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2011 iMac Notes: Magic Trackpad Option, Display Connectivity, Boot Camp Update

"Macworld has confirmation from Apple that the new iMacs will support Target Display Mode but only when the device they are connected to is also a Thunderbolt equipped Mac."

Is that true?
 
PeterQVenkman said:
At this price point and with these features - they may push even more customers away from the mac pro and towards the iMac. Even for some pretty heavy lifting, it's going to be a beast of a machine.

I can say from experience that the i7 SB is a wonderful CPU. It competes with or beats the top end 6 core processors in apps that are not heavily multi-threaded.

It's pretty nice that those dell 30 inchers are almost exactly the same size as the iMac.
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Absolutely. If going Mac Pro route you still need 3 ACD's. Going iMac route you just need two ACD's. I still doubt I will need the power of i7 for my PHP/MySQL coding but I will take it. :)
 
Still 720 p?

BryanLyle said:
"Macworld has confirmation from Apple that the new iMacs will support Target Display Mode but only when the device they are connected to is also a Thunderbolt equipped Mac."

Is that true?
Click to expand...

If this is true, then the new 27" iMacs will not serve as a mirror device for the iPad 2 (which shoots out video at 1080 p).
 
Eidorian said:
As before, that support is entirely derived from ATI's GPUs and the available number of outputs.

You can get 5 Mini-DisplayPort connectors on a single slot video card.
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but i thought half the point of TB was that you would only need one output from the computer, and since we don't have any TB displays (or anything for that matter) how do we know that the ports are limited to one display?
 
Great update… waiting for the usual suspects to come around to list any [unreasonable] cons :p…
 
Am I the only one in thinking...

...that if each Thunderbolt port can support six daisy chained pieces of kit, if each one of those was a TB-equipped 30" monitor, we could have a 27" iMac with a 13-screen setup and 387" of screen real-estate?!! I need to buy a bigger house!!!!
 
I love the 2 30" external display support. Hopefully Thunderbolt will be able to do the same on the MacBook Pro.
 
dazzer21 said:
...that if each Thunderbolt port can support six daisy chained pieces of kit, if each one of those was a TB-equipped 30" monitor, we could have a 27" iMac with a 13-screen setup and 387" of screen real-estate?!! I need to buy a bigger house!!!!
Click to expand...

Actually, I think I'll just jump back in and say that it's a flippant remark, before someone flames me by saying that the graphics card won't be up to it...
 
Surely I'm not the only one who's noticed that the i7 is slower than the i5, and that the Radeon HD 6970M is slower than the 6750M.

Whaaaaa? :confused:
 
cardude280 said:
but i thought half the point of TB was that you would only need one output from the computer, and since we don't have any TB displays (or anything for that matter) how do we know that the ports are limited to one display?
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Displays are at the end of the chain. I believe there is a passthrough for additional displays as well.

You do want additional outputs to avoid the annoyance of unplugging displays. This will be more of an issue on the Mac mini and Mac Pro. I can imagine instances where the displays might not come back at all.
 
Eidorian said:
As before, that support is entirely derived from ATI's GPUs and the available number of outputs.

You can get 5 Mini-DisplayPort connectors on a single slot video card.
Click to expand...

You can daisy chain multiple monitors with DisplayPort 1.2, and it has much more bandwidth than a Thunderbolt channel.
 
lexidata said:
I've just finish chatting with a person on the apple website. She told me that I can use the new imac (21 and 27") thunderbold input to use the imac as an external display. Only if it comes from a thunderbolt output (like an macbook pro for exemple).
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That makes some sense. It is a thunderbolt feature (possibly optional since this would need to be hooked into the start up process) that they are leveraging (which side is the "driving" or "receiving" is negotiated. ) . So "good" news is that the feature extends to the 21" model. The "bad" news is that 99+% of the display driving computers you can hook to this are incompatible. Any fulltime display with that property would likely have limited broadbased value. It also means that technically "Target Display Mode" is dead. This is something similar, but different.P,.P

P.S. If this feature is part of the TB standard (even if optional but in the standard) that would be better than this "Target Display Mode" which was a clever hack but not a standard.
 
Lion

All I need to do now is wait a couple of months for the bugs to be worked out (if any) and it comes with Lion pre-installed. However the "WAIT" will be hard...:eek:
 
So where do I buy a TB cable to hook-up my MBP to the new iMac so can transfer files, use the iMac as a second screen, and hook up my drobo to the iMac for storage? Or are all the peripheral and cables coming in summer?
 
dazzer21 said:
...that if each Thunderbolt port can support six daisy chained pieces of kit, if each one of those was a TB-equipped 30" monitor, we could have a 27" iMac with a 13-screen setup and 387" of screen real-estate?!! I need to buy a bigger house!!!!
Click to expand...

Thunderbolt is DisplayPort 1.1a - DisplayPort 1.2 has daisy chain and much more bandwidth than a TB channel.

Even with DP 1.2, the bandwidth of one port is only enough for two 30" displays.

You can only run one 30" display from each Thunderbolt port.
 
e-coli said:
Surely I'm not the only one who's noticed that the i7 is slower than the i5, and that the Radeon HD 6970M is slower than the 6750M.

Whaaaaa? :confused:
Click to expand...

Hold up
6750M

6970M

Similar clock speeds, the 6970 has twice the amount of pipelines.

Also from what I've seen in the store the highest clocked i5 is 3.1, and the i7 is 3.4.

I'm really tempted, but these iMacs need to keep target display mode so I can feed my PC rig in there, otherwise my desk just doesn't have the space for a second display (could always get the 21.5 inch and a second 1080 display I guess).
 
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