iMac 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo Impressions

I have had a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac for a 7 days now. A few observations:

The stock 512 MB RAM was not enough to keep up with my tasks - that being 15 or so Safari tabs open, iTunes, iMovie, and Garageband open and doing their thing, plus Photoshop, Mail, and NetNewsWire open as well. I know, I am not the “average” user. Truly, even with just the browser and Mail open, I felt the lag. Impressively though, on the G5 my processor would run at about 60% (with 2 GB RAM) when I had all that running. With the 512 MB RAM, the processor was running at 16%. Amazing.

Yesterday I upgraded this thing to 2 GB RAM. It FLIES. I am more than impressed. iMovie and ffmpegx encode video swiftly compared to the G5. You would not believe how many applications I have open right now. In addition to the ones listed above, I also have Adium, Transmit, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and ffmpegx all running. I have tons of windows open (the 20? screen makes this manageable). My processor is currently running at 17%! Unreal. I have about 120 MB RAM available as well.

Really - the new iMacs are a thing of beauty if you need an elegant workhorse of a PC.