To Thunderbolt or not

I am looking at buying a refurbed 27" Imac. I will need 1gig of video ram for some of my wife's programs. I can get a 2010 model with 1 gig video ram with out Thunderbolt for the same price as a 2011 with 512k with thunderbolt. The model with both 1 gig and thunderbolt is out of my price range. Is thunderbolt that important to have?
Thanks

In terms of longevity, I think it will be. The expansion possibilities with Thunderbolt are nearly infinite.

Without it, your machine has no high-bandwith external bus capable of hosting peripherals that would ordinarily be expansion cards like on a traditional PC.

The market for Thunderbolt peripherals is very limited at the moment, since the spec is still in its infancy, but I suspect it will start to take off this year, with enthusiast motherboards and high end PCs now sporting the port.

With that said, I'm really surprised that your wife's programs "require" 1GB of video RAM. What exactly is she running?

comovartia said:

I am looking at buying a refurbed 27" Imac. I will need 1gig of video ram for some of my wife's programs. I can get a 2010 model with 1 gig video ram with out Thunderbolt for the same price as a 2011 with 512k with thunderbolt. The model with both 1 gig and thunderbolt is out of my price range. Is thunderbolt that important to have?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Does an application your wife uses absolutely NEED 1 gig of vram (stated in the system requirements)? That's a lot of vram...I don't think that I've seen an application that "requires" 1 gig of vram.

Even Photoshop for Adobe Creative Suite 6 only needs 256meg of vram (512 meg recommended).

If you (your wife) can "survive" with 512meg of vram...then the choice is easy...get the iMac with 512meg of vram & the Thunderbolt port.

- Nick

Each updated version requires more Vram. Currently 512 but I figure in the next year or 2 it will be 1g.
It is a CAD based home design program. If I am spending well over 1K on a computer it is one I plan on using for many years(my current pc is a little over 7 years old) and want to make sure it is ready for that next upgrade and since you can not upgrade the video cards in the Imac I want to make sure that it will handle the next few updated versions of this program as it is the only thing she enjoys to do with the computer.

comovartia said:

Each updated version requires more Vram. Currently 512 but I figure in the next year or 2 it will be 1g.
It is a CAD based home design program. If I am spending well over 1K on a computer it is one I plan on using for many years(my current pc is a little over 7 years old) and want to make sure it is ready for that next upgrade and since you can not upgrade the video cards in the Imac I want to make sure that it will handle the next few updated versions of this program as it is the only thing she enjoys to do with the computer.

Click to expand...

If this is the case...and if you had to choose between 1gig of vram & the Thunderbolt port (can't afford to get an iMac with both)...then I think that the clear answer is...get the iMac with 1 gig of vram.

Having the "possible" flexibility of the Thunderbolt port may be nice (if there are ever external devices you will want to use with a Thunderbolt connection). But having 1 gig of vram sounds like is something you will DEFINITELY need in the future (if what you mentioned above happens with future software releases).

HTH,

- Nick

Also, Apple could very well unveil the next generation of iMacs at the WWDC conference in a few weeks. If they do and they go on sale shortly after, the 2011 iMacs could come down in price and into your price range. That way you would have the 1Gb VRam and Thunderbolt. Might be worth waiting for. Your call though. No one (except Apple) knows for sure when the new iMacs will be unveiled but a whole lot of people think it will be at this conference.

WWDC is June 11th.