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Model A1224 / Mid 2007 and Early 2008 / 2, 2.4, or 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo processor

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How do I install a gigabyte Video Card?

I have 128 mB video card on my iMac 8.1 (2008 era) duo... I work with photoshop a lot and would like to beef up the RAM on the Video Card to do processing of work files. IF/WHEN a beefier video card would work, how would I replace it? Or is most the processing done by the Duo, anyway, and a waste of time?

I have just upgraded to 3 gigs of RAM and have guides to upgrade to six eventhough only 4 is vetted by Apple... so I could update to snow leppard and yosemite, I'm even contemplated even upgrading to El Capitain, as the OS only requires half my memory presently, and frequently without running anything I have a Gig & 1/2 to work with.

Help:( it hangs at the resolutions I want to work with in 200 mB files...

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This system has a PCIe ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics processor using PCI Express with 128 MB of GDDR3 video memory.

Video Card options:

  • P/N 661-4672 - ATI Radeon HD 2600XT (256 MB of GDDR3)
  • P/N 661-4673 - ATI Radeon HD 2400XT (128 MB of GDDR3)

Here's the IFIXIT guide to replace the graphics card: iMac Intel 20" EMC 2133 and 2210 Video Card Replacement. If you jump down to Step 41 you'll see the dedicated RAM chips which can't be replaced.

As to your question of upping the RAM beyond what these cards offer. I don't think thats going to improve things for you in photo editing enough. This systems memory limit (6 GB) and its SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) HD interface are the bigger limiters.

You should try to get a system with SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) or faster I would look at 12 GB or 16GB depending on the image sizes you are working with either a i5 or i7 CPU or newer.

Update (10/03/2015)

Depending on the size of the image or images if you have more than one open at the same time you can run out of physical RAM.

And yes the system will leverage the drive as virtual RAM. So depending on what the Application (photo or photos) needs, the amount of RAM the system can support and the speed of the drives storage as well as the type of storage (SSD, SSHD or HD) all come into the mix here.

If you are plaining on doing a lot of photo editing you need to first look at the amount of RAM the system can support. This one is limited 6 MB which I think is too little working with a lot of 12 MP or larger hi-res images. Which is why I think you need to look at updating your system Vs upgrading it if you can.

As to upgrading the OS to El Capitain: At this point I don't think that would help you here. Often newer OS end up using more of the systems RAM for its self. So its likely to starve your app needed RAM space which in this system is limited.

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No it's all aluminum and I bought it in June of 2008, I'll go check the specifics... ya, it's a 20 inch with a Radeon 2400 card in it. And yes, it's an Intel duo 2.4 ghz which is ample for lots of stuff so I NEeedn't get this or that...

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an SSD does sound like it would probably help, but still, I don't think it's cacheing on disk, I think it's cacheing work files in memory and it's running out of working memory, but I'm only guessing. Would be nice if someone new something definitive.

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Consider turning off any running apps or extensions as well as only work on one image at a time. You may want to get a memory cleaner app to clean up the RAM every so often while working. As the HD is also used here you should also free up as much space on it as you can. Try to have between 1/4 & 1/3 of free space (use a second drive to hold your work). You should also think about cleaning out the old cache & logo files within both the OS & apps. Heres one tool Disk Doctor I would also check the drive & defragment it using Drive Genius or some other similar app.

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