMac it is instant and flawless.
From a PC user I give the Mac two thumbs up, I am very glad I made the switch and it has been a breeze so far.
I doubt I will ever go back to PC after 20 some years using one. The iMac is so much more slick and flawless and it is not a pig on memory. Yes I know they are marked up etc. but if you went and priced out a PC and compared it to the iMac it would be a little more $$$. I chose the mac because I love the workflow and have wanted to switch for years as I was not happy with dumping more and more money into my PC.

If you have any questions please ask.

[Rezolution]

Nice! Thanks for the review. The only turn off for me is the glossy screen. I have plenty of windows and sunshine so my 27 in Dell IPS would be hard to give up.

[simplyshervin]

Off brand ram? Crucial makes ram for Apple.

[1move]

Originally Posted by Rezolution

Nice! Thanks for the review. The only turn off for me is the glossy screen. I have plenty of windows and sunshine so my 27 in Dell IPS would be hard to give up.

I have plenty of windows as well and I know its not as great as the matte screen I don't think its that bad at all. It was a big turn off for me too but when I saw the resolution and it was an IPS monitor I went for it.

Originally Posted by simplyshervin

Off brand ram? Crucial makes ram for Apple.

Crucial is not the ram used in my iMac, I know of crucial and plenty other brands but this was not the case. I will have to get the name from the other RAM for you to tell you the exact company used, never heard of it before.

[JuSlaughter]

I am thinking of the same swap so your review is very helpful, thanks.

What I would like to know is how does Aperture compare to Photoshop? I usually do basic amendments like levels, curves, saturation, USM, shadows & highlights, and functions like cloning spot healing and patch healing. Just wondered if I could save some £££'s by getting Aperture instead of PS.

Cheers

[DiMAn0684]

I think Apple makes nice products, but your "comparison" is a bit skewed. I don't know where $4k in upgrades went, but I'm fairly sure that for the price of your iMac one could get a similarly performing PC and save $1k+. The iMac you've mentioned in your post costs $3250 on the U.S. Apple web site. If I were to spend ~$850 on a good IPS panel (like Dell U2711) there would still be $2400 remaining for a PC build, and if you shop around you can get all the components in your system for less than half of that remaining amount. I'm in no way an Apple hater, in fact I'm planning on buying an MBP just for that matte screen alone. However when it comes to desktops Apple machines are a big waste of money IMO, unless you really want to save space with iMac or you need iOS and aren't interested in building a hackintosh.

[Rolfe D. Wolfe]

The wife and i already decided on an iMac once we get a place of our own.

She actually want's one more then me haha.

Im excited though, as i need the speed and function for not only photography but video editing!!

[Eric Xu]

Sad thing about the newest iMac is the HDD is not user replaceable, which explains the high price you pay for a SSD. That and the glossy screen are pretty big cons, but otherwise it's a great computer.

As far as I know, Aperture's a great application on the Mac. I'm a Lightroom user, but Aperture does all the things you actually need a photo manager/raw processor to do, and does it super fast because it really leverages the GPU. I wish Adobe would extend the Mercury Playback Engine beyond Premiere Pro; it would be such a huge difference.

[1move]

Originally Posted by JuSlaughter

I am thinking of the same swap so your review is very helpful, thanks.

What I would like to know is how does Aperture compare to Photoshop? I usually do basic amendments like levels, curves, saturation, USM, shadows & highlights, and functions like cloning spot healing and patch healing. Just wondered if I could save some £££'s by getting Aperture instead of PS.

Cheers

Aperture is wicked, it is really fast and accurate. Photoshop has a lot more flexibility but if it is basic editing aperture is wicked. It costs $199 retail, however if bought from the AppStore it is $79 which is a huge savings. Totally worth it, and if you have a student in the family use there student ID if required for a $100 gift card when you buy your Mac and than Aperture is free

Originally Posted by DiMAn0684

I think Apple makes nice products, but your "comparison" is a bit skewed. I don't know where $4k in upgrades went, but I'm fairly sure that for the price of your iMac one could get a similarly performing PC and save $1k+. The iMac you've mentioned in your post costs $3250 on the U.S. Apple web site. If I were to spend ~$850 on a good IPS panel (like Dell U2711) there would still be $2400 remaining for a PC build, and if you shop around you can get all the components in your system for less than half of that remaining amount. I'm in no way an Apple hater, in fact I'm planning on buying an MBP just for that matte screen alone. However when it comes to desktops Apple machines are a big waste of money IMO, unless you really want to save space with iMac or you need iOS and aren't interested in building a hackintosh.

Over the past 5 years, I have been upgrading motherboards, hard drives etc. so it amounted to the $4k I did a comparable windows build with decent parts and it was about $50 more here in Canada than the iMac. I don't want to get into the details on how I spent $4k in upgrades over time. But I think for me at least for the next 3-4 years this will do more than just fine.

Originally Posted by Rolfe D. Wolfe

The wife and i already decided on an iMac once we get a place of our own.

She actually want's one more then me haha.

Im excited though, as i need the speed and function for not only photography but video editing!!

You will love it. I will try and make a video for everyone eventually when I get some time and show how quick it really is. Photoshop is so efficient and it only opens up menu bars not an actual window so it saves quite a bit on the memory.

Originally Posted by Eric Xu

Sad thing about the newest iMac is the HDD is not user replaceable, which explains the high price you pay for a SSD. That and the glossy screen are pretty big cons, but otherwise it's a great computer.

As far as I know, Aperture's a great application on the Mac. I'm a Lightroom user, but Aperture does all the things you actually need a photo manager/raw processor to do, and does it super fast because it really leverages the GPU. I wish Adobe would extend the Mercury Playback Engine beyond Premiere Pro; it would be such a huge difference.

True to an extent! Others have replaced and installed new HDDs that do work I just can't find the website right now. The only drawback was the fact that it voids warranty. Which is something I was not willing to part with.

Overall SSD= WOW! It is fast and way more efficient, this is why upgraded through apple and yes the cost is quite high and I got mine through student pricing so it was well worth it.

[Eric Xu]

It does not just void warranty, it runs the fan at maximum speed. The newest revision of the iMac changes the way the heat sensor works, so that when the stock drive is removed, it reads an impossibly high temperature and runs the fans at maximum. Hardly optimal, but I suppose it works.

[1move]

Originally Posted by Eric Xu

It does not just void warranty, it runs the fan at maximum speed. The newest revision of the iMac changes the way the heat sensor works, so that when the stock drive is removed, it reads an impossibly high temperature and runs the fans at maximum. Hardly optimal, but I suppose it works.

There is a software bypass that allows you to control your fan speed. It is not the optimal way, there is also beta software now that can be installed that feeds the correct information for the hdd temperature sensor that fixes this issue. However still in beta testing.

[Eric Xu]

Ah, a software fix, that's interesting. I suppose that does change things. For those who are comfortable with disassembling compact computers and using only one internal drive, this could open up the option of an iMac again.

[nyc2sd]

I am in a similar situation but only have about a 2k budget. I was eyeing the i5 with 1GB of video Ram. Do you think I will still see a similar speed difference? How much does the video ram play in photo editing?

[1move]

Originally Posted by Eric Xu

Ah, a software fix, that's interesting. I suppose that does change things. For those who are comfortable with disassembling compact computers and using only one internal drive, this could open up the option of an iMac again.

That sounds like a sarcastic comment to me so here is a couple other solutions for your sarcasm, not sure what you are trying to prove with your comments. 2 thunderbolt drives come with the new iMac which has the capability of running an OS externally at those speeds. Compact computer? Yeah sure it is slim however it is not hard to open up at all. 2 suction cups will take off the screen and you need to unscrew & disconnect the led display and done, you are the heart of it all.

Originally Posted by nyc2sd

I am in a similar situation but only have about a 2k budget. I was eyeing the i5 with 1GB of video Ram. Do you think I will still see a similar speed difference? How much does the video ram play in photo editing?

The i7 as I mentioned has hyper threading if you can afford that, that would be my recommendation over the video card. You won't see too much difference other than photo loading time in larger libraries.

[Eric Xu]

I'm sorry if that was interpreted as sarcasm, but it was not. That was genuine interest, as I myself had previously considered the iMac.