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iMac with 5K Display Update?!

AlmostKilledMe

AlmostKilledMe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 27, 2014
3
0
Los Angeles, CA
Hey Guys,

When do you think we might see an update on the machine that was just released in October of 2014.

I am looking to upgrade my work machine soon-ish, but would like to wait it out for a spec bump on some things if it will be relatively "Soon".

Any guesstimations?!
 
Apple fanboy

Apple fanboy

macrumors Ivy Bridge
Feb 21, 2012
55,259
53,021
Behind the Lens, UK
AlmostKilledMe said:
Hey Guys,

When do you think we might see an update on the machine that was just released in October of 2014.

I am looking to upgrade my work machine soon-ish, but would like to wait it out for a spec bump on some things if it will be relatively "Soon".

Any guesstimations?!
Click to expand...

November 2015 at the absolute earliest, but probably later.
 
roadkill401

roadkill401

macrumors 6502
Jan 11, 2015
457
93
I can understand the basic desire to get the best that you can, but it also doesn't make any sense for me.

I have spent too much money in my lifetime on electronics and then upgraded when something newer came out for that slight bump it gave, but looking back it never really amounted to much.

I had an old Windows PC with the SandyBridge i7-2600 and it was significantly faster than my older AMD processor. After 2 years I replaced it with the newer and faster i7-3770 and to be honest that .1ghz made zero difference.

I bought the i7 riMac that is .5ghz faster still, and performance wise you can't tell the difference. The screen is fantastic, and it's a mac so the OS works better and that was the main reason I bought this machine, but considering there has been 3.5 years and two complete chip design changes, but the performance improvement is only on paper, and not something that is really that noticeable.. I can't perceive in my day to day operations a 1-2 second improvement.

The reason to get the riMac is for the screen. No other reason, and I doubt that the next itteration of intel chips will make that big a difference that you will actually perceive an improvement over what is currently out here.
 
driftless

driftless

macrumors 65816
Sep 2, 2011
1,486
183
Chicago-area
I find the same 3 year term for AppleCare works well as an upgrade cycle. You stay relatively current without chasing every new bump in specs. Sticking to a defined time frame makes the decision making easy.
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
AlmostKilledMe said:
How are you liking you r-iMac? I am basically going to be going to a similar config. 4.0 / 4Gb Video / will buy a crucial 32GB ram Kit going to stay with the 1TB fusion drive though.
Click to expand...

It's not perfect, but for the most part it's a fast machine with an amazing display. I would recommend against Fusion drive however, get the 256 GB SSD for the same price instead.
 
A

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,213
720
redheeler said:
It's not perfect, but for the most part it's a fast machine with an amazing display. I would recommend against Fusion drive however, get the 256 GB SSD for the same price instead.
Click to expand...
That's great if you don't need the space. I personally need the space of a 1TB Fusion drive so it works great for me. The Fusion drive is a good bang for buck with a balance of speed and space.

----------
roadkill401 said:
I can understand the basic desire to get the best that you can, but it also doesn't make any sense for me.

I have spent too much money in my lifetime on electronics and then upgraded when something newer came out for that slight bump it gave, but looking back it never really amounted to much.

I had an old Windows PC with the SandyBridge i7-2600 and it was significantly faster than my older AMD processor. After 2 years I replaced it with the newer and faster i7-3770 and to be honest that .1ghz made zero difference.

I bought the i7 riMac that is .5ghz faster still, and performance wise you can't tell the difference. The screen is fantastic, and it's a mac so the OS works better and that was the main reason I bought this machine, but considering there has been 3.5 years and two complete chip design changes, but the performance improvement is only on paper, and not something that is really that noticeable.. I can't perceive in my day to day operations a 1-2 second improvement.

The reason to get the riMac is for the screen. No other reason, and I doubt that the next itteration of intel chips will make that big a difference that you will actually perceive an improvement over what is currently out here.
Click to expand...
I agree for the most part but if you do video work and a lot of rendering, the difference it night and day. For casual usage like web browsing and e-mail, the difference isn't all that much.
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
AppleFan360 said:
That's great if you don't need the space. I personally need the space of a 1TB Fusion drive so it works great for me. The Fusion drive is a good bang for buck with a balance of speed and space.
Click to expand...

I have plenty of space on a 3 TB external HDD. Meanwhile all the apps and files I use most often are on a fast SSD boot drive.
 
A

andy9l

macrumors 68000
Aug 31, 2009
1,699
365
England, UK
iMac with 5K Display Update?!

redheeler said:
I would recommend against Fusion drive however, get the 256 GB SSD for the same price instead.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Try to avoid buying a Fusion Drive. Besides the noise, even wireless NAS is almost as fast as Fusion Drive for archive purposes*, let alone thunderbolt connected SSDs.

Reason being; for anyone who 'needs' 1TB+ internal storage (let alone external), then the ~100GB SSD of the Fusion drive isn't even going to touch the surface of your data. The vast majority of your 'stuff' will be stored on the spinning drive.

It can therefore be assumed that a chunk of your time on your Mac will be spent working on apps or other content that has been archived onto that slow 7200rpm drive (tech from the late 90s). The Mac will be heavily recycling data between the drives, constantly.

If your data is just archived media content and clutter, then why cripple your iMac for it? Put it on network storage, share it across devices, live in 2015!

* comparison: wireless AC @1300Mb/s (160MB/s) vs. 7200rpm drive @180MB/s.
 
A

AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Jan 26, 2008
2,213
720
andy9l said:
Agreed.

Try to avoid buying a Fusion Drive. Besides the noise, even wireless NAS is almost as fast as Fusion Drive for archive purposes*, let alone thunderbolt connected SSDs.

Reason being; for anyone who 'needs' 1TB+ internal storage (let alone external), then the ~100GB SSD of the Fusion drive isn't even going to touch the surface of your data. The vast majority of your 'stuff' will be stored on the spinning drive.

It can therefore be assumed that a chunk of your time on your Mac will be spent working on apps or other content that has been archived onto that slow 7200rpm drive (tech from the late 90s). The Mac will be heavily recycling data between the drives, constantly.

If your data is just archived media content and clutter, then why cripple your iMac for it? Put it on network storage, share it across devices, live in 2015!

* comparison: wireless AC @1300Mb/s (160MB/s) vs. 7200rpm drive @180MB/s.
Click to expand...
Have you ever actually used an iMac with a Fusion drive? Noise? You are kidding right? There is zero noise.

The pro-SSD crowd around here is really something. Of course a pure SSD is faster in all cases but sometimes not practical for everyone. Overall, the Fusion drive is a cheaper way to go if you want speed and space. If you purchase an iMac with a small SSD, you are still on the hook for purchasing a good external drive and cables for all of your other content. Not all users really want or even need that sort of setup.
 
A

andy9l

macrumors 68000
Aug 31, 2009
1,699
365
England, UK
iMac with 5K Display Update?!

AppleFan360 said:
Have you ever actually used an iMac with a Fusion drive? Noise? You are kidding right? There is zero noise.
Click to expand...


Yes, I have - 5 days a week on a 2013 27" iMac (same Fusion setup as your 5K). No, I'm not kidding. A spinning drive with motorised parts = noise. It's like having another slightly grumbly fan inside your Mac - fairly quiet I'll grant you that. It's scientifically impossible that there is 'zero noise', though.

Network storage requires no cables. No need to be so defensive of your setup. We are in this thread to make recommendations. I don't think many would recommend a Fusion drive over a SSD with the plethora of cost-effective external storage options available today.
 
A

andy9l

macrumors 68000
Aug 31, 2009
1,699
365
England, UK
iMac with 5K Display Update?!

AppleFan360 said:
It also equals slow. Nough said.
Click to expand...


About 10-15% slower than a Fusion drive, but accessible by all devices, at all times. An external thunderbolt SSD would be 400% faster if my maths is correct. Again, referring to the stuff on the HDD.

Not sure why you're taking this so personally!
 
T

Trinite

macrumors regular
Oct 22, 2010
105
0
AppleFan360 said:
Have you ever actually used an iMac with a Fusion drive? Noise? You are kidding right? There is zero noise.

The pro-SSD crowd around here is really something. Of course a pure SSD is faster in all cases but sometimes not practical for everyone. Overall, the Fusion drive is a cheaper way to go if you want speed and space. If you purchase an iMac with a small SSD, you are still on the hook for purchasing a good external drive and cables for all of your other content. Not all users really want or even need that sort of setup.
Click to expand...

I have to second this. My fusion drive has been great. And totally silent - if only from a human-experiental, and not "scientific" perspective... ;)
 
E

edjrwinnt

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2008
66
3
North Ridgeville, Ohio
I got the Fusion drive because I only use about 110 Gig's of storage right now and everything else is on the network. I have two 556 gig partitions with the second one being a clone of the first. Even if I run out of room on the flash drive and start to use the mechanical drive it won't slow down much, because my most often used stuff will still be on the SSD drive.

I also like having two hard drives in case a few years down the road one of them dies, then it won't be necessary to have an external hard drive attached to make the computer work. It's also nice to know I can still boot up my computer if one of the two hard drives fails in a mission critical business environment. I still have one Thunderbolt connection available if I need to add a faster drive too.
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
edjrwinnt said:
I got the Fusion drive because I only use about 110 Gig's of storage right now and everything else is on the network. I have two 556 gig partitions with the second one being a clone of the first. Even if I run out of room on the flash drive and start to use the mechanical drive it won't slow down much, because my most often used stuff will still be on the SSD drive.
Click to expand...

What many people don't know is that Apple's 128 GB PCIe SSDs (such as the ones used in Fusion drive) are actually slower than 256 GB SSDs. So even if the HDD portion of the Fusion drive isn't being used at all, the 256 GB SSD can be faster by another third or more.

Simply having a duplicate partition on the same drive defeats the purpose as that drive can still fail, so I assume you also back up to the network storage.
 
T

tears2040

macrumors 6502
Aug 27, 2010
401
1
andy9l said:
Yes, I have - 5 days a week on a 2013 27" iMac (same Fusion setup as your 5K). No, I'm not kidding. A spinning drive with motorised parts = noise. It's like having another slightly grumbly fan inside your Mac - fairly quiet I'll grant you that. It's scientifically impossible that there is 'zero noise', though.

Network storage requires no cables. No need to be so defensive of your setup. We are in this thread to make recommendations. I don't think many would recommend a Fusion drive over a SSD with the plethora of cost-effective external storage options available today.
Click to expand...

You must have a faulty drive, My 1Tb Fusion which is about 700GB full still gives me excellent read and write speeds vs a standard 7200rpm HD. Also My Machine is quiet, DEAD silent and only hear the fans kick in when I'm rendering multiple Raw video files.
 
A

andy9l

macrumors 68000
Aug 31, 2009
1,699
365
England, UK
iMac with 5K Display Update?!

tears2040 said:
You must have a faulty drive, My 1Tb Fusion which is about 700GB full still gives me excellent read and write speeds vs a standard 7200rpm HD. Also My Machine is quiet, DEAD silent and only hear the fans kick in when I'm rendering multiple Raw video files.
Click to expand...

It's my work machine (as in, my desk at work, not my own personal machine). No faults, just physics running its course.

It will give you good speeds, but only for the apps and content you're viewing frequently. Otherwise you're stuck with read/write speeds of any other 7200rpm drive (if 2013 or later, 5400rpm for 2012). There's nothing else to it. It's a standard 7200rpm drive in there, and that's what you're reading and writing to after ~100GB is used up (unless the file in question is part of that 100GB, of course).

With the hardware of these iMacs, a 7200rpm drive would be a bottleneck. Therefore, inherently, a Fusion drive is the bottleneck of any Fusion drive equipped iMac with more than 100GB of frequently used data on it. Depending on your workflow and usage of those archived files, you may or may not notice the impact of this.

Fan speed/noise and choice of hard drive should not be linked!
 
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E

edjrwinnt

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2008
66
3
North Ridgeville, Ohio
driftless said:
I am not trying to flame; but, why would you do that?
Click to expand...

If my SSD drive dies or the boot partition gets corrupted somehow, then I have a bootable backup. If the SSD drive actually dies, then I'm assuming I can find a hack to still boot from the mechanical drive. Really my main concern was to have two hard drives inside versus one because inevitably one of them will fail. I have a about 25-30 hard drives in my server closet that have died over the past 20 years at my small company, and they include a couple of SSD drives.

I also backup to network storage, but I would probably never use it because I generally like to start fresh with a new install. I do not keep any data on my computer; only applications. The only exception would be my VM file and that I would have to restore from a TM backup from my Mac Server or NAS.
 
C

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
Most people would be perfectly happy with a Fusion drive.

I'm using internal and external HDD and while I know in benchmarks an SSD dominates it with my usage there is little noticeable difference. My experience is based on my work computer with SSD.

Most of my HDDs are media which play in real time so loading speeds are pointless. Only time I notice an issue is copying large files however usually that is finding another bottleneck first anyway like network speeds. And boot up times and subsequent and immediate program opening which is a 2-3 time a year occurrence.

Seems to me most people that really dislike the Fusion drive are people that paid a lot for an SSD. I think its safe to say the SSD is better but it comes down to cost vs performance vs requirements. If money is no object then go SSD, otherwise you'll be happy with the fusion drive.

I've never been able to hear an internal HDD or fusion on any iMac over the fan at idle RPM which is virtually silent.
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
cynics said:
Seems to me most people that really dislike the Fusion drive are people that paid a lot for an SSD. I think its safe to say the SSD is better but it comes down to cost vs performance vs requirements. If money is no object then go SSD, otherwise you'll be happy with the fusion drive.
Click to expand...

A 256 GB SSD costs the same as a Fusion drive. A 2 TB 7200 RPM external (if more storage is required) can be found for less than $100. Worth it IMO, especially to noticeably speed up the machine and keep the noise and heat of a HDD away from it. It's also much, much easier to replace when it fails.

cynics said:
I've never been able to hear an internal HDD or fusion on any iMac over the fan at idle RPM which is virtually silent.
Click to expand...

I don't know what iMacs with HDD you've used but the Seagate in my 27" 2010 is audible across the room.
 
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