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I have the Early-2013 Education iMac with the Core i3-3225 and HD graphics 4000. I was thinking of upgrading to the i7-3770S which also uses 4000 graphics and the same socket. I understand the TDP of the processors are different from one another, but they should be using the same logic board as the late 2012 21.5 which shipped with the i7-3770s.
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I am actually awaiting the components now to do this exact upgrade. I ordered a SSD, I am maxing out the RAM, and I am replacing the original processor with the i7-3770S. Yes, it will be a little warmer, but a good thermal paste and appropriate application of such will help to dissipate that additional heat. It’s not like your going from 55w, which the original one is, to something like 95-110w. I should have the parts within the next few days, I’ll post an update once I am done completing the upgrades.
I have performed the upgrade to the i7-3770s , replaced the HDD with an SSD, and upgraded the RAM to 16GB. The performance increase is very noticeable. The computer operates far quicker, and items load faster. I highly recommend doing these upgrade to the education model iMac EMC 2545.
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Good to know this useful info. Thanks for the update!
You are very welcome Jeanne! I picked up my EMC 2545 for $300 off of Amazon. I then bought the HDD, RAM, and CPU for $382 between two vendors. I now have an iMac that operates equivalently, in my opinion of course, to the current model iMac that retails for $1500. I have no complaints about my renewed, and updated, 7 year old iMac! For those of us that have the abilities to perform these upgrades on our own, you can for save many hundreds of dollars by getting an older iMac and simply buying the components to upgrade it. Good luck with the upgrade to your machine, I promise you will enjoy the difference.
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Hi, has this model a PCIe slot to place an SSD? or just sata conectors?
crwdns2934105:0crwdne2934105:0
@macgiorgio - Apple only populated the PCIe/NVMe hardware on boards which was shipped with the Custom Apple Blade SSD, either as part of a Fusion Drive or as a SSD only system.
So it depends!
@danj well I already have a late 2013 that came with HDD and in fact has an empty pcie slot... I will have to open it to check.. thanks anyway
The connector won’t be present as well a other components.
I also forgot the early 2013is a custom mSATA drive not NVMe
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Hello @johnbaker
I’m very glad to know your interest to replace this 2013 Education iMac original processor Core i3-3225 with Core i7-3770S.
Yes, you may do it, Remember one thing that Apple officially does not intend for the processor in any Intel-based iMac models to be upgraded that's why you must do this process following with the proper guideline.
Actually, I’m a professional educational advisor and I have also used this same model: iMac Intel 21.5" EMC 2545 (Edu) for the last few years.
Now I also gonna prepare to replace the original processor with the i7-3770S very soon. Thanks!
crwdns2934271:0crwdnd2934271:0 Jeanne Meyers crwdne2934271:0