10 Year Wait is Over!
The iMac has landed.
Dual 3.06 gig. Upgraded to 4 gigs of ram. GPU? 8800GS. 500gig HD.
Bought it for £1250 but £1328 including upgrading ram to 4 gigs and delivery.
It arrived the day after I ordered it.
I got last years top end iMac for 500 less than this years top end model and without the 5-6 week wait for the 4850. ie the 4850 isn't £500 plus better than what I bought.
What do I think?
(Should have got this model last year.)
It's a work of art. From the packaging to it's place on the glass desk. Remarkle. Leopard itself is a joy to use. It's like coming up for air after drowning in Windows.
Fast?
Actually, slick and fast. Cinebench? Better I thought it would be...but obviously behind a quad or octo. But for most general day to day computer and 2D image work or for averaging gaming? You'd be hard pressed to spot the difference.
...and the 4 gigs of Ram makes a massive difference to 1 or 2 gigs...or even 160 megs I had in my last 'Power Mac' clone which ran at 200mhz.
Unpacking.
Insane attention to detail from Apple. It was the best foreplay I ever had.
Apps.
Trying things like Scrivener and Pixelater. I'm amazed at some of the small developer apps out there. Healthy app developer base for Mac.
I'll be upgrading my PPC Adobe suite, Painter, Poser, Lightwave etc to Intel versions in due course.
After 10 years, I'm wondering why I didn't buy the Octo last year when I had the money with the GT.
Which leads me to my next point. I don't think Apps are quite there yet in maximising the gains from quad or octo cores out of specific contexts. Until they are, most people are going to be hard pressed to notice the difference between a quad core Nehalem and a dual core 2 duo. That's my overall impression.
When The Nehalem is on 4-5 ghz...then my opinion my change. So I didn't get the Mac Pro after all. (£3000 for Quad core, ram upgrade, gpu upgrade and 24 inch LED?) No thanks. Is the Nehalem better for what I want it for? Not £1700 better it's not. Especially not in single threaded apps...or for middle of the road gaming (Waiting for Champions...)
I got this for such a good price, that I can ebay it before a quad core Nehalem iMac comes out with a better gpu? And put the extra to it if necessary.
If I instead keep it for 3 years? My cost is £500 per year. £10 per week.
I think that's good business.
Ps. It's good to be back.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Dual 3.06 gig. Upgraded to 4 gigs of ram. GPU? 8800GS. 500gig HD.
Bought it for £1250 but £1328 including upgrading ram to 4 gigs and delivery.
It arrived the day after I ordered it.
I got last years top end iMac for 500 less than this years top end model and without the 5-6 week wait for the 4850. ie the 4850 isn't £500 plus better than what I bought.
What do I think?
(Should have got this model last year.)
It's a work of art. From the packaging to it's place on the glass desk. Remarkle. Leopard itself is a joy to use. It's like coming up for air after drowning in Windows.
Fast?
Actually, slick and fast. Cinebench? Better I thought it would be...but obviously behind a quad or octo. But for most general day to day computer and 2D image work or for averaging gaming? You'd be hard pressed to spot the difference.
...and the 4 gigs of Ram makes a massive difference to 1 or 2 gigs...or even 160 megs I had in my last 'Power Mac' clone which ran at 200mhz.
Unpacking.
Insane attention to detail from Apple. It was the best foreplay I ever had.
Apps.
Trying things like Scrivener and Pixelater. I'm amazed at some of the small developer apps out there. Healthy app developer base for Mac.
I'll be upgrading my PPC Adobe suite, Painter, Poser, Lightwave etc to Intel versions in due course.
After 10 years, I'm wondering why I didn't buy the Octo last year when I had the money with the GT.
Which leads me to my next point. I don't think Apps are quite there yet in maximising the gains from quad or octo cores out of specific contexts. Until they are, most people are going to be hard pressed to notice the difference between a quad core Nehalem and a dual core 2 duo. That's my overall impression.
When The Nehalem is on 4-5 ghz...then my opinion my change. So I didn't get the Mac Pro after all. (£3000 for Quad core, ram upgrade, gpu upgrade and 24 inch LED?) No thanks. Is the Nehalem better for what I want it for? Not £1700 better it's not. Especially not in single threaded apps...or for middle of the road gaming (Waiting for Champions...)
I got this for such a good price, that I can ebay it before a quad core Nehalem iMac comes out with a better gpu? And put the extra to it if necessary.
If I instead keep it for 3 years? My cost is £500 per year. £10 per week.
I think that's good business.
Ps. It's good to be back.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Comments
That said its harder and harder for me to swallow the Mac prices currently. I'm still holding out for a Nehalem iMac.
G4. 400mhz. Ati Rage 16 meg card. 1 gig of ram. Puck mouse. She bartered the guy down from £129 to £120! I put £60 pounds to it.
Has Tiger on it. Not the fastest...not the slowest. Not bad for a 9 year old computer. Wonder if it will take 10.5 Leopard?
And it has a Zip Drive to get some data off some old zip disks I have...
10 years waiting and two Macs arrive at once.
And this was 'Power Mac G4' was the one I almost bought 9 years ago for £2000!
Lemon Bon Bon.
After spending 5 or more hours yesterday keeping the pcs that help run my business from croaking today, I can really appreciate OSX.
That said its harder and harder for me to swallow the Mac prices currently. I'm still holding out for a Nehalem iMac.
Well. I can only concur. Apple priced me out of this years Macs completely (me and how many others?)
It's a shame I had to buy an '08 iMac grudgingly...and whoop for joy at £1300 for a dual core, 4 gig of ram computer with a two year old GPU.
The Nehalem iMac may come sooner than this model did. Maybe October? Early 2010? And I hope it is quad core. I may sell this one and get the Nehalem iMac...but only if it's quad core, though.
Lemon Bon Bon.
..
Has Tiger on it. Not the fastest...not the slowest. Not bad for a 9 year old computer. Wonder if it will take 10.5 Leopard?
.
I believe you need at least an 800 mhz g4 for Leopard but some have hacked it on to slower g4s. I doubt the experience is pleasant.
If it runs well on Tiger that's what I'd stick with.
PS I think you were wise to get the last model on discount. If I give in and get an iMac, I'll get a refurb.
I believe you need at least an 800 mhz g4 for Leopard but some have hacked it on to slower g4s. I doubt the experience is pleasant.
If it runs well on Tiger that's what I'd stick with.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I believe you need at least an 800 mhz g4 for Leopard.
It's 867Mhz. I installed it on an iMac G4 800Mhz and it run very well but there was a graphic corruption when waking after sleep. I ended up putting Tiger back.
http://www.mac.profusehost.net/leopardassist/