Do I Grab the 24" iMac In Front Of Me Or Wait For Its Bigger Sister?

December 21, 2006 6:06 PM

Please tell: Is it worth waiting 4 whole weeks for the 2GB RAM, 500 GB HD 24" iMac I want to arrive, if Apple here in Lisbon can bring me the standard 1GB, 250 GB set-up tomorrow? Is the spec difference worth the wait?

Thanks to your imaginative excuses support, my beloved publisher has generously offered me the 24" iMac in 60 very easy royalty-deductible installments. However, this would be the standard set-up (1GB = 2x512 chips) with only 250 GB memory, as these are the specs of the machines in Portuguese shops.

1)Should I wait for the more powerful version (though waiting is hell)? Or should I take possession and then worry about an external hard drive later?

If your opinion is "Hell, No!", many thanks and please disregard the rest.

2)If I do wait, since I have to make a special order, should I spend a little more on the slightly faster processor? For $250 you get 2.33 GHz instead of 2.16.

3) Should I max out the RAM to 3GB for $750 or just pay the extra $175 for 2GB?

4) Instead of paying $199 to get 500GB memory, is it worth an extra $200 to get 750GB?

5) Most depressing question: should I wait until Spring, for a free processor upgrade and, what's more, Leopard built-in as well? Please think well before recommending this sorry course of action.

For the record, I don't do any gaming or 3-D work, but I do timidly edit movies and design magazines and books.


Many thanks for any help and opinions on this pressing matter! Apologies for the devils in the details!

posted by MiguelCardoso to computers & internet (21 comments total)

No matter when you consider buying a computer, there's always another one coming soon which will have more stuff at a better price. Too much obsessing about that can drive you nuts.

Do you need a computer now? Is the one that's available now acceptable to fill your needs? If so, buy it.

If you don't actually need a computer now, then wait until you do need a computer, and then look at everything that's available and pick something.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:09 PM on December 21, 2006

I'd get the low spec machine and upgrade it with (cheaper) third party components when/if you feel the need. 250GB/1GB is plenty to be getting on with. If you are editing movies etc you will want to keep the data on external drives anyway.
posted by unSane at 6:10 PM on December 21, 2006

Wait 4 weeks for the more powerful version. You'll notice the difference when you run Office and Photoshop. Leopard is worth the wait for the built-in backups and new Apple Mail, but that may not be available until early Spring.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:11 PM on December 21, 2006

Is there a price difference between what is available now and what will take four weeks to deliver?

If not, then wait the four weeks. This is the holiday season, so you should be busy partying with friends and family anyway. The new computer will help mitigate the january post-holidays blues.

If you have to pay extra for the apple upgrades, then get the basic machine today and slowly uprgade it as needed. 3rd party upgrades should be much less expensive than apple, even if you buy premium 3rd party parts.

With respect to the processor, consider that the new intel CPUs are at least twice as fast as the old G5 CPUs, and the G5s were very fast. Go with the less expensive CPU, you won't notice the difference.

2GB of RAM is probably plenty for your work.

The 250 GB internal hard drive should be plenty for your first six months of use (at least!). After that, add external hard drives. External hard drives are great because you can use them for backups. Get an extra 250gb drive, and dump your important documents there every week.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:21 PM on December 21, 2006

Gizmodo has put together a set of Apple Keynote Safety dates for purchasing new Apple products.

It seems that if you buy on Dec 26th and Unkie Steve announces a new product during his Keynote Address at Macworld you can return your item with a 10% restocking fee.

If you purchase on or after Dec 30th and a newer version of your model is introduced (at Macworld) you can exchange your product for a newer model.
posted by ASM at 6:24 PM on December 21, 2006

Thanks, Steven.

unSane: Cheers but the truth is I have 1GB now and I practically spend the whole day watching the beach ball spinning. Also, I have a very clean desk and wouldn't want an external drive sitting around.

BP: Correct me if I'm mad. This Time Machine thing will presumably eat up at least twice as much memory, so that when I migrate my 80 GB from my present 2003 Flat-Panel G4 800, they'll instantly become 160GB, leaving 90 which will end up being just 45x2. So, in fact, about half the available memory of the G4 (80) when it was new.

Does Time Machine mean we effectively have only half the full memory allocation?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:29 PM on December 21, 2006

Well, I hope you have an OUTSTANDING backup strategy, as using a 500 GB drive to host all your personal data PLUS using it as the main media drive for video editing is asking for trouble... however clean your desk is.

My experience with recent drives (I have about 2 TB of external drives hanging off my work Mac) is that anything over 100 GB has a mean time before failure of about 18-24 months. If that.

Scary, and true.
posted by unSane at 6:37 PM on December 21, 2006

UnSane: Having no backup strategy whatsoever (I'm relying on Time Machine) I conclude I should in fact keep to the 250 GB drive, treat it very sensitively and acquire external drives forthwith (any recommendations would be much appreciated).

But why would Apple up the hard drives to 250GB if this makes them more vulnerable (18-24 months is unacceptable to me as I need it solid, with no mishaps, for 48 months at least.

*shivers*
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:57 PM on December 21, 2006

If you use Photoshop a lot, the upcoming universal binary versions of CS3 are going to make a bigger difference in speed than the smallish upgrade in processor.

If the cash were coming directly out of my pocket, I'd probably take the machine I could get right now for less. If my employer is involved in easing the purchase, I'd wait for the better machine - it's not like you'll be without a computer in the meantime. Think of the 4 weeks as a time to say goodbye.
posted by jalexei at 6:59 PM on December 21, 2006

1. If you work out the cost-per-quantity value for all the various parts of a computer (memory, disk space, cpu, graphics, etc.) you often find that the "largest" option in each category is a significantly lower value than the second largest. In general, you can save a decent amount of money by getting the second fastest CPU, using the second (sometimes third) largest capacity hard drive, and using the lowest density memory sticks that will meet your memory requirements.

2. I have had three 250 GB external hard drives for two years, and none of them have failed. Hard drives that have been on the market for 6-12 months often have better longevity than new models. This is because hard drives are frequently revised to lower costs to the manufacturer and increase reliability. Cool parts generally last longer than hot parts, so an external drive with good cooling should last longer than a big, fast drive inside an iMac.

3. Minor point: RAM is memory. The 250 GB / 500 GB thing is a hard drive.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:31 PM on December 21, 2006

Cheers but the truth is I have 1GB now and I practically spend the whole day watching the beach ball spinning.

I'd be surprised if this is really due to a lack of memory, especially if you reboot regularly. To see whether it is, at a point when the computer is beachballing often, open "/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor" and check the state of the memory. You should really only have problems if the amount of memory used is significantly higher than 1GB, or if the number of "page outs" is higher or is growing quickly. With 1GB and tiger you might get some beachballing due to memory, but not a lot.

That said, I have 2GB of memory. I usually only get over 1GB active when doing really heavy audio work, or when I don't reboot for a long long time, so 3GB seems to me to be really excessive at this point in time. From my experience, 2GB seems to be the current sweet spot of just a little more than I need to run tiger on a macintel. I second the point that 3rd party memory is likely to be much cheaper than Apple supplied upgrades. When I bought my macbook it was like a factor of 2 difference (or more) between what apple was charging for the upgrade to 2GB, and what I could get at a 3rd party vendor.
posted by advil at 7:59 PM on December 21, 2006

Rule one with Apple: buy third-party RAM. It's not difficult to install with the current iMacs.

And I'd probably go with a set of external HDs for video and backup. Eggs, baskets etc. You'll probably get some performance improvements from not having everything on a single drive, and have the convenience of having projects compartmentalised.

So, buy the stock setup, ideally on the 30th to be Macworld-safe and still within the tax year. And suggest that your publisher might want to invest in Adobe CS3 when it comes out, as it'll be Intel-native.

And you should have a backup strategy in place now, if not sooner. SuperDuper lets you make a clone of your working hard drive. Retrospect allows incremental backups now. Don't wait for Time Machine, because Sod's Law will schedule that catastrophic hardware failure for the week before Leopard ships. (Admittedly, the Portuguese do fatalism well, but it should be saved for better things than computers.)

I'd say that 250Gb is probably the best option for drives now -- it's the sweet spot between capacity and price, and is pretty well-evolved. Get a few of them: one for video scratch, one for a clone of your hard drive, one for good luck.

[I have a single 250Gb external drive for my iBook, divided into four partitions: a minimal Tiger install for emergencies; a clone of my iBook hard drive; one with random archived stuff; the last for video scratch. That's still probably dangerous, though I supplement it with DVD archives and online backups of stuff I really don't want to lose.]

Finally, I'd suggest that Time Machine may not be the ideal solution for people working with large files. Text documents? MP3s? Sure. But multi-gigabyte digital video? Dunno. We'll have to see exactly how it's implemented.
posted by holgate at 9:15 PM on December 21, 2006

I would get the low-spec machine now and upgrade the RAM to 2 GB. I doubt the faster processor would make a big difference, and if you don't foresee a need for a drive of more than 250 GB in the near future, don't invest in it now. By the time you do need it, you'll be able to get a 1 TB drive cheaply enough.

I would get an external drive, or perhaps even a NAS box that you can put in a different room, for more data security in case a tree falls on your desk or something.
posted by adamrice at 9:20 PM on December 21, 2006

A NAS box might be excessive for home use, particularly if you only have one or two computers. Consumer-grade NAS can be painfully slow, particularly when dealing with large numbers of small files.

Spending USD$100 on a good quality UPS will probably add far more value and security. A UPS will smooth out power spikes and fill in dips. The relaive longevity of my 250gb disks might be due to the fact that they have always had a UPS between them and the house power.
posted by b1tr0t at 9:28 PM on December 21, 2006

The extra gig of ram is probably worth it (since it will cost you about 200-220$, according to newegg, to upgrade to 2 GB after market, and you probably will want more than 1GB eventually. Note also that the 3gb is very much not worth the money.)

The extra HDD is probably _not_ worth it, since you can augment with an external unit, or upgrade cheaper later.

Also, the CPU is not worth it; it is silly expensive for the slight edge it would provide.

Since you are buying this on credit, I would be inclined to say you should spend as little as possible. If you go with my recommendation of just getting the upgraded ram (for either 175$ from apple, or 230$ [incl shipping] from newegg, the only question is whether the 55$ is worth the wait. Either way, I'd second the suggestion that you mind the keynote safety dates.
posted by blenderfish at 10:03 PM on December 21, 2006

You say that you expect at least 4 years from this new machine. I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other on the hard drive issue, don't recommend you spend anything on the CPU upgrade with your usage pattern,

BUT,

I do recommend that if you are going to go with a BTO unit as opposed to the ready made one, go for the higher spec GPU. It's the most reasonably priced of the 24" upgrades, and is likely to be very useful in heading off for as long as possible the practical obsolescence of your computer. GUIs are constantly upping the ante on GPUs, and in three years, I can easily see an OS recommending 256MB for the VRAM
posted by birdsquared at 10:20 PM on December 21, 2006

Thank you very much for your patient, plain-speaking advice. I shall wait. I've been convinced of the necessity of external drives but will try the bigger HD anyway, though gingerly. I'll stick with standard CPU but will order the graphics upgrade. I will mind the keynote security dates.

Cheers, holgate, my wise and witty friend!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:25 AM on December 22, 2006

Easy to upgrade: RAM

Harder to upgrade: Internal Disk
Mitigation: Firewire and USB 2 make external disk easy, and you're a writer.

Hard-to-impossible to upgrade on an iMac: Screen, CPU

Thus:

1) A 2.16Ghz Core Duo 2 CPU is three generations newer than a G4 800. 2x2.16GHz vs 800MHz is already unfair, but the Intel processor has much faster memory busses. Compared to the iLamp, this thing is gonna fly.

2) You have no idea how amazingly useful big screens are. I had to fight at the office to get dual panels. Now, everyone is getting them by default. More desktop is very useful indeed.

3) New toys are cool.

Therefore:

1) Get the new iMac now

2) When you crack open something like Photoshop, get more RAM.

3) When all the fotos and movies from the built in camera eat up that hard drive, buy a couple of externals.

4) Remember, you get a SuperDrive with that, you can back up to CD or DVD as well.

Seriously. Get the box now. The 500GB drive upgrade isn't worth waiting for, and upgrading the RAM later isn't hard -- I don't know how tool-friendly you are, so I can't say you can do it yourself, but you're bound to know a geek who can do so in a thrice. (Hmm. MeFi meetup in Portugal to upgrade the MigsMac!)

The only reason to wait is for the RAM, and it's not a good reason to wait. Go. Buy. Enjoy.
posted by eriko at 7:35 AM on December 22, 2006

If you do end up requiring external disks, perhaps you can install a small shelf underneath or near your desk to keep it out of sight.
posted by concrete at 12:04 PM on December 22, 2006

"why would Apple up the hard drives to 250GB if this makes them more vulnerable"

It doesn't; the latest thing in even denser platters may introduce a slightly higher chance of failure while manufacturing and testing gets tweaked against reality, but generally bigger disks are just as reliable as smaller ones. Which is good because smaller disks are quickly moved to the exact same tech as larger disks; a modern 250G disk will literally be the same as a 500G disk, just with half of the platters and heads.

"(18-24 months is unacceptable to me as I need it solid, with no mishaps, for 48 months at least."

Most drives have a design life of 5 years, with a yearly failure rate of maybe 0.5-1%; if you need it to last that long, you'd be well advised to get a couple of disks, a decent enclosure and RAID-1 them. You're more likely to see a failure (because you have more components), but it'll be less likely to impact your work. Others might suggest 3 disks and RAID-5, but that's somewhat more complex and may well turn out less reliable.

You might also consider more "Enterprisey" drives like Seagate's NL or NS models, which strive for a lower failure rate with harsher duty cycles; they supposedly get more testing, and don't cost a huge amount more.

Keep in mind no amount of RAID or software features like Time Machine, ZFS snapshots, etc, are suitable replacements for actual backups, preferably off-site (most data loss I've seen recently has been theft of computers, backup media etc).
posted by Freaky at 1:07 PM on December 22, 2006

you'd be well advised to get a couple of disks, a decent enclosure and RAID-1 them.

Mirroring drives protects against drive failure, but not against controller failure or user failure. "sudo rm -rf /" will happily delete all the data off of both drives.

Mirrors are not a substitute for backups.

Having said that, I spec mirror pairs in all my boxes mod notebooks, because the things that are most likely to fail are the things that move -- the fans and the drives.

Yes, I'd do mirror pairs in notebooks if I could, but any notebook I'd carry doesn't have the ability.
posted by eriko at 9:15 AM on December 23, 2006