Which New iMac to Buy?

[coffeeman108]

Okay, I've been running a 2009 iMac with El Capitan OS X 10.11.6 and Wndows 8 with VMFusion Ware 7.1. There is a 3.06GHz processor and 4MB memory.

As you know, Apple won't support this Mac or upgrade its OS. Windows and VMFusionWare run like like a dog much of the time (especially in the firs 30 or 40 minutes after boot up). Anyway, I have to buy a new iMac. Can I go low with a 2.3GHz processor with 8MB Ram? Or do I go high with 3.0 or 3.4 GHz and 16MB memory. I only run one QB client on Windows. I know more is better but since its just one client on QB...

Thanks,

Don

[wila]

Hi,

This is always very difficult to recommend as there's plenty of variables we still do not know.

Even when you say "I only want to use it for QB" so just 1 VM, you are buying a machine for using several years.

The cheapest one you are looking at is this one if I'm not mistaken:

iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 3068 Repair - iFixit

So you can repair things and extend, but it isn't always easy.

The default config comes with a 5400 rpm 1TB harddisk, which is horribly slow for today's standards, so do not expect a very fast machine.

The minimal 8GB could work for a single VM, but if you open a browser at the same time and look at it 3 years from now (assuming you don't want to add RAM yourself) it will not be a great machine.

To top that of, it has a dual core i5 processor. This basically means that the processor is slightly under powered for running virtual machines.

Yes, you can run 1 virtual machine on it.

The CPU speed 2.3 GHz is probably fine and is the least of my worries as your bottlenecks are disk and RAM, in that order.

In conclusion. Yes it will work, no it won't be great.

--

Wil

[ColoradoMarmot]

To add to Wila's comments, it'll work, but be very slow - and may not last the 9 years you're used to.  Upgrading to a quad-core machine with 16GB of RAM will both provide better performance and future-proof the machine.

The CPU speed is the least important factor.