We get a discount through work. Not every part and upgrade seems to get the same discount, but what I spec'ed out ends up getting a 6% discount which will cover about 75% of the sales tax or more than covers a decent memory upgrade.

build a hackintosh and save even more and be able to up grade or replace
WITHOUT THE APPLE TAX
APPLE USE INTEL BASED CHIPS JUST CHARGES DOUBLE FOR THEM
you can build an apple compatible box by picking the m/b and video cards that work with OS15 the newest apple OS or any prior OS that is intel based 10.6 I think is the first
the hack guys know what works just follow the hardware picks 100%
and use the scripts to edit the drivers called kexts or some odd apple lingo

OSx86

That sounds great, but the missus wants it to be clean and sleek with the fewest cables possible. It does sit out in view from all over, so I get it. Happy wife....

Thats a terrible idea for a lot of reasons.

He just wants a box that works, not something he has to go on hours long google searches to find hacked drivers and ktexts when some random update of something minor leaves him staring at a dead pile of parts.

Hackintosh's are not for the average user.

In the past, I've had some weird stuff (cheap peripherals with generic drivers, special peripherals that had special capabilities and wonky drivers, etc...) that sometimes caused issues, and I enjoyed the hunt and trying to get stuff to work. But that's when my PC was just a PC and if I took a day or two to get it fixed, no big deal. I just had to do without games and pron :D

Now that I often work from home 2-3 days a week, I NEED the box to just work.

I won't allow automatic updates to install stuff anytime they want, but I want to be able to perform updates when they come up without having to worry too much about any big failures.

Exactly, the compatibility of components changes with virtually every OS upgrade and we are not talking about major versions only, even the incremental updates can wreck havoc.

Hackintosh's are great if you want to tinker / play with your computer, they are not suited in any way shape or form for production systems where you need to get **** done.

2k for the better hack box with eazy upgrade or replacement bits

vs 5k for the all in one apple imac no to very hard and insane expensive replacement
forget any do it yourself trouble shooting apple will not show a wiring diagram for power in
I know I tryed to fix a 27'' no basic power info chart diagram from apple or anyone
NO BLUE WIRE S/B X VOLTS ANYWHERE
found some for different sized or years but NOTHING ON MY MODEL all just a bit different
kicker NEW POWER SUPPLY 150 PLUS 100 TO INSTALL
FOR NORMAL POWER SUPPLY 20 TO MAYBE 50 DIAGRAMS EVERY WHERE all the same volts
MONKEY COULD REPLACE ONE

so apple cheap china only power fails cost you 250 or more down time in shop too
pc hack power fails 20 bucks 20 min back up and running

The iMac is only that expensive if you get the Pro (which starts at $5k)

The 21.5" iMacs start at $1100, 27" start at $1800, and the highest that you can get the 27" iMac with 8 core i9, 64GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 48 video, and 2TB SSD is $4850. If you upgrade the RAM yourself, you could double the RAM and only spend $4500. That's for the most expensive options that you can get without going to the Pro.

What are you going to do on the machine?

if you are a Lightroom user, then a fast GPU is not much help (as Adobe sux too much to performance map their code), and CPU speed is what you want

if you are going to run big databases, then the fastest SSDs are what you want

etc. etc.

Personally I would spend money up front to max out what you cannot change later - best CPU/Graphics/Integrated display. I would also spring for a SSD - cheapest one they offer. It would be plenty for holding the main OS and applications. All your digital media (docs/photos/video/etc) can be maintained on an external drive - which IMO is always the way to go. Memory is an easy upgrade after the fact.

All good options... IMacs being not that upgradable without cracking the case should inform your decision... Personally the best bang for my buck always was RAM+SSD, CPU last...

But money is a factor on Apple's extremely overpriced internal SSD, and Macs are pretty good with splitting the OS on the smaller internal SSD and moving the Itunes/Video/Pic/apps on an external drive if you choose. External SSDs are cheap... And time machine backs it all up either way on a nice cheap platter drive...

If I were you I'd save $ on the SSD and buy the smaller internal one, get RAM, a decent CPU but not the max... PLug in an external 2TB SSD for way cheaper, put all your crap on that... Also plug in a platter external HD to back it all up. Cheapest setup I could think of, that's what I run on my 27" Imac.

Thanks.

Good info.

Pro Tip.

Your iMac will come with Catalina, latest version of the OS.

They've upped the AV game.

OSX is a .nix

The basic premise of .nix is to separate users from root and require explicit authentication for a user to either perform root operations or run as root.

What that results in is a user can't theoretically compromise the base OS, only their own user space.

Catalina steps that up a notch by creating 2 partitions that appear to the end user as one.

The "root" partition is not writeable.

The problem is even seasoned software publishers have not picked up on this yet and their installers try to write to the write protected partition which obviously fails with an error no end user of OSX has encountered till now.

So if when setting it up you encounter an app that is trying to install but is blocked by the write only partition simply change the install path to a known writable user directory like Documents or one you create specifically for that purpose.

I think the new Catalina won't allow old apps to run. I have Office 2011, runs fine, and Photoshop and Illustrator, both of which barely run on Mojave (save your file every second), and there's no way I'm getting all new software, especially the Adobe Cloud subscription rip-off.

you may be able to 'downgrade' a new mac to the older OS (Yosemite Sam, etc.) by downloading it

I refuse to buy all new apps just like Shaun so have refused the MACOS "upgrade"

Catalina won’t run apps with 32 bit code.

You’ll also have an issue with apps from unidentified developers

Go to Apple Finder menu/about this Mac/system report

Click the apps listing, look for 32 bit and unsigned or unidentifiable developers

Any commercial apps from reputable publishers like Adobe will put out an updated version of their software

Unless we are talking about really old stuff that’s already end of life’d

Can’t expect a publisher to keep something like Photoshop 4 current.

The move to pure 64 bit is happening all over the industry

Google is requiring 64 bit for Android as well

Good to know. I'll be buying some sort of "become a Mac OSX expert book" and becoming familiar with the CLI. I have been on various *nix boxes in the past and have done some fairly simple bash scripting, and use (at a novice level) various CLI commands, grep, sort, etc.... I will probably never be a full blown *nix admin, but I'd like to be comfortable and at least a "power user", especially if it's my own PC.
Interesting. I'm surprised that your Office 2011 is working at all. I didn't read, and upgraded the missus' MacBook Air. Her Office no longer works at all. I am going to buy a copy of Office 2016 for it (screw the "subscription service" 365).
Since it'll be new, I'll be buying everything new anyway, no old stuff to worry about.
I'm not sure I'd want to downgrade from 64-bit to 32-bit?

Steve, both Word and Excel work flawlessly and I use both a lot though neither for very complex documents.

I have Illus and Photos 5.1 which is odd since I own 5.5, need to look into that. Illustrator works pretty well, PS is not a happy camper. I would be happy to upgrade/buy latest versions of these two but Adobe has their hyper-capitalist subscription service which to me is just plain greedy and can't support it. I'd rather buy a relatively new $1500 iMac with an older OS just to run those programs if I used them a lot.

I run catalina with no problem. Apps that were only 32, 64 is available updates if the app is worth a toot. Subscriptions are actually fair priced when comparing to cost updating not very often.

Same happened back with macs went to 16bit from 8. And wben they webt from motorola to intel chips.

The worst was when they started offering the same apps for mac and pc back in the early 90's. Mac version lost features to be more pc compatible. Some apps with unique features just died. Even still moving from my Mac to PC running Office (newest version) it takes more clicking and dragging to do the same basic jobs.

Still don't understand why on the pc the shortcut modifier key is ctrl out for your pinky finger causing you to use different finders on the keyboard for A, C, V, etc., instead of next to the space bar so you can use your thumb like on the mac so you can still touch type the modified kets.

OSX has been 64 bit for a while now, Apple is just doing away with support for 32 bit so going back to Mojave is a non issue.

64 bit OSX started with IIRC 10.4, Tiger or Leapord.

If you want to bang around in terminal get iTerm, it’s free and has more features than the stock terminal One of my favorite code / text editors is Brackets, also free.