Imac nub

[Soccerman06]

Say I buy the cheapest Imac available, can I throw in my own gpu and audio card or do am I going to have to spend an arm and a leg to upgrade?

 

[ViRGE]

The iMac is a closed all-in-one computer, think of it as a laptop with a very large screen and a few oversized components. It doesn't have any PCI/PCI-e slots for installing your own hardware, with the video card being soldered on.

 

[Oil]

The iMac is not a normal desktop, it uses mostly all laptop parts except for hard drives. This means upgrading the GPU and audio is impossible. I think the CPU is soldered so you can't upgrade that either.

You can change the hard drive and ram but it is a pain to open up the new iMacs to swap the components

 

[TheStu]

Installing RAM is easy, you undo a single screw under the chin. Replacing the hard drive is a whole other situation however. And I think that the CPU is soldered on, as is the vid card. The Airport card is replaceable, but incredibly hard to get to as well.

 

[umrigar]

get the $849 refurb when it's available online. (they sell out quickly and are not in stock every day)
the $749 model has integrated GPU like the Macbook and Mac Mini. For $100 more you get a dedicated GPU with 128 MB VRAM.

http://macreviewzone.com/html/...p/refurbwatch.php#imac

 

[Soccerman06]

Now say if I was looking at the ProMac, can I do what I asked previously or is it all soldered in as well?

 

[TheStu]

The Mac Pro is incredibly upgradeable as compared to any of the others.

It has 4 x16 length PCIe slots (unfortunately, due to the Intel chipset, the best you will get is only 1 x16 electric slot) 2 sockets for the Xeons (and they are replaceable), 8 RAM slots for the FB-DIMMs, and 4 SATA drive bays and 2 optical drive bays.

However, aside from the drives, or adding more RAM, there is little need to crack that sucker open. Sure, you could always get more video cards, drop them in there, but I am not sure how likely that is.

I know that people give Apple flak for not making a more affordable, upgradeable tower, but honestly, who the heck buys these things? Dell makes affordable upgradeable towers, but how many of those actually get upgraded beyond the RAM and hard drive anyway, if even those.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: OSx86

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

in the mac world? yes.

you can upgrade the video card, but you have to use one that works with macs. if you want a cheap mac you're going to be stuck with an iMac, or maybe pick up a refurb mac pro with the old specs and maybe upgrade the video card when the 8800gt is working with them. i still don't think you'll get in under 1500 bucks tho. the mac pro isn't your cheap newegg bargain shopper box, sorry.

 

[Soccerman06]

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: OSx86

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

in the mac world? yes.

you can upgrade the video card, but you have to use one that works with macs. if you want a cheap mac you're going to be stuck with an iMac, or maybe pick up a refurb mac pro with the old specs and maybe upgrade the video card when the 8800gt is working with them. i still don't think you'll get in under 1500 bucks tho. the mac pro isn't your cheap newegg bargain shopper box, sorry.

Well I priced a fully functional pc with the same basic spec as the Mac Pro (4 core xenon, 2 gig ram 8800gt) and the price difference is huge. For the pc it was 1242 and the mac was over 3100. Only difference between them would be the pc which had 4 gigs of ram and 16m cache hdd instead of a 8mb (both had 20 screens). and yes, those parts were of higher quality.

so expensive

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: OSx86

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

in the mac world? yes.

you can upgrade the video card, but you have to use one that works with macs. if you want a cheap mac you're going to be stuck with an iMac, or maybe pick up a refurb mac pro with the old specs and maybe upgrade the video card when the 8800gt is working with them. i still don't think you'll get in under 1500 bucks tho. the mac pro isn't your cheap newegg bargain shopper box, sorry.

And that precisely explains my point, there *are* people out there that don't need the power of a Mac Pro (or don't have the cash) but want more functionality than an iMac. The only problem is the GPU situation because the video cards need to work with EFI and OS X and there are a handful that do right now

 

[TheStu]

Well, bear in mind that the Mac Pro has a really beefy PSU, dual socket, 4 PCIe slot Mobo, utilizes DDR2 FB-DIMMs, and has a serious case.

I'm not saying that you can't make an awesome hackintosh, just ask Kaido, but building your own Mac Pro (one that is truly identical) is tricky at best. Mac Pro uses Harpertown Xeons, and at the speed that it bases at, it is at least $754 for a single processor. I cannot find the exact mobo on Newegg, none of them have 4 PCIe x16 slots. Then you have to take into account the much more expensive RAM (due to its fully buffered status).

So, feel free to build a hackintosh, they can be quite awesome. I personally prefer a true a mac, but I recognize that they can be quite expensive depending on what you are looking for.

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: TheStu
Well, bear in mind that the Mac Pro has a really beefy PSU, dual socket, 4 PCIe slot Mobo, utilizes DDR2 FB-DIMMs, and has a serious case.

I'm not saying that you can't make an awesome hackintosh, just ask Kaido, but building your own Mac Pro (one that is truly identical) is tricky at best. Mac Pro uses Harpertown Xeons, and at the speed that it bases at, it is at least $754 for a single processor. I cannot find the exact mobo on Newegg, none of them have 4 PCIe x16 slots. Then you have to take into account the much more expensive RAM (due to its fully buffered status).

So, feel free to build a hackintosh, they can be quite awesome. I personally prefer a true a mac, but I recognize that they can be quite expensive depending on what you are looking for.

Again, that is my point. I would prefer a true Mac myself that OS X fully supports (drivers) than build a Hackintosh. My argument is for a smaller desktop that does not have a built in monitor. This desktop I'm talking about would have roughly the following features: no laptop parts at all, C2D (not Xeon), choice of desktop GPU (a few hopefully), no FB-DIMM ram, smaller than Mac Pro, easy to open up the case and install more ram/hard drives.

If Apple made a computer like that, me and many other people would be very happy

 

[Tegeril]

Those puppies are really cute.

 

[Soccerman06]

Another question, if I get the pro, can I use w/e monitor fits into the cables or do I have to sit with the apple monitor (ie Dell 3007WFP)

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
Another question, if I get the pro, can I use w/e monitor fits into the cables or do I have to sit with the apple monitor (ie Dell 3007WFP)

Any monitor you want

 

[umrigar]

Any DVI or VGA with adapter should work fine with the Pro.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: OSx86

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

in the mac world? yes.

you can upgrade the video card, but you have to use one that works with macs. if you want a cheap mac you're going to be stuck with an iMac, or maybe pick up a refurb mac pro with the old specs and maybe upgrade the video card when the 8800gt is working with them. i still don't think you'll get in under 1500 bucks tho. the mac pro isn't your cheap newegg bargain shopper box, sorry.

Well I priced a fully functional pc with the same basic spec as the Mac Pro (4 core xenon, 2 gig ram 8800gt) and the price difference is huge. For the pc it was 1242 and the mac was over 3100. Only difference between them would be the pc which had 4 gigs of ram and 16m cache hdd instead of a 8mb (both had 20 screens). and yes, those parts were of higher quality.

so expensive

the cpus themselves are 750 bucks on newegg. a single cpu mac pro with the 8800 is 2500 bucks, no display (save a few hundred bucks and buy a 20" dell screen instead of an apple).

 

[Soccerman06]

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: Soccerman06

Originally posted by: fisher

Originally posted by: OSx86

Originally posted by: SoundTheSurrender
It's the nerds that constantly have to upgrade their systems then just using them that seem to cry about that.

No, its the computer users who want to use a desktop system with their own (not built in) monitor and GPU at an affordable price. By affordable, I'm talking about under $1500. Is that really too "nerdy" to ask for?

Edit: Something like the old Cube would be excellent (without the problems they had with heat)

in the mac world? yes.

you can upgrade the video card, but you have to use one that works with macs. if you want a cheap mac you're going to be stuck with an iMac, or maybe pick up a refurb mac pro with the old specs and maybe upgrade the video card when the 8800gt is working with them. i still don't think you'll get in under 1500 bucks tho. the mac pro isn't your cheap newegg bargain shopper box, sorry.

Well I priced a fully functional pc with the same basic spec as the Mac Pro (4 core xenon, 2 gig ram 8800gt) and the price difference is huge. For the pc it was 1242 and the mac was over 3100. Only difference between them would be the pc which had 4 gigs of ram and 16m cache hdd instead of a 8mb (both had 20 screens). and yes, those parts were of higher quality.

so expensive

the cpus themselves are 750 bucks on newegg. a single cpu mac pro with the 8800 is 2500 bucks, no display (save a few hundred bucks and buy a 20" dell screen instead of an apple).

Thats basically what I was thinking, but another few gigs of ram and go halfsies with my dad on a 3007. For some reason, my dad gets a discount from IBM on macs (how does that work?) and was going to get his discount for me however much that is.