Last tuesday was the day I realised that my iMac was getting old..

On 10.25.09, In Latest News, by Matt

Last tuesday (20th October) was the day I realised that my iMac was getting old.
Coincidentally, last tuesday was also the day that Apple announced its new lineup of iMacs.
*sigh*
They replaced the 20″ and 24″ models with a 21.5″ (1920 x 1080 pixels = full 1080p HD) and a massive 27″ model (both are 16:9 as [...]

Last tuesday (20th October) was the day I realised that my iMac was getting old.

Coincidentally, last tuesday was also the day that Apple announced its new lineup of iMacs.

*sigh*

They replaced the 20″ and 24″ models with a 21.5″ (1920 x 1080 pixels = full 1080p HD) and a massive 27″ model (both are 16:9 as opposed to the usual 16:10. This means a better film viewing experience). The 21.5″ models come with a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor (upgradeable to a 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo).

The cheaper 27″ model has the same 3.06GHz and 3.33GHz options (The spec seems to be the same as the 2nd 21.5″ model. Therefore, £150 for 78% more screen.. a no brainer), but the top 27″ model comes with a 2.66GHz Quad Core, Intel i5, and is upgradeable to a 2.8GHz Quad Core, Intel i7 “Nehalem” processor for £160.

Image from Apple website (Copyright to Apple, Inc.)

So now I begin the (what will soon be a regular) biennial event in which I work out how much money I can sell my current iMac for, work the how much extra I need, then start selling everything that isn’t bolted down.

I did have to stop and think ‘is it worth it?’ – I mean, I have a 24″ iMac (2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD) that is slightly less than 2 years old. That’s still pretty good. So why do I need to upgrade? Well that’s a stupid question. Obviously, I don’t need to upgrade. My problem is that I am quite materialistic, and can become quite obsessive. Not a great combination when it comes to such high end prices..

Currently, I use my iMac for video editing, image editing (Photoshop for stills, and After Effects for animations) and quite a lot of rendering. A 2.8GHz i7, or even, a 2.66GHz i5 would be quite a big step up in terms of the performance for Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut Studio etc., (not to mention Grand Central Dispatch in Snow Leopard being able to utilise cores more efficiently). Also, the graphics card in the current iMac is an ATI Radeon HD2600 (256MB), so a jump to an ATI Radeon HD4850 (512MB) would offer greater performance. The 4GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive would also be a nice jump up from what I have now.

Up until this point, (although I would have liked one), I didn’t really think that getting one would be worthwhile, but then I found out about one brilliant new feature..

As with older models, there is a port on the back to connect an extra monitor, however, on the new 27″ (not on the 21.5″), there is a port that will enable you to connect another device to the iMac, and use the amazing 27″ screen as a monitor for something else. This could be a Bluray player, DVD player, games console or lots of other things, as long as there is a Mini DisplayPort adaptor, you can connect it. This is great news! I just happened to be looking to buy a new big monitor for a variety of devices. This will probably be less of a selling point for others, but for me, that’s what sold it.

( 26/10/09 – EDIT: Currently, it would seem that devices like DVD & Blu-ray players, games consoles etc. won’t work. Belkin are developing some form of box to deal with the problem.. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. )

So there we go. After more consideration, I came to the conclusion that the cost to upgrade (on top of what I can sell the current one for) is quite reasonable, and after a weekend in which I received an Adsense cheque from Google, my old Powermac was snapped up on eBay, and I discovered that an old Paypal account had a lot more left in it than I remembered, it looks like damage to the wallet will be minimal.