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  • 27″ Retina 5K iMac (Mid-2017)
    This 5K 2017 iMac has a socketed CPU, a SATA 3.0 port, Four memory slots for PC4-19200s DDR4-2400T RAM, an NVME style PCIe x4 SSD blade slot, and an AirPort card slot which appears to also be of a PCIe interface. This iMac also uses slightly faster DDR4 over its… Read more »
  • Early 2013 iMac (Education)
    This version of the Early 2013/Late 2013 iMac is stripped back and only available to educational institutions; it is not available for sale to individuals. To cut $200 and make this a $1099 computer, Apple scaled back from a 2.7 GHz quad-core i5 CPU to a 3.3 GHz dual-core i3,… Read more »
  • 21.5″ Retina 4K iMac (Early 2019)
    This was the end of the line for the smaller Intel iMacs altogether, and perhaps you’re thinking: doesn’t this have a T2 security chip since it’s from 2019? Rest assured, it doesn’t. There were no 2020 or 2018 4K iMacs, and this model came with Intel’s 8th gen coffee lake… Read more »
  • 21.5″ Retina 4K iMac (Mid-2017)
    Although only $200 separated the purchase price of the base model Mid-2017 1080p iMac versus the 4K Mid-2017 iMac, the differences inside couldn’t be more drastic. On the surface and on the outside they look to be the very same machine.. until you start tearing one apart and realize how… Read more »
  • 21.5″ 1080p iMac (Mid-2017)
    This iMac is basically a giant 13″ 2017 MacBook Pro but with replaceable RAM and no battery. Kaby Lake was the end of the line for the non-retina iMacs with only a single CPU option, and remained available for purchase all the way through October 29th 2021. The i5-7360U was… Read more »
  • Ultimate “Hybrid” 2011/2012 17″ MacBook Pro
    An introduction and some history A bit over a decade ago, Apple released the 2011 MacBook Pro with the now infamous Radeon 6000 series discrete Graphics Card. Both the Early and Late 2011 models were prone to spontaneous failure which has been well documented online starting with initial complaints in… Read more »
  • Mini-PCIe, Express34, MXM eGPU compatibility index: Part 2
    Certain older Macs are able to take advantage of adding an external graphics card through modification. This is article is broken up into 3 parts, as it contains a lot of information and pictures. Please refer to part 1 of the article for hardware/parts prerequisites. Sections 1 through 5 are… Read more »
  • Mini-PCIe, Express34, MXM eGPU compatibility index: Part 1
    Certain older Macs are able to take advantage of adding an external graphics card through modification. This usually requires external power, the corresponding adapters, can be done via the mini-PCIe slot or MXM slot, and come with case-by-case caveats as most of this was never intended to be a thing.… Read more »
  • Low End Mac Mailbag: Add Wifi 4-Draft and Bluetooth 2.1 to your PowerPC Mac
    While this has been covered elsewhere online, it will be posted here for our LEM readers! A few years back, a LEM Facebook group user found a neat trick on getting a cost-effective, more modernized Bluetooth/Wifi solution for his Power Mac G5. Though his was a PCIe model, there is… Read more »
  • Upgrade your Mac to Bluetooth 4 & Wifi 5 with a Broadcom BCM94360CD
    Although this topic has been documented elsewhere, it will also be covered on Low End Mac for our readers. While bluetooth and wifi technology have since moved onto newer standards – Bluetooth 5.3 and Wifi 6 respectively, this adapter offers a pop-in replacement where the old AirPort card was. Rather… Read more »

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