Building the ultimate $200 custom iMac!
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2019
- In today's video I'm going to be upgrading and customizing my cheap budget iMac that I bought for just 100 dollars. We're going to spruce this guy up with a budget of just $100 to see if this machine can not only be usable, but great in 2019 and for years to come!
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Album with the backgrounds I use (updated regularly): imgur.com/a/W8wvO7I - Věda a technologie
Luke, I am NOT your father, but, I'm proud of your work, anyway. Always top shelf content. Thank you.
Luke i'm your father
It was obvious...
lmao
William, you are his father.
Very nice choice of words 👍
I got lucky on a pawnshop find and have a 27in late 2015 5K iMac for $350, no locks, no damage, nothing and it came with the bluetooth keyboard and magic mouse 2. I think I made out pretty well.
I enjoy these videos quite a bit and encourage you to keep it up, they are getting better with each release!
Not sure if I'm ebaying correctly, I can never find these deals...
Me neither
@@Peter-lm3we just look beter i bought a macbook pro retina 2015 13inch for 410 euro
just wait... then snipe :D
Filter for local pick up only - a lot of people don't want to deal with postage for items that are only worth a few dollars. I've found this work for me on a few occasions :)
@@-xYz--nk1gm Dang! That's insane
After the iMac series you should do the Mac Mini! Its another great and even more affordable option for people who want a good value mac.
If I wanted to be annoying I could say
No it’s not that good of a machine
BUT!
Apple optimises it’s software so well that a baseline Mac mini can outperform my $2000 dollar (AU Dollar) Helios 300 laptop when surfing the web or document editing.
And plus I love the Mac mini because it’s nice and small. If you need to pack it away you just unplug the cables and shove it in a bag!
Well I guess one may debate whether the MAC Mini is a good value or not? My Mac Mini is from 2009 has been upgraded about 5 years ago to 8 Gigs of RAM chips and all the rest of the hardware has remained the same. Software updates as needed. Definitely thinking of adding a new solid state hard drive, repasting and another thorough cleaning. I'ld say go for it!
Yes pls
Yes, I second this. Please update a Mac Mini, Luke. (:
@@philipohmes9395 Definitely go for an upgraded SSD. I have an early 2011 MBP that came with 320 GB HDD and 4 GB of ram. I've upgraded it since to 16 GB of ram and a 1 TB SSD (fastest one I could find). Didn't cost much either. Starts up in about 12 seconds compared to a couple of minutes like it did before.
Very cool! I just replaced a failed HDD on an old 2008 model iMac. That gave me the confidence to replace the 5400rpm 2.5" drive on a 2013 iMac with an SSD, and upgrade the RAM while I was in there. Enjoyed the video -- keep up the good work!
After doing that could you upgrade to the latest operating system (Mojave?)
Note: If you want to add an MXM Type A card into a Mac the Firepro M5100, Quadro M1000M, M2000M and M1200 Mobile are all great options. The Quadro M2200M is usually $200+ dollars so that would be unreasonable, but the Firepro goes for between $30-40 and is about as strong as Vega 8 integrated desktop graphics. The three lower-end Quadro MM series cards sit in between Vega 11 integrated desktop graphics and the GTX 1050 mobile variants, with the M1000M at about the same performance as a HD 6850 desktop GPU and the M2000M slightly stronger than a HD 6950. The M1200 Mobile is basically the same as the M2000M but produced one year later, alongside a reduced TDP of 45W and some clock shifting by like 20 MHz or so. The M1000M sits at between $65-80 and the M2000M and M1200 compete at between $100-175. Check both of these on EBay as sometimes one is cheaper than the other. The M2200M is actually stronger than a desktop GTX 1050 but commands a much higher price tag. I do not know if there is a whitelist on graphics cards but if not then these are all MXM Type A cards that would easily fit in any laptop or iMac that would fit MXM Type A standards. I found out about these from Dell Precision 4000 series laptops in the early-mid 2010s and unfortunately these cards are not as popular as before.
Hope this helps anyone who needs compatible graphics card advice.
should be a pinned comment
Idk, these prices have changed a little over the years, as well as the configs. This is especially true for the Nvidia cards, since they were already limited to Mojave. That was only a few years old when the video came out, but now it's really feeling its age.
Otherwise, the performance metrics are the same.
I have the option to go for a mid 2010 21.5" iMac for only $50, including shipping. I know I can upgrade it like crazy compared to today's models, so with this video (and a few of your other ones like it) as a guide, I'm going to go for it!
Congratulations Luke. That's a great upgrade and I am glad you didn't have the issues with this one like the 27' iMac. This is awesome for down the road upgrading a 2011 iMac. (:
I never thought I was gonna be lucky enough to get my hands on a cheap iMac, I got one for 20$ bucks!, I first watched your 2011 iMac videos 2 years ago and now Im upgrading my own imac as well, I can't be happier
Thank you so much, now I am purchasing a iMac on ebay 😃
My first one, by the way.
Thank you for your videos and your channel. I am a Windows user since 1998!
bro love your videos keep the great vids coming.
Man, those machines were total workhorses. Thanks for these videos!
Always the most practical videos. Great work. Great presentations, great idea to DIY the Macs .
I am actually very impressed by this video! Keep making these great videos Luke.
Some pics of that hdd mount mod for the gpu would have been really helpful.
Plzzzzzz
Hey, Mr. Miani! Thanks a bunch for posting this. It was very very helpful to me. I'm trying to breathe some life into my 2010 27". Awesome video, sir.
You deserve so many more subscribers then you have like wtf.... How have only 68 thousand people figured out how amazing your content is? Your easily one of the best tech-related CZcamsrs out there, keep up the good work!
I recently did a similar project. I bought it as broken of Facebook and fixed it. Here are the specs and details;
27" Mid 2011 iMac, i5 2400, 16gb ram, 500gb SSD (I upgraded this for $55 on Amazon), AMD 6970m (Was bad and I baked it for a ghetto reflow fix).
I bought it for $50 and spent about $65 on upgrades so I am all in at $115! I got lucky and I may have to replace the graphics if it fails again.
Great video! So happy you had success with the Frankenstein lite. Loved your reaction when it booted up. 😂 thanks for the vid and the so much fun entertaining content.
Plus you have to really like his style of color choices to wear... those orange shorts with the blue shirt!
Would be interested to see your most cost effective 27 iMac build for 4k video editing.
Luke?
Yas!!!
I don’t even own an iMac and I’ve watched several of your iMac videos. Love your vids.
Always amazing videos from you Luke. Can you though for once show how you put the OS on the hard drive before you "pop" it into the new computer? As my teachers always told me, show your work. I just want to see where you get the OS file(s), how you put them on a hard drive you are about transplant into another Mac. Thank you.
Hey. You inspired me to buy a borked iMac for $150 bux and restore it using an old SSD and some cheap ram i bought online. Now it's great! Keep the vids coming!
I mean, if you or someone you know is dead set on a Mac, I think that's a damn good option, if not the best, solution especially for the price!
Great work as always!
It was worth it , loved the video. You make me want to go through all the computers and laptops in my house and upgrade them lol . Keep up the great job…
I love this iMac series, Luke is the man!!
Congratulations, great build!
Dude you should tackle the continuity issue with MP 5,1. I’ve got the MP to use exclusively my ASUS BT 400 dongle and now I have Bluetooth 4.0 ( used a apple developer app Bluetooth explorer). Do you think a WiFi dongle with 802.11 ac capabilities will finally enable the continuity function without buying the expensive OSX chips or using CAT and disabling SIP? I think this would be a great revisit for your channel .
When i watch your videos im always motivated to work on my iMac!!!
Really love watching these videos! Keep it up!!
Subscribed after this video. Great content. Keep going 👍🏽
I keep watching your vids. These are so entertaining!! Thank you!
Awesome, you've given me some tips for the machine I have.
Aloha Luke I enjoy your videos and the humor in them oh plus the knowledge is very nice!!!
I always hit that like button before watching his videos lol. Great video and channel 🙏🏾
Great video Luke!!
I really like the way you explain and your videos! 👍🏻
I Would like to see the same type of video, upgrading a MacBook Pro 13, late 2009 from 4g ram to 16g ram and any other modification that you will find doable and not expensive
All this time I thought I was subscribed for the past year!
Well... fixed now :)
This Mac is a monster. Thanks for sharing
I subbed at 6K on this account and when I created my new account, you were one of the first channels I subscribed to.
Ok
I'm just getting into Mac's as projects like this. Thank you for the video.
Just picked up a 2009 imac w 8gb ram and 256gb SSD with Magic Keyboard/Magic Mouse for $150 in perfect condition. Considering starting a channel talking about all the deals I've been finding
Where do you find these deals?
sell it and invest your money back in another imac untill you can build the ultimate imac
Congrats dude haha, ik that that feel of 'theres no way this'll work' and the buzz of accomplishment you get after you actually pull it off.
Grabbed one of these this week for $50 on CL. Added a $25 500GB SSD from Micro Center, used Open Core to install Ventura, it already had 8GB of Ram and thing is awesome.
Hi Luke! Great video! I'd love to see you tackle a Late 2008 Unibody 13" Macbook, which I own! I have had it since 2008 and I love the fact that it still works. Its my everyday driver but I would love to see a full review of it and then apply your style of upgrading! Mine currently has 4 gigs of Ram and I have removed the optical drive and installed an SSD in that bay. I have also upgraded the hdd to an ssd/hdd 500Gb combo drive, the OS remains at El Capitain, Anyways keep up the great work, love watching your videos!
U're the MASTER of budget Macs :)
I didn't knew this "world" before reaching your very interesting channel.
Thanks to you, some weeks ago I purchased a very good used MacBook Pro mid 2015 15 inches top of the line for a very good price!
2.8 i7 4cores/8threads 16gb ram 1TB SSD AMD TO 370x
Thanks a lot for your videos!
For the 2011 MBP, the drive bay on some of them (not sure which) were SATA III allowing for some crazy RAID0 numbers natively. If this iMac supports SATA III in that drive bay - $10 for the caddy and another $25 for a second SSD and we can have the RAID 0 >$250 iMac!!
I bought my 27" iMac in Jan 2011 and it had the ram slots behind a panel on the bottom of the unit and I doubled the ram from 8 to 16 GB. Took out two small screws. And FTR my 8+ year old iMAC is still going string. Even runs X-Plane
Great video, you’re the best!!!
ThanksLuke for this and many videos. I just got my 20111 iMac for $150
Very cool video man!
I'm upgrading my 2010 to the max ram (32GB), the cpu from an i5 to an i7, update to a 1TB SSD, and the GPU to the 770M. Thanks to you and many others for posting these update videos.
How’s the performance?
You must have spent a fortune.
Bro, you’re a beast!
people love these.. modified is nice.. and you can even patch these now for the boot screen & brightness control & I hear put Catalina on there
Still remember having this iMac, the 27 inch one.. really love it, though its not using SSD at the time
The built rocks. Best value for money. Personally I would have also changed the CPU with an i7, just to get the machine as top specs as I could. Maybe you should consider it. It will still be a hell of a deal. (Especially if you then sell the i5 to cut down on the budget). Think about it.
This was pretty cool. I like how with just a few modifications you can get a lot of use out of these older iMacs. What iphone are you using these days, Luke?
them chillhop beats tho,nice video man
This is really cool🔥. To answer your question as to whether or not you would have been better off buying an upgraded version, I think it depends. You paid only 200$ for it, but then how much time you spent on the upgrade. You also have to calculate the time spent researching the parts, shipment, etc. For a student, this would be a no-brainer to do the upgrade, or for someone who wants to showcase his skills, but for a busy working professional, I would prefer paying extra for the upgraded version.
This is really encouraging thank u so much
Any chance to get AirDrop on the older iMac?! missing that the most of all features...
Well done Sir!
Clickbait title. $201 spent.
davenz000 hehehe
Imac 27" 2009 core 2 duo, 200$? Is it a good deal?
@@mohammedelazery5310 isnt
Philippe Azevedo he was asking a question
@@vangular6978 and i said that isnt a good deal.
I upgraded my iMac 21.5 mid-2011 with an i7, k1000m, 32 GB RAM and 500gb dual-boot SSD. It’s a great machine and would really recommend it! Thanks for your videos Luke!
Im thinking about upgrading my daughters 2011. It has and i3 and only 4gbs of ram. How much did it costs you to upgrade to those specs? Did you do it yourself?
@@superdave3506 Because I'm "cool", I recorded what I spent.
£480 in total.
CPU i7 - 152
GPU k1000m - 154
RAM 32gb - 112
SSD 500gb - 59
I've got it running Big Sur now, and have edited video no problem.
It beats spending £2k!
I followed the guide on Tech It Out...
It was worth every penny. I am a fan of old harware.. love it!😍😍💪🏻✌🏻
Hmm. A 2006 even 2008 iMac could be considered old hardware. A 2009 iMac … not sure. You would notice much difference compared to any average computer from 2019.
2:25 "I'm just going to go ahead and call it close enough." I truely agree. I would love to do a graphics card upgrade, which my skills would allow, but I'm just afraid of that exposed PSU.
I just got a late 2013 27in iMac with 1t or storage and 8gig ram, my friend gave it to me when they got a new one, they told me that it was incredibly slow and annoying to use so I figured I would need to put an Ssd in it, I booted it up and got it to Catalina and it runs like a brand new computer, I was surprised something so old (for a Mac) worked so well, I got about 4000 photos downloaded from an external hard drive in just a minute or two. Im excited because it doesn't look like I will have to open it up or anything !!
Great tech tip!!!
Great video!
🙂 a 770M has a passmark of 2658 which is a little bit stronger than a Desktop 1030 so u can definitely do plenty of low spec gaming
yes that form factor is great for any operating system, if ur handy with power tools after u take it all apart u can take the rear chassis outside and make a couple holes, one to run a hard drive extension cable to the outside so u can swap out hard drives easily, including a windows drive and a linux drive, kinda like on a mac pro, also make a big hole where the ram slots is if u plan on upgrading the ram again or if u want to later on test ur ram if and when ur ram fails. Thanks for the MOD video 😍
Were you able to upgrade to Mac OS Catalina or Mojave? I'm stuck on High Sierra due to the graphics limitations..
Patch
"Oh what the fu-" - Luke 2019
5:36 for those wondering
I'm sure he said "what the fun".
I find plugging those cables back in a bit challenging.. You underestimate yourself Luke. I seen a video that one guy did where he took out the optical drive and put a second SSD in and RAID them together. The 21" 2017 iMac I just bought for my wife only has 2 RAM slots where the older ones pre 2012 had 4
Just bought a 2008 iMac pre-installed with 6gb of ram and 120ssd.. Was a bit skeptical at first considering it was only $100 but it came in original box and almost original condition. Take your time and eBay can be a happy place!
Luke, really enjoying this old iMac upgrade jaunt you're on at the moment. Keep it going. I did have a question regarding how you're preparing your SSD or HDD with a macOS prior to installing in these machines you're upgrading?
He formats them in disk utility then he runs the installer itself :D
I bought the exact model from offer up claiming it had bad hard drive then took it home reset it and it started to work again. It was a steal. It came with 12gb of ram too.
It's crazy how many 'bad hard drive' or 'bad ssd' listings can be fixed with a simple wipe + reinstall!
Do a follow up video where you change the cpu aswell
thanks for sharing!
great job!
Well Worth It I Run SSDs In All My Macs Specialty The Vintage Macs Makes Them More Snappy
SSD in a Macintosh SE?
Sign me up :D
Do some gaming benchmarks under bootcamp please!!
Thanks for the service. You really should practice anti-static protection, especially since you are teaching others how to modify systems!
What a relief... I feared you will show how much faster is your 200$ 21"iMac compared to my new 2019 iMac that I recently bought based on your review of the new lineup. :D :P
Great job. iI think I might search for such 21 for my Mother. She will love the form factor and looks and for 200-300 USD it will be a great gift for her birthday.
Damn your content quality is far beyond every youtuber , keep it up . Please do some cheap hackintosh video
An Intel i7-860S worked for me on a 2010 21” iMac set-up. About $50± on eBay - they only draw 82w so you’re good for power consumption. An i7-870s will also work, but they’re much harder to come by.
I have never been a "Mac" guy. Mostly due to my specific work flow. However, after being introduced to your channel a few months ago, I find myself thinking about getting into one of these machines for use as a kiosk machine for our living room. Something that the kids or their guest (they are teenagers) could use for school work or looking up info. Also, if nothing else, to give me a chance to expand my knowledge of Apple hardware and systems.
I have a late 2009 27" iMac and after two failed HDDs (one under warranty, the other not), I bought a 1TB SSD and had it installed. Love it and after 11 years it's still going strong. I reckon I will have it for the rest of my life. I'd like to change out the screen though because there are some faint vertical lines on it that you can see only on a dark screen. But they are so faint it doesn't bother me that much.
I'm looking at iMacs on eBay.. what are the limitations of having your os limited/not upgrading anymore?
Fantastic!
Luke Miani your my go to guy for macs
Thanks for the awesome video luke! Would LOVE to get a pro advice from you. I have a 27" late 2012 iMac and thinking of running it via external drive to boost performance via the thunderbolt 1 port or the USB 3.0 port. Would love to know what is the best option? 1) an external USB 3.0 SSD like the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD External Hard Drive 2) an NVME drive with a case to the USB 3.0 port? 3) an NVME drive and case with the apple adapter from USB 3.0 to thunderbolt. (the late 2012 imac has a thunderbolt 1). Would love to know what is the faster option here considering the bottlenecks of the thunderbolt 1 and USB 3.0 ports. happy to also hear about any other idea..thanks so much!
Sweet luv luke's mcguyvers approach to apple upgrades
nice job!! nice idea of removing the dvd drive for better cooling! how is the performance? Is it any laggy? for the fan control, you use any program to observe it?
I love your video's. I have a 2011 iMac I was going to get a newer one. After seeing your video I am considering upgrading the HDD to an SSD. Also, I already have 16GB RAM. So maybe all I need is the SSD. I could double the RAM.
You won’t see this probably but can I just say you make some of the best videos on CZcams i have seen better preparation quality exact then channels with 3 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS you deserve more then 3 million subscribers but keep it up! You do great work!
well done~
Yes I also upgraded my iMac 12,1 with a new Samsung 850 evo 250GB ssd and an used i7 2600s and an used NVIDIA K2000M graphics card. It cost me about 100€ here in Germany, including sell the changed parts (I didn’t sell the original gpu). I don’t know if newer MXM3.0a cards would also work, I would also give a try if they could.
Nothing ThinkAbout läuft catalina bei dir ?
@@vince2345678 Ne, wegen der Driver bin immer noch bei High Sierra. Werde ich auch nicht empfehlen.
Two days ago I bought the same iMac and it's awesome
Hey Luce!
Thx for all these nice videos.
Do you recommend a DIY iMac or a DIY Mac Pro for a nice mac at home !?
Thx
Gambler53877 as someone doing this, do the iMac. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro and an iMac 2011 and the iMac is hands down easier, especially if you have to do the screen later
This is why I LOVE technology