Upgrade iMac 27" late 2009 video card?

Actually, the posts that state it can't be done are WRONG! And it does NOT require

any soldering or chip removal for the 27" iMacs.

I have the exact same late 2009 27" iMac, and upgraded it to the part from

OWC the you pointed out previously, this one:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/6615578/

You'll be voiding your warranty certainly, but unless you have Apple care you're already

past Apple's 1yr anyway...

It is absolutely possible, and works great. You do not need to touch any firmware, and OS X

already has the drivers for this board. It's entirely a hardware process to upgrade it, i.e. open

the iMac and replace the board and you're done.

The process of upgrading it isn't particularly trivial, but it is absolutely possible, I've been using

the upgraded 5750 1GB board since last Fall (~October) without a single problem in my 27"

High level summary of steps, (there are better more detailed instructions a few places online like iFixit)

(1) remove display cover panel

(2) remove display itself, look online for the details this part can be dicey

(3) disconnect all cables from logic board, tape back near where they came from to get them out of the way and make them easy to reconnect

(4) remove RAM (makes it easier to remove logic board from housing)

(5) unscrew and remove logic board (which has MXM slotted video board attached to it)

(6) set logic board flat on a static safe area

(7) unscrew MXM video board heat sink screws that connect it to logic board, and disconnect it from the logic board

(8) plug in the upgrade/replacement video board

(9) put everything back together

(10) enjoy your faster video card

If you haven't taken your iMac apart before, expect to spend ~90min if you're careful about everything.

If you have, it can be done in ~30-45min.

A couple additional tips, one above was the removing RAM makes it easier to remove the logic board, another

is that when you reinsert the logic board, have a USB cable or similar handy to plug into the back to help

align the logic board when you re-seat it. The last tip is the one about taping the wires back just above where

they get plugged in. I didn't do this the first time through, and one fell down and didn't get plugged back in on

re-assembly. I had to disassemble the whole thing again to dig it out and plug it back in...

Cheers

GrandBuffet, and others,

Please tell me if you upgraded the firmware/drivers, and if you did any specifc steps to accomplish this? I have a late 2009 iMac, and bought what I think is a new and functional 6970M, but it does not work under any type of extra load. It goes white screen or wobbly lines.

We installed it perfectly, and it shows up with the following config. (see screenshot).

I have SMC fancontrol installed, and have ODD up to 3000. The 6970M functions unless I do anything slightly intensive (watch more than one video, play a lightweight game while having a video running). I don't think it is overheating, so perhaps it is the firmware. Suggestions? Thank you.

Thank everyone for your help on troublesooting the new 6970M. I took the card to a local shop to run diagnostics. It turned out that the card that I bought from applecompoinents.com was faulty, and they will not replace or refund the card. applecomponents.com misled me to believe that they purchased the card directly from Apple, but when I requested the purchase information so that I could have Visa honor a warranty, they did not have a receipt. I'm wondering if the card was just an old used card, or just faulty. Either way, I don't recommend this applecomponents.com. I'm out almost $600 bucks. If I had just read some of the other posts about applecomponents.com I could have saved myself a lot of headaches. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2723172

Well, this is my experience with the whole GPU switch a roo

I have a late 2009 27" imac with a AMD HD 4850 512MB which died like 2 years ago. After cooking the video card in the oven like 5 times (that gave me an extra year and a half life span 🙂 and you can read all about it HERE) it finally went to a better place. Like 3 weeks ago decided to buy an HD 6970 1GB from ebay and I've been using it with no problems for the past 2 weeks, but it was a bumpy ride at the beginning.

When I first installed the new GPU, the computer worked for 5 minutes and then shut down (this happened several times). I thought "well...ebay is a lottery, so its my fault for buying a dead graphics card" but it wasn't the case. I decided to take out the card and inspect it. I noticed that my newly applied thermal paste was not touching the cooler's copper plate, so there was a huge gap between processor and cooler. I compared the new GPU to my old HD4850 and noticed that the new GPU's processor didn't stick out as much os the older GPU so I decided to add more thermal paste, like a lot. This worked for a while but any high load on the gpu would shut down the computer again. The final solution was to buy a thermal pad instead of paste. These pads come in several sizes and thickness, I bought an 8x8 inches pad, 2mm thick. You can cut them with scissors to any size you want. So I cut a square the same size of the processor and many other squares for the other components of the gpu (the ones that used to have a thick white paste all over them).

I installed iStats to monitor my GPU temp and it never goes over 60C (140F).

I hope this helps someone!

Cheers and good luck!

Hi Alan

While it is possible to replace the Graphic's chip in some models, it varies from model to model because many are soldered directly onto the logic board. Plus even if it were possible to replace/upgrade your model 1) it would have to be the same chip configuration and 2) Apple does not provide the firmware for upgrading.

The 2 most highly recommended third party RAM vendors are OWC and Crucial.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac

http://www.crucial.com/mac/index.aspx

Dennis

The video card of the iMacs cannot be upgraded. What you see is what you get. Of course, you or someone else can take it apart, unsolder the chip, and resolder the newer one but there is still no guarantee it will work. How much faith do you have in yourself or the other person that the job will be successful? If you have the extended warranty, it will be voided. As far as ram is concerned, you can do it yourself. Apple describes how to. Why do you want to upgrade the video card? If it's for your work, then you bought the wrong computer.

It's noticeable for things that require more GPU horsepower, but for day to day usage, not really.

Since the new iMacs were just announced (the ones with thunderbolt), I'd personally wait to see if

OWC puts up some of the 6970M 2GB boards at some point in the next couple months, or even

some of the lower end parts from these newest iMacs.

It's still the exact same daughter board based on the tear downs from iFixit and others, so should work unless the older logic board won't support them for some reason. OWC will say which iMacs they're compatible with if/when they list them for sale.

Hey Peter,

I have a late 2009 iMac with ati radeon hd 4670 and looking to alot of heavy rendering in c4d would your solution work for the late 2009 imac?

I want to upgrade so i dont have to upgrade again for years.

I asked one of my nerd friends at work and explained what I had and what I wanted to do...they said I wouldnt really even notice the upgrade...so in the words of someone else that posted... looks like we just got the wrong computer for the job...

save your pennies and upgrade or sell your soul to apple and take out a line of credit.

and for that price tag, its a total joke...

But I guess the joke is on us.

Peter I have a question. Would that work in this iMac? http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac-core-2-duo-3.06-27-inch-al uminum-late-2009-specs.html

Or would anything else ( read newer, better, ) also work? I am unfamiliar in what criteria is needed to know if you can use the card or not.

Hello Peter,

I appreciate your comments and am interested in upgrading my late 2009 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac. It's model identifier is iMac10,1. Does the graphics card your speaking of have compatibility with my iMac too? In other words, is you iMac's model identifier 10,1 as well. I would appreciate your insight.

Thanks,

Swingdummy

I bought aRadeon6970card2 GB ofRAM.Linkbelow

Set itto yourImac27lat2009

We hada littlecut, plasticmountwhichis video card.

How toset:

1.He took offthe glasssucker

2.Unscrewed thebolts8

3. Removed LCD and turned offitswires

4.Cautionunscrewed thevideo card andpulled her

5.Replaced themount forthe radiatorfrom an oldvideo card

6.Clippedmountthat holdsvideo card

7.To build a computer

8.Reinstalled Mac OS X

Dmitriy Makeyev

Kazakhstan

Astana

http://www.dvwarehouse.com/Video-Card-AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M-2GB-for-iMac-27-Mid-20 11-661-5969---NEW-p-40083.html

Hey,

how does it work? Any problems yet? How about the cooling system? Is the gpu temp displayed (in istat pro or sth)

thats really expensive... isnt there a cheaper shop for the 6970m?

The DVwarehouse offers the 5670 for 240$, OWC for 180$... but OWC doesnt offer the 6970 2GB yet sadly...

Can you confirm that the mini-display port still works for running a second monitor ?

And, just to make sure I understand what you did; did you swap the radiator from the old 4870 with the 6970 or just the mounting clips ?