Apple Releases Intel iMac

[MacRumors]

Apple announced their first Intel Macs today. The new Apple iMac which was recently updated has now been revised to use the Intel Processor.

The new Intel Apple iMac shares the same specs as the unit it replaces, but now houses an Intel Core Duo processor. According to Apple, the new iMac is 2x faster than the iMac it replaces.

- Up to 2.0GHz intel Core Duo
- Mighty Mouse
- 17" and 20"
- ATI Radeon X1600
- iSight Built in
- Front Row and Apple Remote

The Intel iMac is available today at Apple Store.

 

[Lacero]

*drools*

I had to change my Pampers Baby-Dry with UltraAbsorb™ twice during the Stevenote. I'm duly impressed, despite no shuffle updates.

 

[nagromme]

Why the early update on the iMac?

a) It's a top seller.

b) To keep up with the new MacBooks!

Now you can see why the low-end (iBook, Mac Mini) could NOT have transitioned first. But a new Mac Mini and low-end laptops can't be TOO far off

The quad G5 is still a great system, but it will be weird to see it stand alone on PPC (at least briefly) this year. I'm not surprised the transition started today--it's what I always expected. But I MIGHT be surprised by how quickly the transition finishes...

Wow. Mammals.org is totally bogged down. ("What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more that it's ever done in a PC." Ouch. "Wishes do come true." Ha!)

 

[Atlasland]

Had hoped for a lower price with the coming of Intel.

And wheres FronRow for those of us already with Macs.

 

[mkrishnan]

I had to change my Pampers Baby-Dry with UltraAbsorb™ twice during the Stevenote. I'm duly impressed, despite no shuffle updates.

Ahhh, Lacero, you never cease to amaze. That's why we love you. *loves*

 

[irrªtiºnal]

not to give me any credit as a foreteller, but remember i asked if there were any chances of iMac upgrading motherboard, chipset and memory expandibililty? well, we got more!

i offer my services for the stock market...

... did i hear the dollar is plungin'?

 

[sw1tcher]

So much for O'Grady's 42"/50" Plasma iMac rumor. Knew it was a load of BS. Probably just posted the story to get hits on his site.

 

[HelloKitty]

Poor iMac G5 (the iMac that uses G5 processor)..Now it has became "baseline" now..

 

[nagromme]

Monitor spanning

It says the Intel iMac supports extended desktops, spanning on to displays up to the 23" size. (Or larger if analog.) Is that new? I don't recall any past iMac doing anything more than mirroring (without a hack).

http://www.apple.com/imac/whatsinside.html

A wall-mounted 20" iMac with a 20" Cinema Display wall-mounted above it would be kinda cool (I've always wondered why more people don't custom mount their iMacs. Do the thinner G5/Intel iMacs not allow that anymore?)

PS, The new "What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac?" hotline (1-800-854-3680) amuses me somehow.

 

[iEdd]

I'm seriously considering ordering one tonight. $1800AU with edu.

 

[DakotaGuy]

They now have an iMac that will outpower most PowerMac G5 Duals! Awesome! But sad for me and others that have an old tech PPC iMac, they won't be worth much anymore.

 

[jeffy.dee-lux]

okay... so i was about to buy an imac today, telling myself they probably won't update the imac but i should wait just in case. So that was a smart move i guess. I'm just wondering, i haven't been on top of this whole intel, rosetta thing.... I'm just wondering about all the old school game demos that i've got, like Alien vs Predator, Tony Hawk 2, and the full version of Quake 3. Do you guys think those types of things will work through rosetta? Or does rosetta only work for apps that were made with the intel switch in mind? What about something like Matlab 7 which i suppose is a much more important thing for me to be asking about, rather than a bunch of 5 year old games.

I just think of how in the not too distant future, requirements for new games will surpass this imacs abilities. That always happens, but at least usually, with a computer you can go back to earlier games that'll all run no problem. But if this intel processor won't let it run stuff like UT 2004, or THPS 3 or 4, or even older things like that, i wonder if i should just get a G5 imac when the prices go down.

 

[arkmannj]

nice

I wasn't dissapointed at all
I'm excited about the iMac & MacBook updates
(except the lask of an Airport update)
I do have some questions about the X86 Mac's though.
1) Are the machines now using BIOS ?
is booting the same as before, hold c to boot from optical drive,
hold option to search for bootable folder, etc...?

2) Can we still do Target Disk Mode ?

 

[BOOMBA]

Had hoped for a lower price with the coming of Intel.

And wheres FronRow for those of us already with Macs.

Agreed, this is really lame.

Seems like a kind of crappy Keynote, aside from the new hardware, which is actually pretty sweet.
I don't want either, I am waiting for the intel PMS (or MacMacs) but I like the potential perfromance boost based on what we are seeing in these!

 

[DakotaGuy]

a G5 imac when the prices go down.

I would NOT buy anything PPC based at this point anymore. You would be throwing away your money. Apple is committed to Intel and who knows how long they will even support PPC from here on out. Yeah they go on and on how they will support PPC for years to come with new software, etc, but I would be leery if they support PPC more then a year or two after the transition is complete.

How do you sell more computers? Make cool new software that only runs on the new ones! We will see Intel only software by the middle of next year. I used to be a PowerPC person, but now I can see that x86 is so much better and more advanced. That is my advice.

 

[alec]

How do you sell more computers? Make cool new software that only runs on the new ones! We will see Intel only software by the middle of next year. I used to be a PowerPC person, but now I can see that x86 is so much better and more advanced. That is my advice.

Well, I think programs will be in Universary Binary for the time being which won't pose a problem. I do think that PPC computing will be mostly irrelevant once the Pro Apps & the whole line of Apple's are transitioned to Intel, much as OS X developed, we increasingly said OS 9.what?

Also, where is my MacMini!

 

[iEdd]

jeffy.dee-lux, I'd have to agree with Abercrombieboy in regards to purchasing a new computer. Unless you get a really good deal of course.

Can we still do Target Disk Mode?

It definitely will still be supported. I read at the bottom of one of the intel pages about "transferring your old data onto your new mac". The question is, will it still be firewire or will it be usb? I pray for it to be FW still.

 

[srobert]

What will I get if I plug:

iMac —>*Mini DVI to DVI adapter —>*DVI to HDMI Cable —>*HDTV ?

Will the iMac output to my TV in HD?

What about content protection?

Sorry, I'm a little clueless.

Thanks

 

[Josh396]

Anyone have any benchmarks for the X1600? And they finally added the option to add more VRAM, up to 256 MB. I imagine this would be one hell of a computer to play games on once they're ready for x86. Any idea how WoW would run on the new ones?

 

[tom_s]

Anyone have any benchmarks for the X1600? And they finally added the option to add more VRAM, up to 256 MB. I imagine this would be one hell of a computer to play games on once they're ready for x86. Any idea how WoW would run on the new ones?

The X1600 seems to be a quite fast chip. I'll do a little search at tomshardware & co to find out more.

 

[MartinAyla]

Hi, just registered, been reading a lot here and finally decided to join the discussions

OK, I have found out some interesting things about the X1600 in the iMac:

1. On the Apple iMac site it says that the new iMac supports 1920x1200 to a second display, with the mini-DVI output (not only mirroring but also as extended desktop, this required a firmware hack before).

2. The X1600 (according to the ATI website) supports both HDCP (as questioned earlier) over the DVI output and it supports >hardware decoding< of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9 and VC-1 - H.264!! Yipee, this must be a part of Steve's "plan".

This must be an important reason why Apple chose the X1600 as the GPU in the new iMac Intel, don't you think?

On a side note. How do you think an an app like VLC mediaplayer will perform when not written in Universal Binary?

PS. The X1600 only supports hardware decoding at 720p max resolution but I think this is a software issue (hopefully that will change, X1800 supports 1080p).

 

[GregA]

I'm just wondering about all the old school game demos that i've got, like Alien vs Predator, Tony Hawk 2, and the full version of Quake 3. Do you guys think those types of things will work through rosetta? Or does rosetta only work for apps that were made with the intel switch in mind? What about something like Matlab 7 which i suppose is a much more important thing for me to be asking about, rather than a bunch of 5 year old games.<snip>
i wonder if i should just get a G5 imac when the prices go down.

Emulation of PPC games and mathematics programs will be the slowest forms of emulation. That said - if a game makes heavy use of the graphics card it may run quite well.

Personally, I'd go the Intel machine. Get a Universal version of Matlab (find out when it'll be released!), and accept that the recent PPC games probably won't run unless they get a universal version (the older PPC games may run acceptably).

If for some reason you want a PPC G5 - consider trying to buy a very "young" one 2nd hand, there's bound to be some sellers!

 

[59031]

What about Target Disk Mode? Singler User Mode?

What about all those open firmware commands like Target Disk Mode or booting up into Single User Mode, was this even discussed during the keynote? Holding down the mouse to eject a CD at start up? What of it all?

 

[snowmoon]

Has anyone seen/played 720p/1080i/1080p24 h.264 materal? Can it handle the load? Previously to this only dual processor power macs could handle playback seemlessly.

 

[ascender]

Bit of a stroke of luck then that i rejected my new 20" G5 iMac because of a faulty wireless card....