Upgrade my iMac?

[Ein Name wie kein Name]

Hello,

 

If you take a look at my system specification, would you consider buying new hardware (upgrade not possible)? What would be the cost and what performance increase (%) could I expect?

 

:helpsmilie:

[joey45]

An imac is only an imac with OSX other wise is an over priced PC...

[EtherealN]

I'd personally say you do, at present, not have a reason to replace that machine.

[cichlidfan]

Agree with Ethereal there. That is not much different from what I am running and I can't see the benefit vs. the expense.

[mikoyan]

The only upgrade you can do is ram; that's it; sorry. Overpriced? I don't think so; yes you can build a faster system with the same money.

 

I was a pc guy since the beginning but my career forced me to try the macs; at the end I feel like it will be very hard to get a pc again. Macs are simple; work fine with almost 0 issues; are beautifully designed (less is more approach) the materials are nice not only in quality but also at the touch; even the box were it come from is nicely crafted; you can't say the same about pcs like dell or hp. I just think that apple goes the extra mile to deliver a good product. If I were to get a pc it would be solely for gaming. I got burn by Microsoft twice; first with windows me; and secondly with vista. Every day I have to deal with bugs on computers using xp! which is the best os from Microsoft so far.

 

I have an imac intel; the first model that came with an intel core duo and I have yet to see any failure on that machine. I also have a macbook pro from 2011 and I love it. I had 3 pcs before my macs; the first one was an acer spire 95! it was nicely designed but the hard drive died on me; no other complain about it other than it got obsolete very fast. The second one was a build machine using a pentium 4; with windows me; on paper it was nice but it keep crashing and windows me didn't help. The third one; a Dell, which I still have; 0 issues other than hard drive after 8 months of work. I rarely use it but I think it is a solid machine combined with xp; still it is nowhere near the finish and quality of my macs.

[neroroxxx]

As a musician, graphic designer, web programmer, audio engineer, film editor, eye candy and much more.... I couldn't work on windows anymore, hence why I have a similar system as you except I have double the ram but no SSD, the only reason I have windows is because I need to test websites on Internet explorer and because of ED'w products, I have amazing performance on mine, I have ALL settings at HIGH, on a-10c, p-51d and FC2, plus you have the one of the best monitors out there, I don't do the 1080 on mine I do 1440 so the resolution is amazing, If you are experiencing performance issues I would reinstall bootcamp or try updating all drivers

 

You can get ram here

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/2011/DDR3_21.5_27

 

That's where I got mine, no complains.

[metalnwood]

Others have covered it well but you didnt really say what you were prepared to spend to get what sort of improvement.

 

You would have to spend a fair bit to get a reasonable improvement but it is possible. I wouldn't do it with a mac though, if you were going to get a new machine for a10 then your best option is with a pc.

 

I have had a lot of macs, I do everything I can on them but when I got and wanted to spend money on a dedicated machine for a10 etc it was a pc.

 

if you dont want two machines or one of them to be a windows box then I wouldnt bother upgrading to a more powerful mac, you are pretty good there.

[EtherealN]

Guys, if you want to discuss Mac vs PC in general (I certainly have some opinions there too; watch out mikoyan! :D ), please do so in a separate thread. This thread is not about whether PC's or Macs are better and which one is overpriced or not, it's about Ein Name wie kein Name and his specific computer needs.

[metalnwood]

Sorry Ether, wasnt't trying to compare other than have to state he would _need_ a pc to get significant improvement over a his current system so he could overclcok, get big gpu etc.

[Ein Name wie kein Name]

:poster_ban: j/k

 

Thank you EtherealN for saying this. I do not want any PC vs. Mac discussion in my tiny thread :music_whistling:

 

A RAM Upgrade is not that important right now, is it? (because DCS fits into 8 GB?)

 

Nerorox: I cannot believe you have all options maxed out!? Can you post a screenshot of your settings? Private message would be ok, too.

[Ein Name wie kein Name]

I do not mind getting a PC just for DCS...

[blackbelter]

This is a top notch computer that you have there. Why do you want to upgrade it anyway? Are you having problems with it? What kind of FPS are you getting in DCS?

[metalnwood]

As an example, a friend just upgraded his pc to an i7 ivy (didnt overclock yet), basic motherboard, basic ram, any generic 7970 and he is getting from 60-90 frames with everything maxed on in game settings.

 

Thats with 2 monitors, all gauges exported to 1920x1080 touchscreen and main screen is 1920x1080.

 

So, thats about as powerful as you can go. What you are seeing in your machine is about as good as you will see in most macs so you will have to decide if the defference between what you get and something like the above is enough reason to get more hardware. If it is then you have to look at a PC to get to that kind of better spec.

 

No, not a comparison, just what you have to do if you want that framerate.

[metalnwood]

Of course, having said that, neroroxxx has the full 6970 and thats a good card, that imac should perform pretty well. It would be interesting to know the FPS difference between his and your mobile version because the machines are basically the same otherwise.

[Ein Name wie kein Name]

Time for DCS:Benchmark! Well, with lights on and in close Formation or with many units in a mission, I get low framerates sometimey.

[element1108]

Time for DCS:Benchmark! Well, with lights on and in close Formation or with many units in a mission, I get low framerates sometimey.

 

How low is low and what are you in game settings set to?

[Night]

I have FC2 and DCS World running on my Retina MacBook Pro. It has 16GB RAM, 2.7Ghz i7, GT650M, and a drop-dead GORGEOUS 2800x1880 retina display. I play DCS and FC2 at all high settings at full retina resolution and it looks amazing, though the text is too small to read (windows 7 doesn't handle high-density pixel displays well) so I generally play it in 1080p on an external display.

 

I can't believe that I really haven't had any issues running this game on the rMBPM