What changes are we likely to see to the iMac this year?

At this point, Broadwell for desktops is largely being skipped over by intel. Skylake desktop chips are coming out August/September, it's possible we see an update then with updated GPUs from Intel as well.

dagamer34 said:

At this point, Broadwell for desktops is largely being skipped over by intel. Skylake desktop chips are coming out August/September, it's possible we see an update then with updated GPUs from Intel as well.

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Friends and colleagues who want to buy a PC, mostly assembled from off-the-shelf components, have the same issue. Intel's CPU roadmap s*cks and all you can still buy in computer stores are CPUs introduced in 2012 / 2013 (= Haswell refresh).

Broadwell (= tick) is a 14nm part, but appearently Intel had major issues with yield, causing major delays. They are available for laptops and tablets, but the desktop parts of still missing. There are now only 3-4 months left for the launch window, so I'm afraid we'll never see them in stores.

Skylake (= tock) is also 14nm and supposedly planned for intro in Q4.

The major thing about these 14nm parts is power, their embedded GPU (Iris Pro 6200) and PCIe 3.0. I wouldn't expect miracles from the CPU.

Maybe we'll see 21.5" and 27" iMac without a discrete GPU. Maybe we'll see a 5k iMac with an updated GPU as well.

If you need an iMac now, just buy one instead of waiting your 2009 iMac to break down.

Wouldn't surprise me to see a 21.5" Retina 4K model as well.

Yeah I think a 4k 21.5" is a great shout. You can almost guarantee a new CPU(skylake), DDR4 RAM and a new GPU.

There is big hoopla all about the GPU but the model that ships in the current itteration of the 5K iMac does the job and is not holding back the performance of the Mac at all. You might get a bit better smoothness with a different GPU but then again you might not. The issue is more than likely to do with graphic drivers and it's interface with the OS. The physical hardware is more than capable of driving the resolution at hand. If the software interface between the OS and that hardware is not up to task then you will have issues.

As for the CPU. Every year they release a slightly faster CPU over the previous generation. The speed improvement has been getting less and less as the years go by. Back in the 1990 ~ 2005 the speed of the processors doubled every 2-3 years. Now we are lucky if you get a 10% bump in raw processor speed increase in the same time frame.

roadkill401 said:

There is big hoopla all about the GPU but the model that ships in the current itteration of the 5K iMac does the job and is not holding back the performance of the Mac at all. You might get a bit better smoothness with a different GPU but then again you might not. The issue is more than likely to do with graphic drivers and it's interface with the OS. The physical hardware is more than capable of driving the resolution at hand. If the software interface between the OS and that hardware is not up to task then you will have issues.

As for the CPU. Every year they release a slightly faster CPU over the previous generation. The speed improvement has been getting less and less as the years go by. Back in the 1990 ~ 2005 the speed of the processors doubled every 2-3 years. Now we are lucky if you get a 10% bump in raw processor speed increase in the same time frame.

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Ditto, I'm currently running a Retina iMac with a secondary Dell UP2715K 5K Display. If the GPU were too weak for it, I would see stuttering all the time, but it's only specific scenarios (most famously Mission Control) that are the issue.