2011 iMac clock speeds. Lower GHz than 2010?

[skiltrip]

When the 2011 iMacs are released, they will obviously be faster. But I'm wondering if we'll actually see an increase in the number of ghz, or if the new Sandy Bridge cpus will actually have a lower ghz number.

This thinking was brought on by the new MBP cpus.

For example, if the Sandy Bridge mobile 2.2GHz is as comparable to the current 2.93GHz i7 in the iMac as it seems from preliminary Geekbench scores, it stands to reason that any actually increase in clock speed will in turn mean a phenomenal increase in actual performance.

For example, if the new top tier iMac had a 3.2GHz Sandy Bridge i7 in it, we'd be looking at a Geekbench score of roughly 15000+.

So I was wondering if it might be more likely that the actual clock speed is lower, say 2.5/2.6, giving us Geekbench scores of closer to 12000 or so.

This may be easier to predict than I know, based on what CPUs were announced by Intel in Jan.

Anyone have any input on this?

 

[Hellhammer]

My predictions (out of date though, should add Thunderbolt).

 

[TMRaven]

A lot of the sandybridge quadcore performance grade cpus are topping 3ghz in base clock speed, so it's a safe bet the ones that'll be used in the next iMacs (95tdp) will be above 3ghz. Sandybridge has a lot of below 3ghz quad cores, but those are at 65tpd, which is something more suited for 21.5 inch iMacs.