I've had it!

[baggss]

Sweet! Can't beat that deal. Sounds like a nice machine.

I've played with them in stores. They seem pretty nice, good display and pretty snappy. My current display is 20 inches so this is a bit of a step up. The 27 inch just seemed too big to me. It's a decent step up from my C2D MacBook, more RAM, Bigger HDD, better graphics etc. The Mac Mini was basically a clone of my MacBook with a slightly faster CPU. This will tide me over until I get a new Mac Pro to replace my Quad G5 at least.

 

[baggss]

Well, it showed up today, a full 10 days early! Pretty sweet.

I go out of town for a month starting tomorrow.

 

[6string]

Congrats once again.

That gives you a day to get stuck into it and report back before you head off

 

[baggss]

Ok, here's the unpacking and startup pics....

 

[Netty4mac]

Hi baggss!

 

[baggss]

Beautiful Machine. Never had one before, always went with the PowerMac line. My Wife's had her C2D iMac for several years now and still loves it. Here's the last few pics...

Hi baggss!

Het Netty! Haven't seen you around it a while girl!

 

[cwa107]

Very nice, baggss! Now you're making me anxious for my new MBP to be delivered...

 

[vansmith]

Oh, why would you tarnish it with that wallpaper? (I actually don't mind the Red Wings).

 

[baggss]

Oh, why would you tarnish it with that wallpaper? (I actually don't mind the Red Wings).

That's actually a pic I took with my iPhone at the Wings/Kings game in LA this past Monday.

 

[vansmith]

That's a pretty fantastic seat. And, you got to watch a game with two decent teams (maybe not so much for LA this year). From the looks of the score, it would have been a great game to watch, especially as a Red Wings fan.

 

[baggss]

So I've had my iMac for about a month now. Sadly, I was out of town for 29 days (day after I got it I left) so I've only had a few days of actual use (like 3). I upgraded the RAM to 8Gb and I have to say this thing screams. My Quad G5 was fast before the CPU issues but this thing smokes even that.

I've install all of my standard Mac Apps as well as Fusion, XP (SP 3) and am installing some games that I like and I'm amazed at how smoothly the Mac side still runs even with XP running as well. Ripping DVDs, leaves my Quad in the dust for FPS and rip times, even though I'm ripping at a significantly higher bit rate etc. Gotta love this thing.

Can't imagine what one of the higher end MacPros would even be like at this point.

 

[cwa107]

Very cool, baggss. I wish I could say the same for my i7 MBP. Although the benchmarks seem to think it's a screamer, I'm not seeing a huge gain in every day things, including Handbrake.

I was a little disappointed that I actually had to upgrade to 8GB. With the i7, OS X is now eating up 1.5GB RAM just to boot. So when I run 7ista via VMWare (with 2GB of RAM allocated), OS X starts digging into virtual memory big time. I'm guessing this is because of the 4 physical cores and 4 virtual, but it's still amazing to me to see an OS alone eat more than a gig and a half of RAM.

What I do like is the wireless range. I'm not longer having any trouble with signal out on my deck, which was always a weak spot for my Macs (and a few of my Windows laptops too).

 

[6string]

Baggss, that is great to hear.... really happy for you mate

cwa107, I'm really not surprised, as with the mid 2010 i5 that I got rid of, it was really a necessity for me to upgrade the RAM and HD, as not only I was seeing the RAM usage that you are with just the OS booting, but I was having issues when recording songs with garageband getting error messages when having too many software instruments (drum loops) in my songs. Never had this with my 2.2GHz MB with 2GB RAM and a 5400 rpm HD.