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Hi all, Does anyone know if it is possible to change the factory 2.93 GHz i7 from a mid-2010 27" iMac to a 4.0 GHz i7 8700K with LGA 1151 slot compatibility? I am looking to do this since I use the machine for a lot of HandBrake encoding and am looking for a speed boost. Would it be feasible?
Here is a good reference on SkyLake: Wikipedia - Skylake_(microarchitecture). Your systems socket is LGA1156 As you can see your systems socket is not capable to host any of the Skylake CPU’s. Presently Apples best CPU (Skylake) in the iMac series systems is only in the newest iMac: 5K iMac 27" 4.0 GHz i7 (Late 2015). So if you have your heart set on a Skylake system this is the one. We had thought long and hard last year thinking what would be the best direction for us with our heavy CAD & video processing. Our direction was to jump to the Mac Pro series of systems so far we now have 12 of these beasts and I can tell you they are sweet! Sure newer model systems will come out but so far the Mac Pro is still at the top of the pile (depending on which version you get).
From what I am reading, the iMacs use odd socket sizes (FCLGA 1156) and that through some experimentation, one user tried upgrading his i7 to a better one of the same socket size, but it would not boot. I don’t believe Apple has any firmware restrictions that would prevent you from upgrading, but I think the issue came down to it not providing enough wattage to the new CPU. Here’s an fairly detailed article on the CPU’s of your particular line of iMac. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/im…
