19 
You might want to make an addendum to your Christmas list. Those impossibly slender new iMacs go on sale November 30.
Announced in September at Apple’s iPhone event, the latest desktop machines are just 5mm thin. The base 21.5-inch model has a 2.7 GHz quad-core processor and starts at £1,100. The 27-incher starts with a 2.9 GHz quad-core i5 processor and pricing begins at £1,500. Each machine can be bumped up all the way up to i7 if you please.
The bigger of the two has a resolution of 2560 by 1440. Both have four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt, 32GB of RAM, and as much as 768GB of flash storage. There’s also an SD card, gigabit ethernet, and a fusion drive, which is 128GB of flash storage plus 1 or 3 TB of hard drive combined into one hard drive. And they’re skinny enough that they’ll fit nicely under that Douglas fir. [BusinessWire]
Apple to Hold Global Black Friday Sale This Friday 25th November
You Can Buy a Fake New iMac Before Apple's Has Even Gone on Sale
Bargain Hunters Get Ready: Amazon's Black Friday Sales Week Is 21st - 25th November
£1,100? I’m sorry but no way would I spend that much money for a laptop on a desk stand. Not when when, for less, you could build a PC that is capable of destroying it in every aspect (apart from looks maybe, but that is a matter of opinion).
In fairness, the build quality of the thing will likely never be matched by something you built with your own hands… And not to mention ‘oh I could build that’ is an argument a VERY small number of people can actually use.
Yes, very small – because few people bother to research into it. And for build quality, hey sure – it’s thin and the build quality’s great. But perhaps they’ll release a Cinema Display that’s just as thin as this, and then what’s the point? It’ll be expensive and only good for the AIO factor. And I’m mildly certain there *are* people who can build as good as this, cases just get better all the time for instance…
Coming from a PC background and having made several pcs in the past 15 or so years, I thought exactly that before I bought my iMac i7 in 2011.
At that time I priced something up to the exact spec as the imac I was contemplating purchasing, including a 27inch monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse. It would have cost more and looked less than half as good.
That argument just doesnt stand these days!
The computer I built last week would like me to let you know you are speaking nonsense, and that with the iMac you pay abut 500 pounds for design. My new pc bests or equals the iMac in all categories and is about half the price
Prove it.
Sigh, i7 3770 cpu, 500w psu, antec one case, gigabyte z77 motherboard, 32gb ddr3 1600MHz ram, crucial m4 256 GB ssd, 2TB sata 3 hdd approx price 680 quid. Dell 27 inch monitor 500 quid. Pick a graphics card and your flavour of windows. Comes to approx 1500 quid, which appears to be the starting price of the 27 inch iMac without upgraded hard drive, upgraded ram, upgraded processor, same graphics card.
Now the following is a bit of a guess, but a well founded one based on apple’s current upgrade prices; The processor upgrade will cost at least 300, maybe more (the upgrade to the next i5 is 200), the ram upgrade will be at least 300, the fusion drive upgrade will be at least 200, meaning the PC part of the Mac is now at least 800 more for the same spec. I have based all of this on the upgrade costs for the Mac mini which seems like a good indicator of how much the iMac is charging.
Hope all of that ‘proves it’.
Just over a month ago – a friend of mine spend £860 on parts for an i7 that I built. for him.
This is the spec.
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB WIFI Motherboard
Intel i7 3770k – Retail
4x4GB of Corsair Vegance Ram
120GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD
1TB Western Digital Green
Sony DVD-RW drive (cheap OEM spec)
Thermaltake case – very nice by the way…
32″ Iiyama LCD.
Also purchased a new tri-band router within this setup.
Bare in mind – this machine has only got 16gb ram, this could of been upped to 32gb and the SSD upped to 250gb all for under a grand and it would wipe the floor over the iMac.
You can also add a dedicated graphics card of really good quality and play all the tops games and it would still be less than £1200… the machine takes approx 4seconds to boot once the UEFI bios has loaded and windows starts to boot.
That seems mostly in keeping with what I would expect, not sure how it is that The Chilla seems unable to build a comparable pc for the sort of money he is willing to spend on an iMac.
I am not saying that the iMac isn’t a very attractive proposition, but the statement that you cannot build something better for considerable less money is quite flawed.
I suppose when I spec’d a computer build back when the i7 iMac came out, the i7 cpus themselves were quite a lot more than they are now. As were the 27inch IPS displays. The price of a similarly spec’d iMac and PC build were quite even. Also when the Mac Pro’s came out a few years back they were hugely way better value than anything even remotely close – and you could boot into windows if need be.
1500quid is what your build came to. Fair enough! My i7 iMac cost around 1600 (after a bit of discount via a student) and that was nearly 2 years back. I can almost guarantee 2 years ago your build would have cost more than the iMac.
I have no problem with you speaking about what happened in the past but two years ago is one thing and right now is another.
The build I specced is an example, mine was for example much cheaper since I got a 24 inch monitor, didn’t have to buy windows and haven’t bothered putting in a graphics card yet, totaling 830 quid. Which is approximately half the price and considerably better specs.
I haven’t even started talking about the fact that I have multiple hard drives which is impossible in macs and can add more as I see fit.
I am in no way trying to tell you that you shouldn’t have bought an iMac, or that an iMac is a bad buy. All I am saying is that they cost a lot more for the same quality of internal parts.
I guess when these new iMacs are released we’ll be able to accurately ascertain how much extra an iMac would cost over a PC equivalent. When the new mac pros are released I’ll more than likely whip my geek stick out again and do a ‘like for like’ with that too! I’d be happy to place a wager now that a 16 core Xeon Mac Pro would be cheaper than a 16 core Xeon PC workstation (either custom built or store bought.)
For anyone still interested, new macs are out. Have just priced one with equal specs to the machine I specced above and it came out to (drum roll please)
£2,659.00.
i.e. a difference of over £1000.
That is ridiculous mate.. As if you added cpu, apple ram and ssd!
Base 27inch = 1699
optional GFX card upgrade = 120
32gb (non apple ram) = 120
i5 cpu (from imac) sell for 140
3.4 i7 cpu = 160
Total = 1959. If you are (or know anyone who is) a student, you’d get 14% off the mac = £254. Which brings the total down to £1705.
Also bare in mind the imac comes with the magic mouse and keyboard – both worth around £50 each in their own right. And a pretty decent built in 2.1 sound system (equivalent to maybe £50-£70?) – as well as what you could consider an awesome case!
Obviously anyone able to build their own computer will be able to replace a cpu/ram in an imac so this is more of a realistic comparison.
I think to sum up, for around the same price as building a computer of a similar spec to the iMac, including monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, it would probably be better to buy the iMac and upgrade it yourself since the difference in cost is negligible!
I forgot to say, a 128gb ssd is around £60 these days. So add that too.
and add £70-80 because I misread the 3.4i7 price lol
I see you are firm in the face of being wrong which is fine, I honestly can’t be bothered to continue this rather pointless discussion. I hope you are happy with spending whatever you spend I am happy spending what I spend. I do however wish that you don’t attempt to mislead others based on your is preference.
In fact, we’ve established that the highest spec iMac costs around 200-300 more than a custom built PC.
That is quite noteworthy since many people, yourself included, have this belief that macs cost 1000′s more just for the ‘design’ when in actual fact they don’t.
Not to mention the space saving form factor, or that in 2 years the iMac can be sold at a gain of 200-300 over the custom-built PC+screen etc.
Again, as I said in my first post, the argument of a DIY PC being better value than an iMac just doesn’t cut it these days.
You still seem to think that changing parts in this thing is as easy as swapping parts in a custom pc. I refer you to the following web page:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/1
Personally I would prefer to not have to take a heat gun to my computer in order to upgrade the ram/hard drive/processor.
This may be something you are good with, in which case more power to you but I had always thought spending more money was supposed to make things easier.
“You still seem to think that changing parts in this thing is as easy as swapping parts in a custom pc” – thats because it is. It IS a PC, albeit a much fancier, well designed and meticulously thought out PC.
The only difference with taking the new and old imac apart is the adhesive around the screen. You have to assume that apple technicians, genius’, etc, will have to perform this day-in-day-out. So it won’t be all that difficult.
If I were in the position to buy a new computer i’d snap a base 27inch up in a second (when they become available) and do all the upgrades I mentioned. But personally, I’m waiting for the new Mac Pros to be released then I can sell my old 8core 2008 mac pro (and because its an apple product i’ll get a lot more than the equivalent used PC).
Value isn’t just in the price you pay for something my friend.
I have no problem with you doing this, I am saying that I do not want to, and I don’t want to have to sell things to make something only slightly more expensive than the alternative.
If you like mac that and think they are worth it that is fine. Personally I don’t need or want a 27 inch monitor, I have a 24 and a 21.
My top of the line pc build cost me 1050 and I can with pretty much zero effort upgrade parts. That is fine with me. I am not saying that you should buy a pc since they obviously don’t deliver what you want. They do however deliver what I want at a considerably lower cost than I could get from apple even using all of the custom upgrades you have indicated above.
If you think this is untrue, then it is not worth having this conversation anymore. I am not going to buy a mac, since I am not a fan of apple. Even if I was however I would not attempt to say that the two were similarly priced since quite frankly they aren’t.
If you can in all seriousness price a full imac, can be the 21 inch I am not bothered, for close to £1100 with the following spec I will apologise and go about my business. Core i7 processor at least as good as 3770. 32GB ddr3 1600 MHz ram. 2TB sata 3 HDD. 256GB SSD. 2GB graphics card.
If not can we just end this and have you admit that macs cost more, and not a little bit more. I understand you think the case is wonderful, but you need to understand that that means absolutely nothing to some people, me included. A pc is a tool for me not a piece of art.
I already made my point, which is: the arguemnt of mac price vs custom build price just doesn’t stand these days.
With everything considered, which includes:
Retail price
upgrades
2-3year selling price
the cost difference between a custom built PC and a ‘custom-self-upgraded’ imac is negligible.
It DOES cost more but it also holds its value better and ends up SELLING for more – which is a point most people don’t make or even consider.
I’m fine with an iMac that equals your machine in performance and has a realistic total cost of ownership that also equals yours. I suppose I’m an extreme case because unlike most mac users I can actually do all the upgrades i’ve mentioned.
BTW, if I were a gamer (which i’m guessing you might be?) I personally wouldn’t even consider a mac. If i were conscious of space, design, stability, compatibility and value, I’d get a mac.