Will an iMac will be fast enough for 2,3 years?

Chibi15

Chibi15

Official ai tenshi
Hi!

I am considering buying an iMac / 800 / Superdrive with one Gigabyte of RAM.
But i am wondering if that will be enough performance for OSX for 2,3 years... :confused:

10.2’s Quartz extreme will need 32 meg Graphic card and AGP 2x - that is exactly what the iMac have.

I don’t want that the OSX of one or two years will be to slow on my iMac...

I will primary use my mac for Photoshop an Illustrator (love it! :) ) and for PHP.
But also for some DVD burning :D

Thankyou for your help!!
 
The top of the line Mac should last you for two to three years. But keep in mind that no matter what model you buy, you'll never stay at the top in terms of speed, that's just how it goes. I bought my TiBook to use it for 2 to 3 years, and it's only 667MHz, but I am pretty sure it'll last.
 
The top-of-the-line iMac with 1GB of RAM will last well past 2-3 years. Of course, it will be the bottom-of-the-line at the end of that time-span, but it will still be a formidable machine.

Look at me! I'm running a base-model G4/400 PCI machine (no AGP for me!) with 1GB of RAM, and it's still a powerhouse. And I work fast and furious, too.
 
Of course, it all depends on what you plan on doing with your computer.

To your advantage, however, MacOSX is not as fast as it can be. Apple still has a lot of optimizing to do on it, so, in theory, the OS should actually get faster/lighter over then next year or so.
 
I will use it to listen to music, burn CDs and even DVDs, i will capture my video-tapes (with the Formac Studio), use it as a local webserver for PHP and drawing in Illustrator :)

Maybe i will play some games too but this is not so important to me.
It’s important that my computer doesn’t feel slow to me.

It's good to hear, that OSX will get lighter and faster! :)
 
I didn't say it WILL get faster, only that is SHOULD get faster...it's all up to Apple. ;o)

Video editing is perhaps one of the most demanding things you can do with your computer. You may want to consider a G4 vs. the new iMacs, as you can more easily swap out cards and such if, down the road, you feel you need some more power added on.
 
I am not planning to do serious or professional video editing - just plaing around a little bit and digitising my video collection - this should'nt be a problem - i will use an external device like the formac Studio :)
 
It doesn't matter whether you buy the iMac 800 now or a PowerMacintosh G4 Dual 1GHz. Both machines will be old in 3 years. Take a look three years back at apple-history.com. 1999 there was for example an iMac in five colours at 333 MHz, while there was a blue & white G3 at 450 MHz. Both were fine machines at the time.

There are differences, still. You can replace the monitor of the old G3, along with the graphics adapter card, although there are not very much PCI graphics cards available nowadays - and relatively expensive. Also, there are G4 upgrade cards that squeeze a little (really, little) more life out of the old G3. Still, basically you could still use both machines, and both machines would not make you happy if you'd look at the options of newer machines.

The difference that might seem large now will be much smaller in two to three years, because both lines will see many updates by then. If you tend to squeeze life out of your computers by upgrading them from time to time, go for a PowerMacintosh G4 with a SuperDrive and a decent monitor (I suggest the 17" LCD). It's more money, definitely. If you want the machine to last for two to three years as is: Take the iMac.
 
fryke, I think you're understimating old Macs.

At the current rate, my 300 MHz B/W G3 probably has about 2 more years left in it. It was not-quite-bottom-of-the-line three years ago when I got it. Since then, I've added 384 MB RAM, a second HD, and a second video card (actually lower performance than the original one, it's just for a second monitor that I only ever use to read copious text and such), other than that it's stock.

For my purposes, the additional RAM did much more to improve things than a faster processor would have. That is, I think - I base my guess on comparing my comp to a faster CPU G4 with much less RAM.

When I get a new Mac, the G3 will likely get NetBSD put on it and go into service as a home file/print/mail/SQL/web/whatever else server.
 
My Grape 400Mhz iMac DV will be looking at its second birthday at the end of this summer - I bought it just after the Sage/Ruby/Indigo line came oue, and I anticipate that it will last me through the end of my college life (another two years after that, hopefully). I doubt any of the newer iMacs will be different - they don't have the transition from OS 9 to OS X to survive like mine did.

Granted, I have 512 megs of RAM, but nevertheless, this iMac is still going strong. I have never been close to being displeased with its performance. Of course, I don't play a lot of games, and that might have something to do with it... :rolleyes:

Bottom line: Macs last a long time. :D

-the valrus
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top