A Review of the iMac 2012 (Just In Case)

[Raptor Log]

Now, I can tell that almost everybody hates Macs here, but I just wanted to post this review of the iMac 2012, JUST in case anyone here wants to buy one used. The specs of mine are an abysmal 2.7 gHz i5, with 8 GB RAM, and 512 MB VRAM on the GT 640M (It sucks, I know). Ever since the purchase of this machine, I have learned, and I will build I PC soon, but I do not have the funds right now. So the five categories:

General Performance

Gaming Performance

Editing Performance

Software Experience

Value

General Performance:

MacOS handles pretty well with the hardware. While multi-tasking beyond a few web pages and a word document is out of the question, you can certainly be writing a paper, whilst listening to music and researching the topic. However, I can easily make this machine lag if I really wanted it too. This is okay: 6/10

Gaming Performance:

While I don't own too many titles, but I can still tell you this is one of the weakest points of the machine. Minecraft (yes, Minecraft) runs okay on "medium settings", at 20-70 FPS. Yeah, the game has plenty of frame drops with this machine. SimCity runs at 25 FPS on low 720p, something which my laptop can beat, running at 40 FPS on medium 1080p. Team Fortress 2 runs 60 FPS 1080p. And Europa Universallis 4 runs 5-30 FPS, and I am assuming this is because of the engine of the game, as well as all of the AI in the background, which has to do with the CPU. So to test the CPU, I took Minecraft, created a flat land with one layer of TNT, and lit it. Sure enough, it lagged. But it wasn't the RAM, or GPU, under stress, it was the CPU that was processing all the explosions. I was impressed with the fact that it didn't crash, but then the game didn't exit, forcing me to restart the computer. This is terrible: 3/10

Editing Performance:

You would expect the CPU to edit things really bad, but really, it does pretty well, impressively. The included programs such as iMovie and Garage Band ran smoothly, but you would expect that, since they are made to run on laptops. The real stuff, like Adobe Creative Suite programs, ran pretty well, but the versions I have are from 2010, when hardware was a little weaker. The real problem is with rendering. I mean, it doesn't take a day, but a few hours to render a QuickTime screen recording? C'mon. However, you can still do work while it's rendering, albeit that it will lag a bit. However, it's a given you won't be making feature length films on this, so it does well for the common man. This is good: 7/10

Software Experience:

It's MacOS, what can I say. It's a little stupid, but it works. Some programs might not work, but you can use a different OS if you wanted to. This is okay: 6/10

Value:

When this was purchased, this was not worth the money. It was low end laptop hardware with the price of a full desktop. But now, with people selling these cheaper and cheaper, you could get one for cheaper, and it might be worth it, but it still should be cheaper. This is average: 5/10

Average Score: 5.4 out of 10

Just a little over average!

Don't buy it.

[Sauron]

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It doesn't happen often to see a mac owner tell other people not to buy one props for being honest!

[hak4fun]

Macs are bad systems, but the price to performance ratio is horrible. But I guess you are paying for a "Plug and play" experience. But its not worth it really for most tech savy people, unless you have a specific reason for it.