WEBVTT

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so two of the main arguments that PC guys will make about Mac is number one

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they're really expensive and number two they're very difficult to upgrade so

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I've actually been using the Mac for over a month now as my daily driver and

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quite frankly from a hardware perspective the iMac 5K 27 in retina

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blah blah blah this thing actually not that bad especially if you look at the

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projected price of other 5K displays and the hardware that's included with it but

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that's not the subject of today's video for today's video we are going to be

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cracking this bad boy open and talking about the experience of upgrading the

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hardware versus the experience of upgrading the hardware on a typical PC

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where in theory although I've never done this before it is much easier so I

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intentionally ordered a Mac that didn't have a ton of storage didn't have a hard

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drive so that I could add an SSD for more storage in our case a 1 tbte class

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SSD now v310 from Kingston and I ordered

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one with only 8 gigs of RAM a to see how OS 10 handled a more you know down toe

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configuration and B Because upgrade RAM is so expensive when you order the Mac

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in the first place that I wanted to instead throw in some Mac compatible RAM

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in this case we're going to be throwing in 32 gigs of it also courtesy of

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Kingston so uh come along for the ride

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then guys we're going to upgrade the iMac

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ensure Swift Victory with Corsair's highly responsive lightweight gaming

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mouse the saber RGB click now to learn

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more so I want to begin this adventure with a couple of shout outs to our

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buddies at Kingston Who provided an SSD for us to use in the hard drive slot of

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our SSD only iMac to add some not quite

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PCIe fast but still very fast solid state storage and 32 gigs of their apple

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compatible sodum memory as well as iix

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it whose excellent guide and tools we use throughout the deconstruction

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process speaking of which the first thing I noticed as I begun this process

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was the tools required on a typical PC

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I'd expect to be able to do everything I needed with a standard multi-bit

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Screwdriver from the local hardware store and in most cases I'd never use

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anything but the Philips head on the Mac the process starts with a special little

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pizza cutter tool and Ires credit cards

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a spudger torque screws throughout and finally some custom cut adhesive strips

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for reassembly so because you can't just

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up and decide you're going to open it one day for Giggles the local you know

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store is unlikely to carry all that stuff and the Mac uses non-standard

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internals so you'll need to order any replacement parts you need online anyway

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there is a significant time barrier to

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DIY Mac upgrades and repairs that will deter a great many people from Ever

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attempting something like this especially if their Mac is the only

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computer they have and they need it back up and running quickly the next thing I

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noticed was the difficulty level compared to a PC an iMac upgrade is much

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less friendly to newcomers there's no remove the side panel realize you're in

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over your head and bail I mean once you cut the adhesive strips it's basically

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point of no return most of the connectors are these thin fragile ribbon

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cables with tiny contact pins on the ends that make even SATA's laughable 50

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insertion rating look robust and the internal guts need to be handled with

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extreme care to avoid damaging them and

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to avoid damaging yourself the power supply contacts on the back of the PCB

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are completely exposed but should not be touched under any circumstances this

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could severely injure or even kill you disassembling the iMac was honestly

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pretty nerve-wracking for me since I've never done it before and the only time

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I've done something even similarly delicate was when I replaced the broken

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screen on my wife's Droid DNA phone which was even then comparatively no big

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deal since I was working with something that was already broken in that case

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with the iMac one slip up could turn into a $3,000 paper weight I'm

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exaggerating a little bit you could replace the dead components but still

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very expensive so most people even with

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an excellent written or video guide will not be comfortable tackling this and the

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final thing I noticed about the process was the actual upgrade or modification

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possibilities frankly there's just not a lot you can do to the iMac once you

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finally got it open I was only about 30 minutes into my tear down and almost at

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the part where I was ready to install my shiny 960 gig SSD when I got to the step

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in the guide that said to remove the hard drive cable from the hard drive

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well I bought an SSD only iMac instead of a fusion drive one so mine doesn't

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have a hard drive or a hard drive cable

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I called up I fix it to find out if we could get a replacement cable

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overnighted to us only to have them tell me that because this model is so new

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replacement cables are not available yet the data connection is a standard one so

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I actually considered just soldering a standard SATA power lead onto the

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proprietary header after checking the voltages but upon further reading online

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I discovered that even if we did find one and put in an addin drive and solder

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it together it's possible that the IMAX fan would spin at full speed all the

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time thanks to the hard drive temperature detection not working

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correctly so I Was Defeated as far as

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the hard drive upgrade was concerned but I decided to finish the tear down for

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fun and see what else we can change while we're in here removing the power

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supply speakers and logic board was all

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surprisingly okay pretty easy Once we' made it this far but honestly even

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stripping it down down that far reveals very few user swappable components the

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hinge at the back could be replaced with a Vasa compatible one if it was

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available separately but as it is Apple requires you to decide at the time of

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ordering the iMac which version you want the SSD could be replaced if Apple was

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allowing thirdparty vendors to make replacement drives yet the wireless

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module could be upgraded if it wasn't already a top-of-the line three spatial

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stream AC module the graphics card could be upgraded if it wasn't a mobile GPU

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soldered to the motherboard I mean I think you're starting to see a pattern

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here it basically leaves the CPU um

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although ours already has a 4790k in there so there's nothing better to put

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in that socket and the RAM which could just as easily be accessed by pressing

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the little release on the hatch at the back of the mac and doesn't require any

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sort of tear down in order to swap at least until our Apple overlords decide

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that we are worthy of being allowed to upgrade the other things

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inside so I guess all that's left is the conclusion at this point are the

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tradeoffs that Apple makes on the iMac 5K 27 in with respect to design function

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cost and performance right or would I

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prefer they did it differently as far as performance is concerned I actually

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think for most people this is a pretty good sweet spot it uses a full desktop

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CPU although we'll investigate thermal throttling in an upcoming video and

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while Gamers might bemoan the R9 295 M GPU I will remind them that this is not

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a gaming machine and frankly even a gaming GPU won't be playing AAA titles

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at 5K anyway the cost is almost

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justifiable in my mind for the hardware that you're getting and if the 5K

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display could be recycled for another computer afterwards then that would be a

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slam dunk for me and the design is subjectively beautiful but where the Mac

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really let me down was in terms of the upgradeability not because it can't be

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upgraded well enough it's actually more easily modifiable than many other super

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slim devices mostly notebooks and especially tablets but because Apple

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locks down what few choices I had for Hardware changes forcing me other than

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RAM to pay far too much for upgrades to what is also a very expensive machine in

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the first place at the checkout as a

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tinkerer and a hardware geek the iMac 27in 5K retina just doesn't make sense

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to me but I can hope that that will change over time as it becomes slightly

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less shiny and slightly less new and we're allowed to put slightly other more

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different things inside speaking of things that I hope will change over time

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the way that mobile carriers operate I'd love to see more of them work the same

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