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Tech Specs

20″ iMac (Mid 2007)

LEM Staff - 2007.08.07

Apple gave the iMac a fresher look in August 2007, the first change from the stark white face introduced with the first G5 iMac in 2004. The new look puts a black border around a glossy display, has an aluminum finish, and is thinner than its predecessors.

20" Aluminum iMac

Unlike the Late 2006 iMac, there is no longer a 17″ model – only 20″ and 24″ models.

2007 iMac

The 2007 iMac has gone aluminum.

The new iMac is thinner than the old one.

The new aluminum iMac is thinner than the old one.

The 20″ models use Core 2 Duo CPUs with the same Santa Rosa chipset, Merom CPUs, and 800 MHz bus already found in the Mid 2007 MacBook Pro models. They have three USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and 800 ports, gigabit ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, and an upgraded SuperDrive – as well as a brand new slim aluminum keyboard with USB 2.0 ports.

The 20″ 2.0 GHz iMac ships with 1 GB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive, Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0, and Apple’s new keyboard and Mighty Mouse. The 2.4 GHz models ship with a 320 GB hard drive and use Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics.

The Mid 2007 iMac ships with Mac OS X 10.4.10 Tiger and iLife ’08. This is the oldest iMac that supports OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and later (versions since OS X 10.9 Mavericks are free, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan is the last supported version).

The Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 Pro graphics processors, while better than the Radeon X1600 GPU in the previous generation 2.0 GHz iMacs in some respects (and worse in others) represent a step down from the Nvidia GeForce 7300GT and 7600GT in the Late 2006 24″ iMac. Gaming benchmarks measure GeForce frame rates as anywhere from 20% to nearly 200% higher. There are also many complaints about reflections due to the glossy display.

Although it is not officially supported, the Mid 2007 iMac can run macOS Sierra using Colin Mistr’s Sierra Patch Tool if you replace its Merom CPU with a Penryn CPU. Even then, WiFi is not supported on this device. See our macOS Sierra page for more details and a link.

What You Need to Know

While 1 GB of system memory is plenty to run OS X 10.4 Tiger comfortably, it is just adequate for OS X 10.5 Leopard and truly inadequate for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which isn’t happy with less than 2 GB. For OS X 10.7 Lion, 2 GB is a starting point and 4 GB will make you happier. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.9 Mavericks really call for 4 GB, and 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitan want the 6 GB maximum Mid 2007 iMacs support – even though Apple says Yosemite can run with 2 GB. More RAM always makes OS X run more smoothly.

The CPU is in Socket P and uses an 800 MHz FSB (front side bus). Upgrades as high as 2.8 GHz are possible (see CPU Upgrade Options for Mid 2007 iMacs).

Note that 20″ aluminum iMacs use an 18-bit LCD, which can only display 262,144 colors, not the “millions” all other iMacs can display. This should be good enough for most users.

Unlike earlier iMacs, where every USB port could provide 500 mA of power, only a single high-powered device can be attached to the USB ports, and software will enable one of its downstream ports to supply 500 mA of power. If a second high-powered device is attached, it will behave like a normal bus-powered hub and only provide 100 mA per downstream port.

Intel-based Macs use a partitioning scheme known as GPT. Only Macintel models can boot from GPT hard drives. Both PowerPC and Intel Macs can boot from APM (Apple’s old partitioning scheme) hard drives, which is the format you must use to create a universal boot drive in Leopard. PowerPC Macs running any version of the Mac OS prior to 10.4.2 cannot mount GPT volumes. PowerPC Macs won’t let you install OS X to a USB drive or choose it as your startup volume, although there is a work around for that.

Details

  • introduced 2007.08.07 at US$1,199; discontinued 2008.04.28 and replaced by Early 2008 iMac.
  • Model identifier: iMac7,1
  • Model no.: A1224
  • Part no.: MA876
  • Latest EFI version: EFI 1.3

Mac OS

  • Requires Mac OS X 10.4.10 Tiger or later, macOS 10.13 High Sierra requires a CPU with SSE 4.2. macOS 10.4 Mojave and later are not supported.
  • Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compatibility
    • Grand Central Dispatch is supported.
    • 64-bit operation is supported.
    • OpenCL is not supported.
  • OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion compatibility
    • AirPlay Mirroring is not supported.
    • AirDrop is not supported.
    • Power Nap is not supported.
  • OS X 10.10 Yosemite compatibility
    • AirDrop is not supported.
    • AirPlay Mirroring is not supported.
    • Handoff is not supported.
    • Instant Hotspot is not supported.
    • Power Nap is not supported.

Core System

  • CPU: 2.0/2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Merom, Socket P makes CPU upgrades possible (see CPU Upgrade Options for Mid 2007 iMacs and CPU Upgrades So 2007 iMacs Can Run High Sierra)
  • L2 cache: 4 MB shared cache on CPU
  • Bus: 800 MHz
  • Performance, Geekbench 3:
    • 32-bit single core: 1093 (2.0 GHz), 1286 (2.4 GHz)
    • 32-bit multicore: 1914 (2.0 GHz), 2279 (2.4 GHz)
    • 64-bit single core: 1173 (2.0 GHz), 1381 (2.4 GHz)
    • 64-bit multicore: 2077 (2.0 GHz), 2454 (2.4 GHz)
  • RAM: 1 GB, officially expandable to 4 GB using two PC2-5300 DDR2 SODIMMs but will support 6 GB.

Video

  • Graphics, 2.0 GHz: ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128 MB RAM (256 MB optional), supports up to 1920 x 1200 external digital display, 2048 x 1536 analog display, and monitor spanning
  • Graphics, 2.4 GHz: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256 MB RAM, supports up to 1920 x 1200 external digital display, 2048 x 1536 analog display, and monitor spanning
  • Display: 20″ 1680 x 1050 flat panel display (18-bit LCD)
  • Video out: mini-DVI, VGA, S-video, composite (requires adapter)

Drives

  • Hard drive bus: 3 Gbps SATA Rev. 2
  • Hard drive: 250/320 GB 7200 rpm SATA drive
  • Optical drive bus: Ultra ATA/100 (operates at ATA/33 or ATA/66)
  • SuperDrive: writes DVD±R and DVD+R discs at up to 8x speed, dual layer at up to 4x; DVD-RW at up to 6x; reads DVDs at up to 8x, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x, reads CDs at up to 24x

Expansion

  • USB: 3 USB 2.0 ports, only 1 high-powered device device allowed
  • FireWire 400: 1 port, 7 Watts
  • FireWire 800: 1 port, 7 Watts
  • Modem: optional 56 kbps USB modem supports v.92
  • Ethernet: 10/100/gigabit
  • AirPort Extreme: 802.11n
  • Bluetooth 2.0: included
  • IR receiver: supports Apple Remote (included)
  • Microphone: internal

Physical

  • H x W x D: 18.5 x 19.1 x 7.4 in/46.9 x 48.5 x 18.9 cm
  • Weight: 20 lb/9.1 kg
  • Power supply: 180W

CPU Upgrades

  • none

Online Resources

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Short link: http://goo.gl/WT0Ky7

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