27" iMac i7 first impressions [Archive]

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:09 PM

Let me get this out the way right away for those on the fence about this beast.

1. It's fast, damn fast i just ripped a DVD and it took 20 minutes to rip but the encode took 15. LOL

2. Speakers sound a bit better then before not astronomically like Apple made it seem just a bit, definitely noticeable.

3. Hard Drive is louder you can hear it if it's quiet in the room.

4. Fans are louder too if you encoding all all 8 threads are cranking at full speed you'll hear the fans for sure.

5. The screen is absolutely amazing, man it makes my 24" look like crap and that thing looks awesome.

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 09:12 PM

Sounds great! When you say the HD is loud, what do you mean? Also when all 4 cores are going, what does the fan speed usually crank up to so that you begin hearing it?

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:14 PM

Sounds great! When you say the HD is loud, what do you mean? Also when all 4 cores are going, what does the fan speed usually crank up to so that you begin hearing it?

You can hear the HD seeking slightly when it's quiet. Right now I am encoding a movie and the CPU fan is at 2100 rpm and you can definitely hear it.

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 09:17 PM

wonderful results!

how is flash playing, games, audio issues and whatnot?

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 09:18 PM

You can hear the HD seeking slightly when it's quiet. Right now I am encoding a movie and the CPU fan is at 2100 rpm and you can definitely hear it.

Is it louder than the 24'' iMac? Or about the same? Loud enough to be annoying, or just loud enough to let you know the quad core is flexing its muscles and put a smile on your face? :D

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 09:19 PM

Is it louder than the 24'' iMac? Or about the same? Loud enough to be annoying, or just loud enough to let you know the quad core is flexing its muscles and put a smile on your face? :D
thats a very nice way to put it :D

SmugMac

Nov 12, 2009, 09:19 PM

:D Thanks for sharing. You do realize this makes my wait for my iMac to arrive even worse now.

Really glad to read your thread. I've always thought the 24" panel in the previous iMac was gorgeous, so if this new 27" panel is that good..... ;)

TMRaven

Nov 12, 2009, 09:21 PM

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:23 PM

Is it louder than the 24'' iMac? Or about the same? Loud enough to be annoying, or just loud enough to let you know the quad core is flexing its muscles and put a smile on your face? :D

Yeah that's about right just loud enough to let you know it's there but if you have any noise at all it will drown it out it's not really noticeable unless you are looking for it... The fan in the other hand is definitely noticeable.

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:25 PM

Wow 15 minutes to encode a full length dvd? What encoder and settings were you using?

I am also wondering about the encoding times for these new i7s and handbrake. What type of fps do you get with high profile x264 with handbrake?

I was using Handbrake I was getting 150fps at 2500Kbps. My own settings I made for DVD's that include higher audio and stuff.

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 09:26 PM

nando, have you had a chance to check the temp with iStat? Another poster mentioned that everything seemed to be fine under heavy load. Curious what you saw during the DVD rip? Everything look ok temp wise?

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 09:29 PM

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:31 PM

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 09:33 PM

125 F the CPU was at and the GPU 150F

51.6°C for all of the cool people :cool: thats impressive! thanks!

zaphoyd

Nov 12, 2009, 09:33 PM

can you check what the hard drive manufacturer / model number is?

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 09:37 PM

can you check what the hard drive manufacturer / model number is?

Seagate Model Number ST31000528ASQ

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 09:39 PM

51.6°C for all of the cool people :cool: thats impressive! thanks!

Cool. That is good news indeed. :cool:

pinksatin

Nov 12, 2009, 09:41 PM

1. It's fast, damn fast i just ripped a DVD and it took 20 minutes to rip but the encode took 15. LOL

Wait...
20 minutes for a 1.5 - 2 hour DVD on handbrake? my current imac takes 3 hours at least...

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 09:43 PM

Wait...
20 minutes for a 1.5 - 2 hour DVD on handbrake? my current imac takes 3 hours at least...

no silly, 20 minutes to rip the movie to the HDD, 15 (!!) minutes to convert it to .m4v or similar :D

it depends on the settings though.

SmugMac

Nov 12, 2009, 09:45 PM

Seagate Model Number ST31000528ASQ

Makes me wonder what brand / model of HDD Apple uses for the 2TB model?

pinksatin

Nov 12, 2009, 09:48 PM

no silly, 20 minutes to rip the movie to the HDD, 15 (!!) minutes to convert it to .m4v or similar :D

it depends on the settings though.

Oh ok... gotcha... :D

nicroma

Nov 12, 2009, 09:50 PM

Seagate Model Number ST31000528ASQ

Same here

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 10:22 PM

wonderful results!

how is flash playing, games, audio issues and whatnot?

Just loaded up COD4 MacOS version and had it at full res with everything on high and it was smooth as butter no glitching what so ever, and I had a movie playing on iTunes at the same time too. I'm not sure what the fps was since I don't know how to see that in COD4.

Ok at full res and everything on max i am getting 60-80 fps this is at 25whatever by 1440.

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 10:25 PM

Just loaded up COD4 MacOS version and had it at full res with everything on high and it was smooth as butter no glitching what so ever, and I had a movie playing on iTunes at the same time too. I'm not sure what the fps was since I don't know how to see that in COD4.

thats very good news! full res!? YEW.

no idea how to see FPS, probably need windows + FRAPS to view FPS.

thanks SO much for this input!

motegi

Nov 12, 2009, 10:31 PM

HDD noise makes me happy im switching to SSD woot woot

jvalente

Nov 12, 2009, 10:34 PM

Woah. COD4 full res and full settings. Sweeeeeeeeet. Cannot wait to game on this thing.

iMerlin

Nov 12, 2009, 10:40 PM

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 10:44 PM

thats very good news! full res!? YEW.

no idea how to see FPS, probably need windows + FRAPS to view FPS.

thanks SO much for this input!

Just have to enable the console in the options then hit the ` key and then type /cg_drawfps 1 and hit enter then hit the ` key again to get out of the console.

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 10:46 PM

Just have to enable the console in the options then hit the ` key and then type /cg_drawfps 1 and hit enter then hit the ` key again to get out of the console.

haha trivial!

would love to see frame rates :D (hint hint)

gwhitta

Nov 12, 2009, 10:54 PM

That COD4 info makes me very happy!

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:08 PM

This is killing me! I have to stop checking these forums! I need my i7 damnit. I have some vacation time to burn when it gets here!

Good reports OP. Would love to see a pic of that gorgeous 27" screen playing COD4!

Ok here is a video, and sorry i was lying as you can see in the video the only thing that wasn't all the way up was the antialiasing and the other slider i forget what it is but everything else was maxed out and was getting between 40-70 fps sorry about the video but it's very hard to control and hold it with my iphone at the same time. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpapHHkN6-4

notatroll

Nov 12, 2009, 11:09 PM

Just loaded up COD4 MacOS version and had it at full res with everything on high and it was smooth as butter no glitching what so ever, and I had a movie playing on iTunes at the same time too. I'm not sure what the fps was since I don't know how to see that in COD4.

Ok at full res and everything on max i am getting 60-80 fps this is at 25whatever by 1440.

on a Radeon 4850......sure you did.

JWFerne

Nov 12, 2009, 11:10 PM

I've had my i7 for half a day now and I have to say I couldn't be more pleased. I was playing WoW for a few hours and the temp never got higher than 114' F. On my 24' 3.06 I used to get up to 150.

I have the 2TB drive and I can't hear it at all... the computer is quiet.

Net result are the fans are quiet, the computer is cool and I'm just so damn impressed with the speed of this machine over my 3.06 6 month old machine.

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:10 PM

on a Radeon 4850......sure you did.

Check the video son! Also there was a Time Machine backup going on at the same time too so Im not sure how much that affected the performance you can see that right in the beginning of the vid.

P.S: you are a troll. :)

CQd44

Nov 12, 2009, 11:12 PM

on a Radeon 4850......sure you did.

He did correct himself later; anti-aliasing is very taxing and it doesn't surprise me too much he ran it at full-res without it.

Eidorian

Nov 12, 2009, 11:17 PM

He did correct himself later; anti-aliasing is very taxing and it doesn't surprise me too much he ran it at full-res without it.It shouldn't be that hard with AA and AF off. CoD4 is surprisingly light otherwise.

Though I'd like to see a scene with more action going on than firing from an alleyway.

jvalente

Nov 12, 2009, 11:17 PM

Awwww maaaan. I thought you meant with full AA. what happens if you turn it all the way up? I hate aliasing...

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 11:17 PM

Ok here is a video, and sorry i was lying as you can see in the video the only thing that wasn't all the way up was the antialiasing and the other slider i forget what it is but everything else was maxed out and was getting between 40-70 fps sorry about the video but it's very hard to control and hold it with my iphone at the same time. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpapHHkN6-4

Very nice. I like your background btw. Where did you find it?

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:21 PM

Awwww maaaan. I thought you meant with full AA. what happens if you turn it all the way up? I hate aliasing...

OK AA at 4x and AF all the way up 30-60 FPS closer to 30 steady though, never went below that.

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:22 PM

Very nice. I like your background btw. Where did you find it?

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2070/apple_in_the_big_apple.html

53x12

Nov 12, 2009, 11:23 PM

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2070/apple_in_the_big_apple.html

Thank you!

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:24 PM

It shouldn't be that hard with AA and AF off. CoD4 is surprisingly light otherwise.

Though I'd like to see a scene with more action going on than firing from an alleyway.

Yeah I hear ya but its very hard to control it and stay alive at the same time while video taping that thing but it's definately smooth even when I bumped the AA to 4x and AF all the way never went below 30fps. Once that TM backup is done I'm gonna install XP back on it and try out AION hopefully that runs nice too. That will be more of a test then COD4 IMO.

mrsir2009

Nov 12, 2009, 11:25 PM

Eidorian

Nov 12, 2009, 11:28 PM

Yeah I hear ya but its very hard to control it and stay alive at the same time while video taping that thing but it's definately smooth even when I bumped the AA to 4x and AF all the way never went below 30fps.That's pretty much standard fare for CoD4 on the HD 4850 then. At that resolution you aren't going to see much of an improvement until you go past say a GTX260/HD 4890.

nando2323

Nov 12, 2009, 11:31 PM

That's pretty much standard fare for CoD4 on the HD 4850 then. At that resolution you aren't going to see much of an improvement until you go past say a GTX260/HD 4890.

Still think it's decent for the amount of "gaming" I will do on this thing, I got a 360 for that. I bought it mainly for encoding movies and pictures and very light gaming used to be a wow crack head but I kicked that crack and now switched to AION lol.

Eidorian

Nov 12, 2009, 11:33 PM

Still think it's decent for the amount of "gaming" I will do on this thing, I got a 360 for that. I bought it mainly for encoding movies and pictures and very light gaming used to be a wow crack head but I kicked that crack and now switched to AION lol.What's more intensive on the Mac side right now? It's a Late 2007 game on a Mid 2008 GPU.

DoFoT9

Nov 12, 2009, 11:38 PM

Ok here is a video, and sorry i was lying as you can see in the video the only thing that wasn't all the way up was the antialiasing and the other slider i forget what it is but everything else was maxed out and was getting between 40-70 fps sorry about the video but it's very hard to control and hold it with my iphone at the same time. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpapHHkN6-4

pretty decent FPS right there! im sure thats not as intense as the game would get but its medium. im sure running around 1920xwhatever would yield some great results!

thanks so much for sharing!

motegi

Nov 12, 2009, 11:42 PM

P.S: you are a troll. :)

Pretty much.

Sambo110

Nov 12, 2009, 11:57 PM

Wow, you can seriously play COD4 maxed everything (AA doesn't matter at high resolutions much). This Mac is much better then I thought, I expected it to be like 10-20 FPS at max resolution. I so want one now :D

jaw04005

Nov 13, 2009, 12:06 AM

What do you get if you rip directly from the DVD in Handbrake (using say the latest snapshot) with the Apple TV preset (no additional changes)?

plasticphyte

Nov 13, 2009, 12:38 AM

...
I have the 2TB drive and I can't hear it at all... the computer is quiet.

Net result are the fans are quiet, the computer is cool and I'm just so damn impressed with the speed of this machine over my 3.06 6 month old machine.

What brand is the 2TB hard drive? :)

53x12

Nov 13, 2009, 12:42 AM

What brand is the 2TB hard drive? :)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=819080 :)

nando2323

Nov 13, 2009, 07:43 AM

What do you get if you rip directly from the DVD in Handbrake (using say the latest snapshot) with the Apple TV preset (no additional changes)?

I never really rip like this as I just like to rip a bunch of DVD's and then encode them all at once. But I can give it a shot if you want when I get home later tonight.

dalvin200

Nov 13, 2009, 08:01 AM

congrats on the new machine!

i'd be interested in importing AVCHD filles and also rendering output from iMovie..

not sure if you do any of those... ?

also, how much RAM do you have in your i7?

iMerlin

Nov 13, 2009, 08:04 AM

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/2070/apple_in_the_big_apple.html

This is amazing! Thanks

jaw04005

Nov 13, 2009, 08:08 AM

I never really rip like this as I just like to rip a bunch of DVD's and then encode them all at once. But I can give it a shot if you want when I get home later tonight.

If you have time, I would appreciate it. If not, don’t worry about it.

spcdust

Nov 13, 2009, 08:13 AM

Interesting COD4 results - I'm planning on running the game in Windows 7 via Boot Camp - anyone know if there are any advantages / disadvantages going this route.

nando2323

Nov 13, 2009, 09:50 AM

Interesting COD4 results - I'm planning on running the game in Windows 7 via Boot Camp - anyone know if there are any advantages / disadvantages going this route.

From what I heard the win version runs better i guess.

therandygoat

Nov 13, 2009, 11:59 AM

For the love of god, install windows xp/vista and try out modern warfare 2 :) With the added power of DirectX, we should hopefully see the i7 breeze through with everything (EVERYTHING) maxed. My 1 year old pc does that, so the quad core definately should.

Arigato!

nando2323

Nov 13, 2009, 12:06 PM

Scott6666

Nov 13, 2009, 01:02 PM

I have the 2TB drive and I can't hear it at all... the computer is quiet.

Wonder if the 2TB drives are quieter than the 1TB drive? I could definitely hear the 1TB drive in my 27" C2D iMac,

Techhie

Nov 13, 2009, 01:04 PM

Wonder if the 2TB drives are quieter than the 1TB drive? I could definitely hear the 1TB drive in my 27" C2D iMac,

They are the same make and vendor, so my guess would be no.

Techhie

Nov 13, 2009, 01:06 PM

I never really rip like this as I just like to rip a bunch of DVD's and then encode them all at once. But I can give it a shot if you want when I get home later tonight.

Would you be kind enough to run geekbench when you get home? :cool:

googdot

Nov 13, 2009, 06:21 PM

They are the same make and vendor, so my guess would be no.

Where did you get that info from?

In reading through the posts, it seems the 1TB drives are either Seagate or WD, and the 2TB drives are Hitachi.

xtend

Nov 13, 2009, 07:36 PM

Does someone have a screenshot of the activity monitor ?

How does iStat menus look like ? 8 Virtual cores ? Or can they be combined to 4 in the menu bar ? I find 8 a bit too much for the menu but i want to see whats going on.

How does the cpu load look like when watching youtube HD fullscreen ?

Thanks for anyone who has any of these infos/screenshots :)

miK.

Nov 13, 2009, 08:50 PM

For the love of god, install windows xp/vista and try out modern warfare 2...

Why bother with windows if you don't have to?
Modern Warfare 2 in OS X? Yes. (http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/242343166/modern-warfare-2-in-os-x-yes)

Apparently, it looks and runs great too!

Eidorian

Nov 13, 2009, 08:52 PM

Why bother with windows if you don't have to?
Modern Warfare 2 in OS X? Yes. (http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/242343166/modern-warfare-2-in-os-x-yes)

Apparently, it looks and runs great too!It shouldn't be that much harder than CoD4. :rolleyes:

Scott6666

Nov 13, 2009, 09:09 PM

In reading through the posts, it seems the 1TB drives are either Seagate or WD, and the 2TB drives are Hitachi.

My 1TB drive was a WD and it had a kind of vibration to it so it made a low buzzy kind of noise. Very noticeable when just sitting reading whatever was on the screen. When it was accessing data it was a more normal disk noise so I did not notice it much.

Funny thing was when I took it in for the genius to test, he came back and said: "I turned on itunes and quicktime and the drive sounded normal to him". Turned on the noisiest apps and then couldn't hear it :confused: No kidding.

Anyway, does anyone know if Hitachis are really the 2TB and do Hitachi's tend to be quiet?

Scott6666

Nov 13, 2009, 09:23 PM

On Newegg the ONLY 7200 2TB drives are in fact Hitachi drives

DoFoT9

Nov 14, 2009, 02:21 AM

On Newegg the ONLY 7200 2TB drives are in fact Hitachi drives

the WD "black" edition is 7200rpm isnt it?

trance2

Nov 14, 2009, 09:34 AM

Makes me wonder what brand / model of HDD Apple uses for the 2TB model?

I have the 3.33Ghz 27" iMac with the 2TB drive and it came with a Hitachi 7200 RPM drive.

trance2

Nov 14, 2009, 09:43 AM

Would anyone be so kind to post their Profiler info for the iMac 27" i5 or i7. I am curious about the SATA interface and if they are using the Nvidia MCP79 or Intel's?

NJRonbo

Nov 14, 2009, 12:45 PM

Received my i7 on Friday.

Prior to the iMac I owned a Mac Pro that I
purchased back on 2007. This beast of a
machine has been the moste reliable
stronghorse of a computer that I ever owned.
I even upgraded the ram to 8GB. There was
nothing that this machine couldn't handle.

A year ago I bought my Mother an iMac.
To be honest, as much as I loved my Mac Pro
I always had more fun using her iMac
whenever I visited her because I really
loved the glass display. I know this is a
very controversial issue, but for me, I
prefer glossy screens.

So, when the 27" i7 was introduced it
was sort of a no-brainer to sell my Mac Pro
and downgrade to an iMac. Thing is, it
wasn't really a downgrade as I suspect
this iMac will be noticeably faster than
my 3-year-old Mac Pro.

After a day of use, I am really loving
my 27" iMac. The display makes all the
difference in the world. It's amazing to
see how sharp and detailed images are
and how colors just pop off the screen.
This is the most vibrant, colorfully-pleasing
display I have ever owned.

Can't say at the moment that this iMac
runs any faster than my Mac Pro. I
suppose the fact I am not experiencing
any slowdowns tells me that it certainly
does not run any slower.

The Magic Mouse is growing on me.
It's not as ergonomically pleasing as
the Logitech MX REVOLUTION that I
own, but in its own right, I find it sort
of fun to use. It is absolutely essential
that you install the free software, ZOOM
MOUSE, as even at the highest tracking
speed, the magic mouse cannot make
it across the entire 27" real estate
quickly enough. ZOOM MOUSE makes
a huge improvement in tracking speed.

The only minor complaint I have about
stepping down from a Mac Pro is the
CD/DVD drive. It really is inconvenient
to load discs from the side when the
monitor sits in a corner position. There
is also a noticeable amount of noise
present as the drive begins to spin up.

But that aside, this is a monstrous
beauty of a computer. It has quite
a bit of spunk to it, and thus far I see
no issues with flickering, dead pixels.
slowdowns or anything that would
indicate a deficiency.

Look forward to reading the reviews
that the rest of you submit over the
next few days. Good luck with your
new toys.

mrsir2009

Nov 14, 2009, 12:49 PM

Congradz on your new machine, and I think it is faster than the baseline Mac Pro.

JamesGorman

Nov 14, 2009, 01:03 PM

Wait...
20 minutes for a 1.5 - 2 hour DVD on handbrake? my current imac takes 3 hours at least...

Wow, I couldnt wait that long haha. My macbook takes about 25 minutes to rip to HDD, and about an hour or so to convert. I can't wait to get my mac pro. 5 minutes to convert :)

Bryan Bowler

Nov 14, 2009, 02:03 PM

Congratulations NJRondo! I'm glad you got your new machine and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

When I visited an Apple store yesterday, I bumped up the mouse's tracking speed to the highest setting and it was screaming fast. I wonder if there's been some type of update?

Bryan

NJRonbo

Nov 14, 2009, 02:05 PM

Brian, always good to hear from you.

Thanks for the warm wishes. I have
not updated the iMac since I got it.
The auto-update has yet to come up.
So perhaps there is a fix in 10.6.2.

johnmcboston

Nov 14, 2009, 08:50 PM

This is killing me! I have to stop checking these forums! I need my i7 damnit. I have some vacation time to burn when it gets here!

Vacation time? What exactly are you going to be doing with this computer? :-)

iMerlin

Nov 14, 2009, 08:52 PM

Vacation time? What exactly are you going to be doing with this computer? :-)

LOL, I know right! I just might turn it on and get all boned up for a while!! :D

No but seriously, I have a couple of projects Ive been waiting to start until the iMac gets here. But other than that, ill just be enjoying that beautiful screen. I might pick up COD4 for Mac too!

filmgirl

Nov 14, 2009, 09:39 PM

Like NJRonbo, I got my i7 on Friday too.

My previous day-to-day computer was a mid-2007 Black MacBook, so this is quite an upgrade. I went from using the MacBook connected to a 23.5" HP monitor to this insanely huge, insanely beautiful, insanely great machine.

The brightness, the crispness, everything about it is great.

I was already using an aluminum bluetooth keyboard and Magic Mouse (that I got last week) with my MacBook, so none of that has been an issue. Although I will say it's amazing how much wear consistent keyboard use for a year will actually take on a keyboard -- the new one is so much more springy. It's nice.

I'm loving the speed, though I haven't had a chance to do too much with it yet to really push the limits.

I put an extra 4GB of RAM in before I even booted up for the first time so I feel pretty confident that with the ~5 TB of external drives and the NAS server my fiance and I have setup for media sharing and the 1TB internal, I'll be set as far as specs go for quite some time.

Leon575

Nov 15, 2009, 09:26 AM

1. It's fast, damn fast i just ripped a DVD and it took 20 minutes to rip but the encode took 15. LOL

My 27" Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz used approximately 30 minutes to encode a 1:44 hour movie.
From Divx (avi) to H264 (mp4) with Xilisoft Video Converter.

barefeats

Nov 15, 2009, 09:59 AM

We ran Cinebench 10 on the 2.8GHz Core i7 iMac. We got a multi-core score of 15290. That's very close to what we got on a 4-core Nehalem Mac Pro 2.93GHz (15521) and much faster than what we got on the newest 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac (6511). For obvious reasons, all those results pale in comparison to the 8-core Nehalem Mac Pro 2.93HGz which got a rating of 25878.

Have any of you run Cinebench on a 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac? If so, please post it here.

You can run the 64 bit version of Cinebench 10 under Windows. (OS X version runs in 32 bit mode.)
Here's some scores:
Core i7-870 (used in Mac Pro 2.93GHz quad-core?) = 18115
Core i5-750 (used in iMac 2.66GHz quad-core) = 14328
(scores came from HardwareCanucks article (http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/22151-intel-lynnfield-core-i5-750-core-i7-870-processor-review-12.html))

Fiete5401

Nov 15, 2009, 11:41 AM

Have any of you run Cinebench on a 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac? If so, please post it here.

Ugh! The Mad Scientist himself! *bow*
Any results from i5 iMacs would helpful. Only one Geekbench result so far.
Where are the i5 owners? Did they touch their new iMacs and fell asleep?

nicroma

Nov 15, 2009, 11:17 PM

Freis968

Nov 15, 2009, 11:21 PM

Just loaded up COD4 MacOS version and had it at full res with everything on high and it was smooth as butter no glitching what so ever, and I had a movie playing on iTunes at the same time too. I'm not sure what the fps was since I don't know how to see that in COD4.

Ok at full res and everything on max i am getting 60-80 fps this is at 25whatever by 1440.

What about Modern Warfare 2 in bootcamp? That is what I am currently playing and will be playing with my i7 in a few weeks.

nicroma

Nov 15, 2009, 11:25 PM

What about Modern Warfare 2 in bootcamp? That is what I am currently playing and will be playing with my i7 in a few weeks.

I don't know what the exact framerate is, but it looks very smooth at 1080. The display goes funky if you raise it to 1440 and goes off the bottom of the screen and comes back around on the top. Hopefully the Boot Camp update will fix it.

Freis968

Nov 15, 2009, 11:29 PM

From what I heard the win version runs better i guess.

I had COD4 when it first came out and ran it in Bootcamp obviously because the Mac version did not come out until months later. I bought the Mac version once it came out and I can honestly say that it run MUCH better in bootcamp with Vista. I don't know the reason why, perhaps someone here can explain it, but it sure did.

The only game I will be installing once I get my i7 will be Modern Warfare 2, bootcamp w/ Vista, sure hope it runs great!

Freis968

Nov 15, 2009, 11:34 PM

Although this is my first Mac and I haven't heard past generations, I can compare the sound of this to other speakers I've heard that are comparable in size. This 27" iMac sounds great! Frank Zappa's guitar is singing through these speakers right now. :cool:

Call of Duty: MW2 (the first and only game I have played on this yet) could have used a little more low end with the explosions, but I don't want to ruin the simplicity of this machine with a 2.1 or 4.1 speaker system. As I said, these speakers do this machine justice.

Oh, I did not see your post. What res are you running COD-MW2 at? I currently have it set at 1920x1080 on my Mac Pro using an ATI HD 3870 card and it is choking up at that setting about 10% of the time.

I can appreciate your not wanting to ruin the simplicity of your iMac w/ a 2.1 sound system and I would love to do the same, but playing COD-MW2 without a 2.1 like my Klipsch 2.1 system just does not do the game justice. I like feeling the explosions instead of simply seeing them and barely feeling them with those puny little speakers.

nicroma

Nov 15, 2009, 11:41 PM

Oh, I did not see your post. What res are you running COD-MW2 at? I currently have it set at 1920x1080 on my Mac Pro using an ATI HD 3870 card and it is choking up at that setting about 10% of the time.

I can appreciate your not wanting to ruin the simplicity of your iMac w/ a 2.1 sound system and I would love to do the same, but playing COD-MW2 without a 2.1 like my Klipsch 2.1 system just does not do the game justice. I like feeling the explosions instead of simply seeing them and barely feeling them with those puny little speakers.

I have the Klipsch 4.1's, but I'm happy with how it is. I'm running the game at 1920x1080 and I haven't noticed any slowdown. I have AA set at 2x and the rest set to Auto. I set everything to Extra high manually and it was choking so I put it back to Auto. I didn't notice a difference between the two visually anyway.

gwhitta

Nov 16, 2009, 12:34 AM

After a couple of days living with mine I'm convinced that this is the most beautiful computer ever designed. The display is so incredible it's practically hypnotic.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2772/4107597411_233f681f7c_b.jpg

nando2323

Nov 16, 2009, 07:37 AM

My 27" Core 2 Duo 3.06 Ghz used approximately 30 minutes to encode a 1:44 hour movie.
From Divx (avi) to H264 (mp4) with Xilisoft Video Converter.

The movie I tested it on was Karate Kid part 1. Which is 126 minutes so that's pretty good.

mrsir2009

Nov 16, 2009, 11:20 AM

LOL the screen looks amazing even when its off...:rolleyes:

wesleyh

Nov 16, 2009, 11:42 AM

Not a fan of the glossy at all... Have a window 2.5 meters behind me AND an aquarium... Gonna get some thicker curtains to cover up the window..

DoFoT9

Nov 16, 2009, 04:38 PM

The movie I tested it on was Karate Kid part 1. Which is 126 minutes so that's pretty good.

what a great movie! :D

PupnTaco

Nov 17, 2009, 04:12 AM

Holy crap, Handbrake encoding an HD MKV to M4V for the Apple TV dropped from 6 hours (2007 MacBook) to 45 minutes (iMac 27" i7).

hahahahahahahahahha

wesleyh

Nov 17, 2009, 04:17 AM

Is anyone else's HD making alot of noise? Ticking sounds that last for a second or two like every 10 seconds? How about when you're downloading something?

DoFoT9

Nov 17, 2009, 04:32 AM

Holy crap, Handbrake encoding an HD MKV to M4V for the Apple TV dropped from 6 hours (2007 MacBook) to 45 minutes (iMac 27" i7).

hahahahahahahahahha

wooooow thats very impressive! great to hear those results!

Is anyone else's HD making alot of noise? Ticking sounds that last for a second or two like every 10 seconds? How about when you're downloading something?

well when downloading it would make sense that the HDD would be seeking a lot! maybe the case acts as some sort of sound increaser lol!

Uncle Pinny

Nov 17, 2009, 07:25 AM

All in all I'm very happy with my i7 (upgraded to 12gb using 8gb Hynix memory bought off ebay).

The screen is just awesome - really crisp and nice colours. Very impressed.

Loving the Magic Mouse after dreading what it would be like. It's the ideal size and I love the fact you can get your fingers under it around the side as that's the sort of mouse I like. The two finger browser swipe forwards and back pages is a bit hit and miss though. Maybe some more 'practice' is needed or maybe it's just not a great feature - it certainly doesn't feel as natural a movement as it does on a track pad.

Hard drive noise - yes you can hear it seeking/clicking a bit. Most likely cause it's seated directly in front of your face behind the centre of the screen. Whilst I don't personally like the noise, it sounds perfectly normal to me and is perhaps characteristic of that model (Caviar Black I think). I'm planning to swap out the DVD drive with a SSD once a 500gb one get's cheap enough - will use as the system disk.

Boot time on first or second boot took a while. Not sure why. Seems to have speeded up now though (oddly enough after I changed it to boot into 64bit kernel and extensions).

Speed wise it seems nice and responsive. Will get into Handbrake later in the week. CS4 apps start nice and quickly which is all good - going to bring some After Effects projects home this weekend and test render times - really hoping for some muscle with this machine.

All in all I love it. Even from a plain aesthetic view, it's just a wonderful piece of design. Wasn't taken with the whole 'wireless' thing before but the simplicity of it is really something.

NJRonbo

Nov 17, 2009, 07:37 AM

The more I play with this new i7 the
happier I am.

This is the best Mac I have ever owned.

It's silent, it's fast, and the display must
be seen to be believed. I have never seen
as stunning a display as this.

jettie1767

Nov 17, 2009, 12:07 PM

johnmcboston

Nov 18, 2009, 10:33 AM

Totally agree! I got mine all setup yesterday. It was well worth the wait for the i7!

hmmm. I think it's time to take the plunge...

mrskygod

Nov 18, 2009, 10:54 AM

Ugh! The Mad Scientist himself! *bow*
Any results from i5 iMacs would helpful. Only one Geekbench result so far.
Where are the i5 owners? Did they touch their new iMacs and fell asleep?

Well got my prepared for shipment today and it delivers on Monday. Ordered 2 hours after the store sent up.

chrono1081

Nov 18, 2009, 11:13 AM

Omg I want one soooo bad.

My parents gave my desktop away for who knows what reason so I have only my laptop....

....

............

Omg so tempting....

Mr.Bullitt

Nov 18, 2009, 11:34 AM

Anyone test AVCHD encoding in iMovie09 or Final Cut Express yet?

Like 1920x1080i footage from a HD camcorder. Some heavy stuff, my MBP chokes on it... :(

Gotmoose

Nov 18, 2009, 11:45 AM

Anyone test AVCHD encoding in iMovie09 or Final Cut Express yet?

Like 1920x1080i footage from a HD camcorder. Some heavy stuff, my MBP chokes on it... :(

I'm interested in this info as well. My macbook can't handle it.

dalvin200

Nov 18, 2009, 11:46 AM

Anyone test AVCHD encoding in iMovie09 or Final Cut Express yet?

Like 1920x1080i footage from a HD camcorder. Some heavy stuff, my MBP chokes on it... :(

yep.. i want to know this too..

Mr.Bullitt

Nov 18, 2009, 12:58 PM

Let say - how long will it take to encode 1 hour of high bitrate 1920x1080i video at 16/17 or even 24mps to e.g. 1280x720 in another format - maybe some web friendly format...

lhammer610

Nov 18, 2009, 01:07 PM

Not a fan of the glossy at all... Have a window 2.5 meters behind me AND an aquarium... Gonna get some thicker curtains to cover up the window..

Ack. I am in a sunny room with windows on three walls with bright sunlight coming in. Will this glossy screen do me in? I know this is a subjective question, but I would appreciate your input.

No way do I want to put curtains up with the view I have.

If the glossy screen will not cut it, I will have to purchase a Mac mini and provide my own screen. I would prefer the option of a faster video card, but without going to the Pro - which is not an economic option for me - what else can I do?

I live out in the boonies and do not have the option to visit a Mac store.

Get a laptop and an external keyboard and screen? Expensive, too.

knewsom

Nov 29, 2009, 10:58 PM

Ack. I am in a sunny room with windows on three walls with bright sunlight coming in. Will this glossy screen do me in? I know this is a subjective question, but I would appreciate your input.

No way do I want to put curtains up with the view I have.

If the glossy screen will not cut it, I will have to purchase a Mac mini and provide my own screen. I would prefer the option of a faster video card, but without going to the Pro - which is not an economic option for me - what else can I do?

I live out in the boonies and do not have the option to visit a Mac store.

Get a laptop and an external keyboard and screen? Expensive, too.

You could buy my Hackintosh, once MY i7 arrives :P

alphaod

Nov 29, 2009, 11:09 PM

The computer is absolutely great. It's fast and capable. The screen is excellent.

It would definitely be a desktop I'd recommend to a friend.

Fiolu

Nov 30, 2009, 12:11 AM

Yeah I hear ya but its very hard to control it and stay alive at the same time while video taping that thing but it's definately smooth even when I bumped the AA to 4x and AF all the way never went below 30fps. Once that TM backup is done I'm gonna install XP back on it and try out AION hopefully that runs nice too. That will be more of a test then COD4 IMO.

Aion runs very well, but the machine will get HOT! all 4 cores will hit 75ish-80 C and the GPU 4850 will run to roughly 96 C b4 the fan kicks on and bring the temp slightly lower, then it hovers in the mid 85 to 90 C. I've been playing Aion with the machine at these temps for almost 2 weeks, seems to be no prob.

lhammer610

Dec 3, 2009, 12:31 AM

You could buy my Hackintosh, once MY i7 arrives :P

Out of curiosity, what caused you to go with Apple rather than staying the hack route?

junkmail202

Dec 3, 2009, 01:28 PM

I'm waiting for the 48 core chips...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10407818-264.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0

peskaa

Dec 3, 2009, 01:41 PM

I'm waiting for the 48 core chips...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10407818-264.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0

And you're spamming this in every thread too :rolleyes:

junkmail202

Dec 3, 2009, 01:44 PM

I'm just excited about more cores! one can never have too many cores!!! woohoo! :rolleyes:

johnmcboston

Dec 4, 2009, 07:55 PM

New i7 arrive - I'm pretty happy. Did the target-disc to move old stuff over, then spend 2.5 hours trying to find which start-up item was crashing the machine during startup. :-) Some apps are faster, some are the same. Have crashed the finder twice this evening. Maybe it needs to warm up a bit.

I'll have to wait for disc ripping and video encoding to see the real speedup.

Trek2100

Dec 4, 2009, 08:57 PM

I'm just excited about more cores! one can never have too many cores!!! woohoo! :rolleyes:

I'm sorry I just couldn't resist.

Bad Apples are rotten to the core:D!

Wrathwitch

Dec 4, 2009, 11:41 PM

Wow! Was my first impression. Before my first iMac (27 inch quad core) I had been playing on a 17 inch monster gaming laptop.

Firstly the screen blew me away. Never had a Mac before. I could hear some of the hard drive working but it wasn't too obnoxious. The screen is just simply amazing.

Wireless keyboard is awesome for reclining with the feet up and surfing, or watching movies or whatever. I am not sure if it sleeps when the machine does so I turn it off when I am going to be gone for a while.

Magic mouse: I love the scrolling feature and I use it when I am not going to be gaming. Side to side swipe I find awkward. There are just not enough buttons to use it to game with (I mostly play World of Warcraft).

Pertaining to gaming and gaming mouse (Razer) iMac recognizes it readily which is nice. I did find that the back of the machine got freaking hot in my opinion. I am mostly used to laptops with cooling pads so I am not sure if it was alarming the amount of heat that I felt, but I placed a quiet fan at the back of it when I game. It's not like I can see the fan LOL! I am not sure if it is needed but the back felt VERY hot. Since it seems logical that machines like cool. The fan stays and the back feels MUCH better imo.

It's kind of funny, I initially got the mac to be my "surfing" and multi media machine and now I hardly ever boot up my PC (laptop) that I swore would be my gaming machine.

The iMac runs WoW with everything full throttle, max settings without any hesitations, hiccups or issues and the screen is so damn big that I can readily run it in windowed mode when I need to look up resources etc and it still is larger than my laptop. I have even been dl bit torrents while gaming and surfing and noticed No performance issues.

If it keeps running well with no major issues, it may just convert me to an apple girl!

Palliser

Dec 5, 2009, 09:34 AM

My friend does fairly high-end photo editing and the top of his imac is almost too hot to touch!

knewsom

Dec 5, 2009, 09:38 AM

Out of curiosity, what caused you to go with Apple rather than staying the hack route?

A whole slough of reasons....

wanted a better display with integrated isight, but wanted more than the 24".
wanted to upgrade to the new CPU architecture, but didn't want to build a whole new hack
wanted a main desktop that would pretty much be guaranteed to work and not need re-hacking everytime I ran a system update.
love the design
live in a small apt, and want to ditch the big box.

My hack has been very stable and reliable under OS 10.5.5, but upgrading to SL has been a big stopping block for me, for some reason I just can't seem to get it working.

Even though the geekbench scores of the new iMacs are only about a thousand five-hundred better than my hack when my OC is enabled (Q9550 @ 3.33ghz), I still thought it would be an appropriate upgrade for me. I like to buy a new computer every two years or so, and in two years' time, this iMac will still be such an awesome machine that I'm sure anyone I know will be happy with it. I like giving my computers away to friends and family when I'm done with them. :) Though, in two years' time, my two-year-old will be a four-year-old, maybe the i7 will be his.

lhammer610

Dec 16, 2009, 09:54 PM

Ack. I am in a sunny room with windows on three walls with bright sunlight coming in. Will this glossy screen do me in? I know this is a subjective question, but I would appreciate your input.

OK, I got it and the glossy screen, even in my bright room (not as bright in the winter) with two walls of windows is not a problem. The screen looks great.

That aside, I have had issues. My old G5's firewire is fried. I was supposed to be able to transfer using the Migration Assistant over ethernet and that did not work. I ended up using Carbon Copy Cloner to an external USB / Firewire via USB, then connected the iMac via Firewire - to get my settings and files over. Apple Support did not suggest this procedure.

I have also had to hard reboot the iMac with Snow Panther several times. I have not had to do that with 10.4.11 hardly ever.

Sadly, my archaic Adobe Dreamweaver (I am embarrassed to say what version) will not run on Snow Panther. It was primitive by CS4 standards, but it did the job for the little I do. I will miss it.

Sir Cecil

Dec 16, 2009, 10:03 PM

I have also had to hard reboot the iMac with Snow Panther several times.

Do you mean Snow Tiger?

lhammer610

Dec 22, 2009, 04:06 PM

Do you mean Snow Tiger?

Actually Snow Leopard. Which brings up an Apple rant: Why the heck do they insist on referring to their OS with names. I was running 10.4 in my old Mac, now 10.6. I would look for info on what software would run on 10.4 and I would get "Tiger", "Panther", "Leopard", etc. When checking "About This Mac", gosh, it just says 10.4. Not very user friendly.

But anyway, I found that I had a hard disk error that was fixed by booting from the DVD and then running Disk Utility. Now everything seems to be running fine.

Some of my problems may have been brought on by using the Migration Assistant which brought over all sorts of legacy software including extensions from a Beige Mac I had over 10 years ago.