Last minute questions before I get my Mac. :)

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hey everyone! I'm thinking of getting an iMac tomorrow, and I have a few last minute questions about it.



Being that it's an all-in-one unit, will I be able to replace the hard drive with an SSD? I would like to do a mirror image of the hard drive and swap it on the SSD. Besides RAM and, hopefully the hard drive, I suppose I can't swap the video card for a different one, yes?



Speaking of which, I'll be getting the 21.5" version and wanted to know if I should go for the ATI card over the older NVIDIA 9400? I'm not trying to future-proof at all, by the way, and I won't be doing any AutoCAD on it, for instance.



Has the yellow screen issue that was quite prevalent in late '09 and early '10 been resolved?



Finally, do we know as to how long the next iMac refresh is likely to occur? I read a few things about touch screen coming to iMac, for example.



Thanks very much!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    GET A PC!



    They are cheap!
  • Reply 2 of 3
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,322moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crunch View Post


    Being that it's an all-in-one unit, will I be able to replace the hard drive with an SSD? I would like to do a mirror image of the hard drive and swap it on the SSD. Besides RAM and, hopefully the hard drive, I suppose I can't swap the video card for a different one, yes?



    You can upgrade the RAM and that's it. To get to the hard drive, you have to take the screen out.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crunch View Post


    Speaking of which, I'll be getting the 21.5" version and wanted to know if I should go for the ATI card over the older NVIDIA 9400? I'm not trying to future-proof at all, by the way, and I won't be doing any AutoCAD on it, for instance.



    The 9400M is pretty fast. If you will never be bothered about 3D or OpenCL performance, go with the 9400M. NVidia GPUs get better software support.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crunch View Post


    Has the yellow screen issue that was quite prevalent in late '09 and early '10 been resolved?



    I think that was only an issue in the 27" models but yeah the reports seem to have died down.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crunch View Post


    Finally, do we know as to how long the next iMac refresh is likely to occur? I read a few things about touch screen coming to iMac, for example.



    I would have guessed August/September but there's not a whole of things they can do with the lineup except maybe move the models down a notch and then add a 6-core Core i7-970 in the highest end and switch the current i5s to 32nm i5s. The new i7 is supposed to be coming soon:



    http://forums.extremeoverclocking.co....php?p=3724375



    It might be too expensive though. They already updated the Mini so they could easily bring out an iMac refresh soon too. I am expecting the Mac Pro first but they could easily happen together because I have a feeling Apple likes that people opt for the iMac over Mac Pros. Their profit margins will be similar but people will upgrade an iMac quicker than a Mac Pro.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    crunchcrunch Posts: 180member
    Thank you, Marvin. Excellent advice!
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