Can I further upgrade my iMac? 2008 version


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Dear all, I have a question as the subject reads - I'm looking into buying one of the new iMac models but to be honest I'm ok with my Mac now, it's me just as usual wanting what's new

 

My current iMac has been upgraded by myself already in the past

 

The current specs look like this - 

 

iMac 24" Early 2008

Processor: 3.06GHz Inter Core 2 Duo

Memory: 4GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 G5 512 MB

Software: OS X 10.8.4

 

Can I upgrade this computer for better performance?

 

Or is it better just to spend around 1500GBP on the new 27" model

 

Thanks

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What Hard drive do you have in there. Don't know if it's possible but if you could put a SSD in there it would make a big boost in performance on loading. 

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Hard Drive - Not sure if it's correct, looking at the "Storage" tab in my ABOUT THIS MAC

 

It says:

 

128GB Solid State SATA

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If you do have a Solid State (SSD) in there, then you might be able to squeeze some more performance out of it by enabling TRIM.

 

http://www.groths.org/trim-enabler/

 

Results may vary.  I didn't have a noticeable or measurable difference when following that "hack".

 

Do some research on your drive before enabling any hack on it.  Here is one article I came across that might help: To TRIM or not to TRIM

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Results may vary.  I didn't have a noticeable or measurable difference when following that "hack".

 

Do some research on your drive before enabling any hack on it.  Here is one article I came across that might help: To TRIM or not to TRIM

Well yeah it's not guarantee that it would make any sort of noticeable difference, but if his SSD doesn't have a decent garbage collecting algorithm and TRIM isn't on, then he's probably losing out on a significant amount of performance and actually harming his SSD.

 

That OWC article is making the wrongful assumption that the built-in garbage collecting algorithm internal to the Sandforce chipset makes TRIM unnecessary, and that's quite misleading.

Both are designed to work hand-in-hand, and there are still a few advantages of TRIM such as optimizing throughput.  Garbage collection basically relocates data (ie weak leveling), and it's purpose is to prolong the life of the drive.  TRIM is more performance based.

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Well yeah it's not guarantee that it would make any sort of noticeable difference, but if his SSD doesn't have a decent garbage collecting algorithm and TRIM isn't on, then he's probably losing out on a significant amount of performance and actually harming his SSD.

 

That OWC article is making the wrongful assumption that the built-in garbage collecting algorithm internal to the Sandforce chipset makes TRIM unnecessary, and that's quite misleading.

Both are designed to work hand-in-hand, and there are still a few advantages of TRIM such as optimizing throughput.  Garbage collection basically relocates data (ie weak leveling), and it's purpose is to prolong the life of the drive.  TRIM is more performance based.

 

OWC are going to be biased - they're trying to push that TRIM isn't needed because OSX doesn't support it on their SSDs. Doesn't look good if their product needs a hack to work properly ;). They say TRIM enabler is "unreliable" - all it's doing is bypassing apple's manufacturer check - nothing to be unreliable (unless they're claiming Apple's trim implementation is unreliable).

 

TRIM wont make any performance difference in the short term. In the long term, however, it will.

 

As for the OP - you've pretty much exhausted performance - you could up the RAM to 8GB, and you could put a faster SSD in (bearing in mind the L/2008 models only have SATA 3gbps. Probably wouldn't be worth spending too much on it though.

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Why not just max out RAM?

 

I have a 27" late-2009 refurbished model and love it. I noticed with iStat that my RAM was being used 3/4 all the time, so I maxed it ou tot 16GB.

 

I'd love to install a SSD, but have no idea on how to do that myself.

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