How Bad is a 16 year old iMac?

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Budget Builds Episode where today I have managed to live the dream, and get an iMac without having to go through apple...No but seriously I found these iMacs for sale for under £30 over on CeX all posted to your door. I genuinely didnt expect them to even post it, and after it arrived well it all turned into a bit of an adventure, I hope you all enjoy!

Intro - 0:00
What did I order? - 0:11
Unboxing the iMac - 1:07
What did they send me? - 1:36
Turning the iMac on for the first time - 2:03
Floor iMac - 3:34
The Cleaning Montage - 6:00
The Specs - 6:50
Internet...Over Bluetooth!?? - 8:07
Findng a Web Browser - 9:13
Settling for Chrome for once - 10:52
Lets get some programs on this thing - 11:40
The Benchmarks: 13:00
So that was an interesting experience - 15:48
Video Editing in Premiere Pro - 17:00
Photoshop and 3D Modelling Tests - 18:16
Live Usage of the iMac ... Realtime - 19:29
Conclusion - 26:12

Specs:
CPU: Core2Duo (E4400 I believe)
GPU: AMD Radeon 2400XT
RAM: 4GB DDR2
OS: OSX 10.8

[aaaalex]

A few things to note:
- You can update the OS to macOS 10.11, but old PowerPC apps will not work with macOS 10.7 or later, due to the removal of Rosetta, the PowerPC-to-Intel compatibility layer. I recommend to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6) for that. It's a great and fast OS (one of my favorite operating systems!).
- This computer, just like most Intel iMacs with dedicated graphics, has a laptop GPU (so it's a Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT on an MXM card).
- Maybe I'm wrong, but this model of iMac could have some leaky capacitors, especially on the power supply...

[Txm_Dxr_Bxss]

These have mobile CPUs, not desktop chips like the E4400. This iMac has a T7300, which makes it the slowest aluminium iMac. You can upgrade these to a "Penryn" CPU like the T9300 and have it run MacOS 12 with opencore legacy. They also have the HDD temperature sensor externally, so you can upgrade these just fine with an SSD. As this is basically a PC and includes a BIOS compatibility mode which let's it install almost all Linux distros and Windows 10 via USB. They don't work too well, but they will install. That fixes ALL of your software incompatibility issues.

[cleffei]

As an ex-CeX worker, it always amuses me seeing how other shops would handle computers like this. We had a strict no Apple keyboard/mouse = no buy policy with iMacs but the account being left on there is a common mistake in so many poorly run branches. The staff usually couldn't give half a shit and I had my fair share of email communications with other stores trying to clean up their messes such as store accounts! Even at their worst grade it amazes me that they bought this in, hardly worth the buy in for the store.
There's an operations manual that all branches have to abide by but you know yourself, the average CeX worker probably doesn't know it exists lol

[jspenceryt]

Mac always had a tendency to do indexing when they power on older systems. That’s why they generally feel slower in the beginning and speed up as you continue using them.

[alexkindl]

The old Mac rabbit-hole! I've been PC since time immemorial, so checking out old Macs and finding how they're different is a ton of fun. They're weird, have open source hacks, specific IFKYK command line fixes, and a lot of archived community posts. Sometimes they work smooth as glass, sometimes they gaslight you. Thanks for the video!

[ChrisATyeArtist]

I inherited one of these - so it cost me nothing. I upgraded it from 1Gb to 4Gb RAM; replaced the hard drive with an SSD; and replaced the T7300 processor with a T9300. The processor upgrade means it’ll work with Catalina on Opencore. However, I just replaced MacOS with Ubuntu 24.04, and it works really well for basic computing use.

[IgnacioGonOroz]

Im actually watching this from a 2008 imac with mac os catalina and an ssd. It only costed me 50$usd in mint condition!

[thorium]

Chuck in an SSD and install more ram, then use OpenCore Legacy Patcher and you can run the current and latest version of Mac OS on it! (Albeit a bit slow)

[dirtybird]

I owned a Mac . The one that was a CRT and PC built into the case one of the first all in one systems. Was a blue see through case. Made the very best door stop I ever had for the shed out back. And yes it did work just fine. Wished now I had kept it, but the neighbors boy wanted it so I gave it to him with the Keyboard and mouse that came with it.

[Flameboi]

There are two options you can do for an older mac like this, either use a open source modern coded browser or use open core to update to an unsupported operating systems with hacked drivers

[jml]

I've got a 2008 24inch running el capitan and that is a sweet spot with plenty of modern apps and browsers and you can dual boot leopard for power pc support.
Love these things

[montecorbit]

I was kind of hoping you would throw an SSD in there and clone the old disk drive onto it. I'd love to see a supplemental video and see what it runs like that way....same software just a better drive.

I would also like to see what it is like running Windows, and Lenox....

[henriproos]

Ah yes, the Henry cleaner helping the Mac work

[danyuzunov]

Doom might be in the dark ages but Budget-Builds Official is ETERNAL

[honkhonkler]

I got a similar one of these for free back in college from a previous job I worked. I just had to replace the cracked screen cover. It worked fine as a League of Legends machine and it would play the then current version of War Thunder on low settings around 45-60 FPS. I was also able to get an extra 500Mhz by swapping in a used mobile Core 2 Extreme chip which helped minimum frame rates a bit. Luckily it was one that had a Radeon HD 2600 Pro instead of the Intel GMA graphics like some of them had around that time.

[Dr_Hingis]

I remember having a 2006 Imac with snow leopard installed and that thing was a beast, ran steam (until it was unsupported so I had to use Wine instead), Ran pretty much anything I put on it, it was fantastic. When it died (Either a cap burst or something because I remember it making a loud pop with some smoke bellowing out the top) and that was the biggest loss I've had to deal with.

[mcrazza]

I ran an Early 2008 24" iMac for 14 years as my DD right up until late 2022 when it finally died (the PSU failed). It worked beautifully. TBF I did replace/upgrade the parts multiple times over the years just to keep it going. Specs: 3.06GHz, 6GB RAM, 256GB SSD, ATI HD 2600 Pro 256MB, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. The only problem was most browsers weren't updated except for Opera (at the time) therfore limiting me to said browser. Almost all apps I downloaded from the Mac App Store weren't up-to-date either due to the outdated OS. Other than that, it just worked. It was still a modern PC. I still have it sitting on the floor waiting for the day I get a replacement PSU. I miss using a Mac now that I'm on PC. That's a whole other story for another time.

[chadbranston]

Dankpods is still using his 07 iMac and that is still going strong

[zthreeg]

When I clicked on this video, I didn't expect to see an iMac with a Henry vacuum cleaner as emotional support

[SirTodd]

i used to be extremely anti-apple... all the way up until around January this year. for some reason I have had a very, very strong interest develop in absolutely everything they have ever done, especially the older hardware from when Jobs was the man.

this video has inspired me to find something similar instead of buying another single board computer!