2012 iMac

Mine is supposed to arrive last week of January. The wait is frustrating but the deal I finagled makes it worth it.

I got my fully loaded 27 inch iMac yesterday and it is well worth the wait. Fast, nice looking, and quiet.

prob going tomorrow . for the 21 in. upping it to the icore 7 , not sure if i should get the fusion drive . prob staying with 8 gb ram ...prices add up fast . throw in P.S & elements 11

Unless you can field upgrade memory on 21", go 16GB instead. On 27" model you can change memory in the field. Unless you already have PS, save some major money and get Aperture and the Onone suite or Nik suite of plugins. You can sometimes find PSE on sale for around $50 at costco or other.

MCAsan wrote in post #15455873
Unless you can field upgrade memory on 21", go 16GB instead. On 27" model you can change memory in the field. Unless you already have PS, save some major money and get Aperture and the Onone suite or Nik suite of plugins. You can sometimes find PSE on sale for around $50 at costco or other.

Like mentioned, the 21" version cannot have a memory upgrade down the road.

Quadna71 wrote in post #15455910
Like mentioned, the 21" version cannot have a memory upgrade down the road.

This is why I build hackintoshes. Apple has completely f-ed this up.

This only depends upon your perspective. If you want the smallest and most compact 21" all-in-one computer then that's one of the freedoms you have to give up. The memory is inaccessable as they have a sealed housing in order to keep the edges so thin. Is the new smaller size great? Sure. Is it frustrating that you can't modify it yourself down the road? Sure. It's all trade-off...

FYI, you are now able to configure the 21.5 inch model with the 1 TB HDD/SSD Fusion drive in the most basic model. Previously, it was only available in the high-end 21 inch and 27 inch models.

Judging from the real world tests, people seem to like this new drive a lot. If I was ordering a new iMac today, I'd definitely get one.

Gliderparentntn wrote in post #15318988
So if I order the 27" Imac I'm money ahead by holding off on the ram and buying my own later and installing it correct? Or is there ram propriotory?

This is my build thus far,
27" Imac 3.2 GHz quad core 8 gig Ram (Upgrade my own once arrives)
3Tb fusion
GTX 680
Pages,Numbers, and keynote <~~~~ are those even needed?

Sorry for the delayed response, James. Looks like you have an excellent build!

Yes, you will be better off ordering your 27 inch iMac with minimum memory and purchasing more memory from a third party retailer to add yourself. Macsales.com (OWC) sells the proper memory and has video demonstrations of how to install it.

As for software, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Apple's versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Whether you need them or not depends on how you plan to use your computer and what features you need most. For me, my work relies on the Microsoft versions of these programs, so I purchased MS Office.

I used to think the iMacs were great for photo work, but right now the Mini is a much more attractive Mac for such purposes.

Tony-S wrote in post #15471720
I used to think the iMacs were great for photo work, but right now the Mini is a much more attractive Mac for such purposes.

With how long I am waiting my 27" iMac Core i7 I may have as well gone with a Mac mini myself.

Remember that mini uses the integrated graphics chipset...not a dedicated GPU. For running a browser or editing still photos..it should be OK. So if you do videos or actions games, you might want a machine with a GPU. Know your requirements before you purchase.

dolina wrote in post #15473820
With how long I am waiting my 27" iMac Core i7 I may have as well gone with a Mac mini myself.

I bought the 2.6 gHz quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge model a couple of months ago. The first thing I did was put in 16 gb of RAM and a 240 gb 6GB/s SSD in the second drive bay. That took 30 minutes (moving very slowly). After that, I initialized the SSD and 1 TB hard drive into a single Fusion drive volume. It is nice and speedy. And dead silent.

MCAsan wrote in post #15474412
Remember that mini uses the integrated graphics chipset...not a dedicated GPU. For running a browser or editing still photos..it should be OK. So if you do videos or actions games, you might want a machine with a GPU. Know your requirements before you purchase.

Certainly, you can get better performance from a dedicated gpu for some games and video (encoding, but not playback), so if you do a lot of those the Mini may not be the best option. But the HD4000 video on the Ivy Bridge chipset is the first integrated gpu that can render my 5Dii raw files in real-time using Aperture. Plus, it can drive two 27" displays at native resolution. The HD3000 found on the previous version of the Mini almost could - but it would stutter using some of the brushes, particularly if they were large diameter. I am very pleased with the Mini's performance, which is why I retasked my 2.9 gHz i7 hackintosh (16 GB RAM and ATI 5870/2GB vRAM) to office duties at work.

Tony-S wrote in post #15456558
This is why I build hackintoshes. Apple has completely f-ed this up.

Apple's just ahead of the curve as usual. Enclosure tech has now surpassed internal tech, so things are just going to get thinner, lighter and more powerful. 90% of tech buyers don't give a hoot about upgrading, they just want things to work. When it isn't trendy enough or fast enough (real or conceived) they'll upgrade to something thinner, cooler and less upgradeable. Intel and AMD are always toying with the idea of doing away with the socket. When they do, PC's might actually stop being so darn big

MaxxuM wrote in post #15485817
Apple's just ahead of the curve as usual.

I think it's more "Apple has continued down its tangent". The Mini is a better computer for photo work, as far as I'm concerned. It's an order of magnitude easier to work on and upgrade.