2012 iMac a sober and detailed dissection with a nice comparison chart

[Razorhog]

While I see that a user replaceable HDD might detract from the aesthetics a bit (removable panel somewhere), I really think it would benefit Apple to make it so. The HDD is the biggest point of failure on a computer. Just look at the HDD recall Apple is doing now (the drive I'm using at the moment is included in that ) If the drive was user replaceable, Apple would save millions of dollars, people would save millions of hours of time and productivity.

 

[Trinite]

Why is that horrendous? Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration.

4 gig max would be horrendous. 8 gig crap. but 16gig is more than enough for 99 percent of users. If you want to do pro work, then you're looking at the wrong machine IMO.

Can anyone comment on how critical it is to have 16 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB, and for what kinds of tasks (generally) it's really important?

I'm coming from a late 2008 Unibody Macbook with 4 GB, and haven't noticed big problems, but everyone on MacRumors talks as if it's absolutely necessary to max out your RAM.

Obviously it would be much better if it were user upgradeable, but if the base RAM for the iMacs is 8 GB, is that really so bad?

Thanks!!

 

[nagareru]

Can anyone comment on how critical it is to have 16 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB, and for what kinds of tasks (generally) it's really important?

I'm coming from a late 2008 Unibody Macbook with 4 GB, and haven't noticed big problems, but everyone on MacRumors talks as if it's absolutely necessary to max out your RAM.

Obviously it would be much better if it were user upgradeable, but if the base RAM for the iMacs is 8 GB, is that really so bad?

Thanks!!

That is because many people in this forum use their machines to do graphic design, 3d modeling, professional photography and video production.

If you do not intent on doing any of those things quite often then there is no need to even have 8GB RAM so it will be more than good enough.

 

[zhenya]

Can anyone comment on how critical it is to have 16 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB, and for what kinds of tasks (generally) it's really important?

I'm coming from a late 2008 Unibody Macbook with 4 GB, and haven't noticed big problems, but everyone on MacRumors talks as if it's absolutely necessary to max out your RAM.

Obviously it would be much better if it were user upgradeable, but if the base RAM for the iMacs is 8 GB, is that really so bad?

Thanks!!

8GB is fine today, the problem is that iMacs tend to have a lifespan on the order of 5-8 years. That far out, computers will have moved on such that 8GB is not sufficient - whereas if it were easily upgradable to 16GB it might make it have a longer useful lifespan.

You are right however, that today, most people probably don't need more. For yourself, you can check by restarting your computer, then opening the Activity Monitor and switching to the memory view. Go about your normal business and watch the page outs. If you are not paging, you have not exceeded the amount of RAM you currently have, and adding RAM won't make any difference. Once you start paging, you will see a big difference from adding RAM.

 

[forty2j]

I forgot to mention one thing... It's interesting to see that they've crammed the MX GPUs in there. I guess that could be one of the factors in the delay, since the 680MX only appeared on Nvidia's product page today (it wasn't there yesterday) and there are no benchmarks of it yet.

I feel like the manufacturing delays with the screen may have allowed them to choose the 680MX, rather than them just waiting for it to release. I don't believe they would have held up everything for the 680MX if they were otherwise ready to go; they would have given us 680M BTO and we'd still be roughly as happy.

 

[Razorhog]

I feel like the manufacturing delays with the screen may have allowed them to choose the 680MX, rather than them just waiting for it to release. I don't believe they would have held up everything for the 680MX if they were otherwise ready to go; they would have given us 680M BTO and we'd still be roughly as happy.

Didn't think of it that way. Now I'm grateful for the screen manufacturing delays

 

[Mister Bumbo]

I'll delay my happiness until I know how hot that beast 680MX runs! ^_^

 

[xgman]

The base model with the 5400 drive is probably meant for the mom's kitchen office and to keep the price as low as possible for advertising purposes.

Thanks for the chart., Very helpful.

 

[forty2j]

The base model with the 5400 drive is probably meant for the mom's kitchen office and to keep the price as low as possible for advertising purposes.

Sexist much? Why can't dad have a kitchen office?

 

[Hairlesswookiee]

While I see that a user replaceable HDD might detract from the aesthetics a bit (removable panel somewhere), I really think it would benefit Apple to make it so. The HDD is the biggest point of failure on a computer. Just look at the HDD recall Apple is doing now (the drive I'm using at the moment is included in that ) If the drive was user replaceable, Apple would save millions of dollars, people would save millions of hours of time and productivity.

I agree. I'm not an engineer or anything, but how difficult coult it be for them to design it to have a removable panel that can grant access to both memory AND hard drives??

~~I still remember the first time I disassembled my 2008 MBP to replace the primary HDD. I felt like I had a sterile field prepping for surgery. But my wife's base model MacBook was so much simpler to do I was envious.

 

[AppleInMyBlood]

Incredibly helpful post (OP), thank you!

One question about GPU choice: I am looking at getting the 27" with the GTX 680MX, with the expectation that the high-end card will help a lot with 3D graphics software like Maya. I know games will be great, but my work needs are my primary concern.

So for those in the know about these GPUs, does great gaming performance = great 3D rendering performance for pro animation and design apps?

 

[Ice Dragon]

Yeah even though I won't be buying one, the 27" BTO iMac is clearly the only one I would buy. 32 GB of RAM, 2 GB on the best available video card, i7 processor with hyper-threading.

 

[forty2j]

So for those in the know about these GPUs, does great gaming performance = great 3D rendering performance for pro animation and design apps?

There's no direct correlation, but while these GPUs are optimized for gaming they should also give very good rendering performance. The GPUs optimized for rendering aren't available in an iMac and tend to cost quite a bit more.

 

[the8thark]

Can anyone comment on how critical it is to have 16 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB, and for what kinds of tasks (generally) it's really important?

I'm coming from a late 2008 Unibody Macbook with 4 GB, and haven't noticed big problems, but everyone on MacRumors talks as if it's absolutely necessary to max out your RAM.

Obviously it would be much better if it were user upgradeable, but if the base RAM for the iMacs is 8 GB, is that really so bad?

Thanks!!

Actually it is an issue but not for today. If you want to keep your iMac for any length of time say 2 years + then you run into the future proofing issue. My old white 1006 iMac could only address 3GB ram. At the time that was heaps. But by the time I bought it's replacement, 2011 iMac, that 3GB was just not enough. One of the big reasons I did upgrade.

In short you don't know if you'll need more ram in the future. And with non user replaceable ram it's even more imperative to get more then you need today. Just so you don't hit that wall in the future. Sure it might not happen. But why take that risk. Just upping the memory when you feel you need to supposedly is no longer possible on the 21.5" iMacs.

When I upgrade in a few years, if the ram is a still non user replaceable, I'll definitely be configuring the iMac for the Max ram. Just for a little future proofing.

 

[cgdrennan]

The fusion drive is not a traditional hybrid drive; it is two physically separate devices - a rotating platter drive plus a SSD fused into one in software. It says nothing about the platter speed of the drive.

I honestly wouldn't get too worked up about the rotational speed of the drive - I've never ever been able to tell a difference between 7200 and 5400 rpm - it really comes down to the design and platter density of the drive. Some 5400 drives benchmark better than other 7200 models. Both are awful once you are used to a SSD though.

Im really hoping this is true. I plan on getting the base 21.5". I got my hopes up watching the keynote because they made it seem like fusion would come standard. I don't have tons of $ and probably cant spring for the high 21.5"+ fusion drive, but i know the base 21" will last me at least a couple years.

Another point on the RPM decrease... Im pretty positive that benchmark results will show the 2012 base 21" is faster than the 2011 model. They won't go backwards. THAT, plus Apple has had some serious problems with 1tb HDD's in the past and probably got the bugs worked out on this one. Maybe thats a reason that took so long to release this new model? Thats my hope...and I hope the 2012 will be relatively easy to open up in the future so i can put in an SSD in a couple years

 

[nagareru]

So for those in the know about these GPUs, does great gaming performance = great 3D rendering performance for pro animation and design apps?

Well it does, many 3D programs use GPU to accelerate rendering, like C4d, 3Ds Max, Maya.... CS6 After Effects new ray-trace rendering will take fully advantage of that 680mx kepler card for example.

Also the higher the ram on the card, the higher the number of polygons you can have in a 3D scene.

I am not familiar with design applications like InDesign or Illustrator, but those I guess benefit more form the RAM than anything else.

 

[Stevies3]

In the 21.5" iMac, is the HD 3.5" or 2.5" ?

 

[Mister Bumbo]

In the 21.5" iMac, is the HD 3.5" or 2.5" ?

2.5", unfortunately.

 

[Stevies3]

2.5", unfortunately.

That sucks, I have a spare 3.5" 7200 1TB HD. I love the specks of the BTO 27" but don't have the room on my desk for that size.....

 

[AppleInMyBlood]

There's no direct correlation, but while these GPUs are optimized for gaming they should also give very good rendering performance. The GPUs optimized for rendering aren't available in an iMac and tend to cost quite a bit more.

Thank you--very helpful!! Can't wait to own this machine.

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Well it does, many 3D programs use GPU to accelerate rendering, like C4d, 3Ds Max, Maya.... CS6 After Effects new ray-trace rendering will take fully advantage of that 680mx kepler card for example.

Also the higher the ram on the card, the higher the number of polygons you can have in a 3D scene.

I am not familiar with design applications like InDesign or Illustrator, but those I guess benefit more form the RAM than anything else.

Another helpful reply--thank you very much!!

 

[DCJ001]

Why has the 21" imac storage gone DOWN to 5400 from 7200 rpm, the cheapest iMac 21" as far back as 2010 had 7200 rpm and 4 ram slots

Sometimes, Slower Is Actually Faster:

http://blog.macsales.com/11825-when-slower-is-actually-faster

 

[davidfinchley]

At last!

My sincere thanks for posting this chart. I was begining to lose patience with Apple and was within a week or two of giving up and going high end Lenovo. As someone who wanted to switch from PC to iMac, but still wanted to play high end Windows based games, I think the specs on the high end 27" BTO will do everything I wanted. It will cost me a lot more than the high end Lenovo option, but I am going to get a awful lot of bang for my buck.

The consolation I have is that in waiting soooooo long for this upgrade, I have saved enough pennies to max out my BTO options. I have no doubt that further improvements will come from Apple after I buy, but I should be future proof for a while. Wanting more than this for a simple amateur home user like me would be just techno-greed.

I was really bothered about the removal of the optical drive, until I realised that external drives are an easy and reasonably affordable option.

I am dissapointed that I have to wait until December to order, but thank goodness that I finally know that the machine I want is definately coming!

 

[theSeb]

I feel like the manufacturing delays with the screen may have allowed them to choose the 680MX, rather than them just waiting for it to release. I don't believe they would have held up everything for the 680MX if they were otherwise ready to go; they would have given us 680M BTO and we'd still be roughly as happy.

Yes, but then the forum would be angry now because the iMac did not have this new 680 MX. I can bet you there would be drama with people complaining that the 680M is not updated to the 680MX when it is released.

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2.5", unfortunately.

I don't see any confirmation of this one way or the other. Do you remember where you read this?

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My sincere thanks for posting this chart. I was begining to lose patience with Apple and was within a week or two of giving up and going high end Lenovo. As someone who wanted to switch from PC to iMac, but still wanted to play high end Windows based games, I think the specs on the high end 27" BTO will do everything I wanted. It will cost me a lot more than the high end Lenovo option, but I am going to get a awful lot of bang for my buck.

The consolation I have is that in waiting soooooo long for this upgrade, I have saved enough pennies to max out my BTO options. I have no doubt that further improvements will come from Apple after I buy, but I should be future proof for a while. Wanting more than this for a simple amateur home user like me would be just techno-greed.

I was really bothered about the removal of the optical drive, until I realised that external drives are an easy and reasonably affordable option.

I am dissapointed that I have to wait until December to order, but thank goodness that I finally know that the machine I want is definately coming!

You're welcome mate. The 27" BTO looks like it will be a beast, but it will be interesting to see how much it will cost us for the top spec.

 

[Runnernorth]

Great thread, thank you!! Do "we" have ANY idea of when in Dec. it will be possible to preorder the 27" BTO?