iMac Specs Advice

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I have decided to retire my PC and get an iMac. I was in the Apple store today and was swamped with choices regarding specifications. My main objective is to get a high enough specification that I will not have to upgrade for many years (I got 6 years from my PC and it will go at least 2 more as my son's games machine). I also need to run Windows for some applications I use for work that will not run on OSX. My specific questions are:

1. Is it worth paying the extra to get the 3.4Mhz i7 over the 3.1 i5?

2. Is it worth paying the extra to get 2GB graphics rather than 1GB (requires online purchase, not available in store).

3. If I buy an external drive for storage can I configure it for both OSX and Win7 to read the same files? I do not want to have to have 2 drives or 2 partitions with shared files duplicated.

4. Is Parallels or Fusion better for running the Windows instance. Is Boot camp better than both for performance or will I not notice a difference? I plan to go with 16GB RAM.

5. I understand there is a new iMac announcement expected any day now. The sales associate said it was unlikely but if a new model is released within 30 days of purchasing I can do a straight swap for it. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance.

By the way, we have a Macbook Air and Macbook Pro in the household so not completely new to Mac concept.
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Expecting to get 6 yrs out of any computer:

1. I would - benchmarks - always get the most processor you can afford and never know where computers will be in 6 yrs and what might be required to run the latest software.

2. A little tougher choice, not a heavy gamer any longer so I'd have to weigh the cost of the upgrade - over $100, probably not - if playing 3d games - probably pay for it.

3. FAT32 can be read and written to from both OSs with file size limit - no big movie files can be stored on it. Or get Paragon's NTFS for Mac - $20 - and partition all the externals as NTFS (except the dedicated Mac backup drives). The latter is what I do as a multi OS house.

5. No direct experience, but we've had plenty of users report changing their Macs out after new models have been released in that 30 day window.
 

chscag

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Your Mac's Specs
2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
5. I understand there is a new iMac announcement expected any day now. The sales associate said it was unlikely but if a new model is released within 30 days of purchasing I can do a straight swap for it. Does anyone have any experience with this?

No one knows for sure when an iMac refresh will be announced. Rumors are this year sometime or next year along with a new Mac Pro.

One thing we do know is that this has been the longest time between refreshes of the iMac. The last iMac models are from May 2011.
 

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