Change graphics card on an iMac?

antotrainz

New member
Good afternoon everyone,

I have a late 2013 version iMac and wanted to see if there's a way to change the graphics card to a better one, even though mines is a Intel Iris Pro with 1536 MB. Really don't want to go out and buy another iMac lol.

Kind regards,
Anthony Reyes
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers...-imac-2013-model-apple-store-add-upgrade.html

Intel Iris Pro is the integrated graphics part of an Intel CPU.

you're looking at roughly $900 at newegg for a GTX 1050 TI which is about the minimum for TANE or dellrefurbished.com has a dell T3600 4 core xeon with 16 gigs of memory for $700 and a 48% off which may or may not apply. These machines can be upgraded on the graphics side.

The mini towers can also be upgraded to a certain extent but are limited to the power supply.

Cheerio John
 
Good afternoon everyone,

I have a late 2013 version iMac and wanted to see if there's a way to change the graphics card to a better one, even though mines is a Intel Iris Pro with 1536 MB. Really don't want to go out and buy another iMac lol.

Kind regards,
Anthony Reyes
You are stuck with what you have got, very few upgrade options with an iMac , models with thunderbolt 3 could make use of a egpu. If you can go down this course make sure the Gpu is an AMD card as they are compatible with Mac OS out of the box, not as fast as nvidia but they do work cos I’ve installed on on my 2010 Mac Pro and it works a treat.
 
You are stuck with what you have got, very few upgrade options with an iMac , models with thunderbolt 3 could make use of a egpu. If you can go down this course make sure the Gpu is an AMD card as they are compatible with Mac OS out of the box, not as fast as nvidia but they do work cos I’ve installed on on my 2010 Mac Pro and it works a treat.

We have fewer Mac hardware experts on the forum than windows and dangavel is one of the few.

Cheerio John
 
If you did this on a newer iMAC, would it lock you out from starting it up properly, because of hardware validation and ID does not match original?
 
If you did this on a newer iMAC, would it lock you out from starting it up properly, because of hardware validation and ID does not match original?

Are you talking about using an egpu ? since they now produce a number of these with apples approval , I very much doubt it would have any issues .
If you swop out cards on mac pro towers as long as you have the correct drivers there's no problem, I have had both amd and nividia non standard cards in my mac pro but the nvidia card would not work with TANE, it would launch , but freeze when I tried to open a route, tyhst was a gtx 970, but form what i hear they have not improved the Mac drivers on the newer cards .

NV3 wont give you any help with non standard cards , i presume they might troubleshoot if you had an AMD supported card in an egpu, but again, whether this iMac would support a thunderbolt 3 egpu is not something i can help you with .
Buying a used 2012 Mac pro and sticking a 8gb rx580 or vega 56 in it is probably the cheapest long term way to go if you want to run trainz on the mac and run most routes. I paid $1000 for my hex core 2010 and $400 for the card ( Australian so US prices are a lot cheaper) , and it runs most routes on high settings ( although i do not have 4k monitors ) you'd not even get a new mac mini for that sort of price and that has an inadequate gpu anyway. Imacs are also notoriously hard to work on , you cant upgrade them much and they are pricey to fix . If you must have a mac then an older mac pro is probably your best way to run Trainz adequately. I just checked and a new 27 inch imac with 16gb ram 8gb rx 580 and 4.2 intel chip is around $2700 US , but you are getting a great 27 inch screen for that price.

One other strategy is, when the new mac pro comes out next year, the prices of the dust bin mac pros will plummet, from what i hear they do work quite well with trainz , but then again, you cant work on them as easily as you can on the older towers and the xeons seemingly last forever.., so far all I've had go wrong on 4 mac pro towers is the logic board on one of them, otherwise they seem pretty rock solid. .
 
I've been using Apple computers since the Apple \\\ "business" computer (released May 1980 -their machine after the Apple \\) - I am a Mac evangelist and for my work I wouldn't use anything but Mac. I love Mac. I love OSX. I love Mac apps. Mac OSX and I think and work the same. I don't care for PC's at all. But I run a Windows VM on my Mac just for some things not available on Mac that I need to do my work.

Having said that.... Apple machines are not for serious game play! They just aren't. Let's don't kid ourselves.

Don't mess with a Mac a for serious gaming computer. Just confess your sin of getting a PC and then do it. :(
-or-
Play on lowest settings on your Mac and just accept the 30 to 35 fps.

I recently priced out a PC build for myself. I hope to start getting components soon after Christmas.

An as I type this on my iMac I say again: I love my Mac. I love my Mac. I love my Mac. I do, I do, I do.........
 
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I've been using Apple computers since the Apple \\\ "business" computer (released May 1980 -their machine after the Apple \\) - I am a Mac evangelist and for my work I wouldn't use anything but Mac. I love Mac. I love OSX. I love Mac apps. Mac OSX and I think and work the same. I don't care for PC's at all. But I run a Windows VM on my Mac just for some things not available on Mac that I need to do my work.

Having said that.... Apple machines are not for serious game play! They just aren't. Let's don't kid ourselves.

Don't mess with a Mac a for serious gaming computer. Just confess your sin of getting a PC and then do it. :(
-or-
Play on lowest settings on your Mac and just accept the 30 to 35 fps.

I recently priced out a PC build for myself. I hope to start getting components soon after Christmas.

An as I type this on my iMac I say again: I love my Mac. I love my Mac. I love my Mac. I do, I do, I do.........

Well sorry to burst your bubble but i get 60 fps on high settings on my mac pro now i have a 8gb rx 580, if i had a vega 64 it would probably be better and thats a 10 year old machine. if you ran bootcamp on a recent mac you should be able to get the same performance you would on a similarly spec'd windows unit as its the lack of direct x that holds the mac back with most pc games.
Now no doubt there are better windows machines out there then whats on offer in the mac camp,as like you say, they arent aimed at gaming, but I've seen frame rates of over 100 fps reported on 2010 mac pros like mine running bootcamp which have nvidia cards fitted ,but you can chose to believe me or not.
http://barefeats.com/gtx1080.html
 
Well sorry to burst your bubble but i get 60 fps on high settings on my mac pro now i have a 8gb rx 580, if i had a vega 64 it would probably be better and thats a 10 year old machine. if you ran bootcamp on a recent mac you should be able to get the same performance you would on a similarly spec'd windows unit as its the lack of direct x that holds the mac back with most pc games.
Now no doubt there are better windows machines out there then whats on offer in the mac camp,as like you say, they arent aimed at gaming, but I've seen frame rates of over 100 fps reported on 2010 mac pros like mine running bootcamp which have nvidia cards fitted ,but you can chose to believe me or not.
http://barefeats.com/gtx1080.html

Hello... you are not bursting my bubble nor would I have any reason to doubt what you say... I was speaking generally. Most Mac users don't have mac pros.. most have iMacs and the such and most don't want to have to pull an iMac screen out of it's case. Hey, I'm on your side! But for MOST people who casually approach this stuff I think it more logical to setup a gaming PC rather than chance a busted iMac display...

And with a dedicated machine (PC) and graphics card in an enclosure it's super easy to swap out graphics cards to improve things as cards improve and demands grow.
 
It seems some just can't resist answering a different question to the one asked. Upgrade options (as already stated) for a late 2013 iMac are restricted to hard drives and memory really. That's why I spec'ed mine with the best video card available.
 
Apple machines are not for serious game play! They just aren't. Let's don't kid ourselves.

Hmm, I didn't get a Mac to play games, but as I have one there is quite a reasonable choice of games to suit players of most genres.

TRS19 performance on my iMac is noticibly better in Windows than macOS, but I've tried supporting two platforms at once before, on my income one has to give way.
 
Hello... you are not bursting my bubble nor would I have any reason to doubt what you say... I was speaking generally. Most Mac users don't have mac pros.. most have iMacs and the such and most don't want to have to pull an iMac screen out of it's case. Hey, I'm on your side! But for MOST people who casually approach this stuff I think it more logical to setup a gaming PC rather than chance a busted iMac display...

And with a dedicated machine (PC) and graphics card in an enclosure it's super easy to swap out graphics cards to improve things as cards improve and demands grow.

If you are going to make blanket statementa about cmputers, its best to be sure of your ground before you do so, you are perpetuating a perception that isnt entirely accurate.
Anyway, I just get fed up with people making generalizations about mac performance,my point is , for far less than the price of a new iMac you can get a unit that is far more upgradable and easy to work on , it might be better to find that out, rather than keep on repeating info that isn't accurate .
I've been down the road you have taken , had an imac, found it sorely lacking in the graphics department and moved on to a better machine which will run Trainz very well on windows too.
This is the thing that most people continue to ignore, that you can run bootcamp and have good gaming machine as long as you ensure you a decent card installed when you buy, because almost of apples other computers wont let you upgrade after purchase, one reason I've stopped buying new macs as they are quite frankly - a ripoff if you want a reasonable os x gaming experience unless you ensure they have the 8gb cards. To buy a top spec'd 27 inch imac here in Australia would cost me nearly $4000, I've bought a better , albeit older computer for a third of that price and even if i had to replace some of the more expensive parts, i would still be ahead , my point is, if you want to have a decent mac experience using Trainz, and don't want to spend a fortune, go for the old mac pro- 2010 or 2012 versions , so much better then the iMac, apart from the weight :)
 
If you are going to make blanket statementa about cmputers, its best to be sure of your ground before you do so, you are perpetuating a perception that isnt entirely accurate.
Anyway, I just get fed up with people making generalizations about mac performance,my point is , for far less than the price of a new iMac you can get a unit that is far more upgradable and easy to work on , it might be better to find that out, rather than keep on repeating info that isn't accurate .
I've been down the road you have taken , had an imac, found it sorely lacking in the graphics department and moved on to a better machine which will run Trainz very well on windows too.
This is the thing that most people continue to ignore, that you can run bootcamp and have good gaming machine as long as you ensure you a decent card installed when you buy, because almost of apples other computers wont let you upgrade after purchase, one reason I've stopped buying new macs as they are quite frankly - a ripoff if you want a reasonable os x gaming experience unless you ensure they have the 8gb cards. To buy a top spec'd 27 inch imac here in Australia would cost me nearly $4000, I've bought a better , albeit older computer for a third of that price and even if i had to replace some of the more expensive parts, i would still be ahead , my point is, if you want to have a decent mac experience using Trainz, and don't want to spend a fortune, go for the old mac pro- 2010 or 2012 versions , so much better then the iMac, apart from the weight :)

We are in complete agreement on that point... and I didn't intent to be disrespectful of your point at all. Sorry if I made a blanket statement... Perhaps it's my frustration that Apple seems to be a "blanket" company right now with focus entirely on iPhones, iPads, and such.....
 
We are in complete agreement on that point... and I didn't intent to be disrespectful of your point at all. Sorry if I made a blanket statement... Perhaps it's my frustration that Apple seems to be a "blanket" company right now with focus entirely on iPhones, iPads, and such.....

Not to worry, its just that so many PC users here rubbish macs anyway, I'd like to get the word out that they can be pretty good machines if you are prepared to utilize bootcamp to play games- or have a mac pro.
as for their focus in their " toys ", you are absolutely correct, they have neglected their pro users terribly in the past few years and their insistence on providing limited upgrade options has no doubt lost them customers , witness myself, I used to buy a new $4000 mac pro or macbook pro about every 5 years, now I haven't done so for about 12 .... that's about 8 grand they have lost just from one customer and I probably wont go back to buying new units either..
At least now they are providing some half decent gpus in their iMacs , even the mac mini could be ok with an egpu , such a pity they went with AMD, a weird choice....... but then Apple management seem to specialise in weird choices, they can be VERY annoying ......
 
I never understood that whole Mac vs PC thing.... everyone is different, people should use what works for them. I just know that over the years my Mac's have never failed me. I don't have crashes. I run with so many apps open at the same time even I can't believe it, and yet, everything hums along day after day... week after week... month after month.. year after year. I've had to stop and reload OS like twice in over 30 years of using them. That is fact. But the next guy might prefer Windows and his/her own hardware build. That's the great thing about having choices.
 
So I guess to come in conclusion is that I may need to have an eGPU with really great power supply of course and a Nvidia GTX series card to run at least a good 60fps or more while running or building a route with vast amount of detail. Taking in note form what Cheerio Leon mentioned earlier.
 
When you take the cost of an eGPU into consideration, a reconditioned Mac Pro plus a reasonable GPU would seem to be a similar cost option, some of those eGPUs are as expensive as buying a mid range PC!
However they do have builtin PSUs. Plus some that don't include cards are more expensive than ones that do, suggest doing a lot of research.

I gave up on Macs when they sold out and went intel ;o)
 
So I guess to come in conclusion is that I may need to have an eGPU with really great power supply of course and a Nvidia GTX series card to run at least a good 60fps or more while running or building a route with vast amount of detail. Taking in note form what Cheerio Leon mentioned earlier.

I don't think this is a viable option. The operating system has to support the graphics card and unless I'm mistaken only some AMD cards are supported. By them time you've found an eGPU that will take the sort of high end graphics card you need for 60 fps you're into major $ and its not a well supported environment.

dellrefurbished.com have a 6 core xeon workstation 16 gigs with an Nvidia Quadro 4000 (2 GB) GPU for $690. Not the nicest GPU in the world but it will run TANE and TS19. When you're feeling richer you can switch out the GPU and put in something bigger. You'll need to up the operating system to win 10 but one of the free upgrade methods should still work.

For comparison an ASUS eGPU external box is $739 on Newegg.com and the reviewers mentioned difficulties in getting the drivers set up, and the noise it makes. It also needs a GPU so cost wise the Dell workstation is the cheaper option.

Cheerio John
 
I don't think you can change a GPU in an iMac. I have heard of external GPU boxes that plug in via USB. I would recommend looking into those, just make sure the GPU you use is supported in MacOS.

Matt
 
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