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2017 iMac refresh wish list [merged]
- Thread starter Sirmausalot
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I would be surprised if Apple departed from Intel given the code change required. We would have seen something in the betas by now as AMD is not anywhere close to intel on the CPU features. If Apple chose to neglect the code, we could see processor capabilities only half of what they have now. Likely, everything is leaning on the graphics card upgrade as the current CPU is good enough. An entire redesign is also a possibility.
Not really, just a gut feeling and remembering the long delay in the past when we were at this stage with late year announcements. Also the lack of any hints or new models in the OSX code and Intel's lack of interest in the desktop market and Apple's attention elsewhere.
Both modern AMD and Intel processors are on "x86" (or AMD64 specifically) and are generally interoperable, unless you use vendor specific instructions or features. But even in those cases, AMD's processors should work most of the time, since it generally covers all the stuff that is supported by/matters in the old Intel processors, and software usually would cater the difference in CPU capabilities.
Not entirely true. Ryzen is expected not to ship with native wide packed math instructions and transactional memory, but these generally do not matter in PC/workstation, and very likely irrelevant to you other than being a bullet point on the box. Otherwise, instruction sets are more or less on the same ground, and AMD's Zen is expected to make a big architectural leap to catch up with Intel.
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I'm just thinking if the leaked AMD Ryzen benchmarks are to be believed then it's possible AMD will be releasing CPU's well capable of going neck to neck (or maybe better?) than Intel's current top chips. The other speculation is that AMD will be massively undercutting intel on price.
Heck if Apple can source CPU's with same or better performance from AMD instead of intel, it could almost be a no-brainer.
In my mind it's the best reason for the delay in an updated iMac.
Also AMD's vega is due out soon - maybe only 2-3 months away based on what I've been googling this afternoon. Probably not very Apple like to switch out so much in one swoop - but imagine a double whammy of a AMD CPU + GFX combo that's competitive or perhaps even better than a Intel/1080 PC equivalent.
Heck if Apple can source CPU's with same or better performance from AMD instead of intel, it could almost be a no-brainer.
In my mind it's the best reason for the delay in an updated iMac.
Also AMD's vega is due out soon - maybe only 2-3 months away based on what I've been googling this afternoon. Probably not very Apple like to switch out so much in one swoop - but imagine a double whammy of a AMD CPU + GFX combo that's competitive or perhaps even better than a Intel/1080 PC equivalent.
They would be massively undercutting the inflated top-of-the-line models, because Intel has been a monopoly in those segments for years. But the lower the spectrum you go, the less (or no) the undercutting would be. AMD wants better margin and higher ASP.
Well, they could have refreshed in late 2016 with the Polaris or Pascal GPUs, perhaps faster PCIe SSD and an upgraded display that matches Ultrafine 5K, but they didn't. There are a few new things that could go into the iMac with a March launch:
1. Intel Kaby Lake, which has already been launched.
2. AMD Ryzen, which IIRC the DIY processor-in-boxes are set to launch in early March. OEM could have got shipments already.
3. AMD Vega 10/11, which the launch time is not very clear, but should happen in 17H1.
It is worth noting that 64CU Vega 10 is aiming at the 250W space. You could ever see Vega 10 in an iMac only if AMD makes another "R9 Nano" SKU, and Apple pushes the cooling system of iMac up further from 100-125W for GPU. Otherwise, it would probably be just Vega 11 (unknown # of CUs, probably 32-36) or 36CU Polaris 10 as top of the line option in iMac.
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There are two Vega upcoming. The Vega being touted is the big one (Vega 10), while the small Vega (Vega 11) is supposed to be more or less Polaris 10 but with HBM memory, the new architecture and thus improved power efficiency.
If the small Vega is "too hot", Polaris 10 wouldn't do any better.
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Not much is known about Vega 11, but its likely to fit performance wise between Vegas 10 at ~12 TFLOPS and Polaris 10 at 5.5. Vega 11 probably could fit in an iMac but it also probably won't be out until mid-year at best. I'm not sure Apple would wait that long when they can use either Kaby Lake or Ryzen basically now and Polaris 10 should be a sizable increase in performance from Tonga (i.e. m395x).
Vega 11 would succeed Polaris 10 in the Radeon Instinct stack. So you can expect it to at least operate in a similar power envelope. Moreover, there is an apparent chance that it has only one stack of memory (v.s. two in Vega 10), which puts it at 256 GB/s — the same as RX 480 8GB cards.
Assuming Vega 11 is a smaller die than Vega 10, I'm sure it could be clocked appropriately to fit in the iMac. I don't think this is the piece of technology that Apple is waiting on to release it though. It may be another 4-6 months before these chips are widely available. Polaris 10 is available now with a nice performance upgrade to the m395X. So either a revised iMac isn't coming for another 6 months or Vega 11 gets adopted in some future revision.
Also I wouldn't assume that Vega 11 will use HBM. It will likely be a more mainstream part than Vega 10, and could very well use GDDR5 or GDDR5X to save cost. The GTX 1080 gets something like 380 GB/s using a 256 bit controller and GDDR5X. AMD needs Vega 11 to compete with the GTX 1070/1080, since Vega 10 is going to compete with the 1080 Ti/Titan X.
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Vega is expected to launch in 1H17 though. So when it is "widely available" as DIY parts does not really matter, since apparently Apple orders through their account and AMD is usually willing to align their schedules with top-tier OEMs. Moreover, iMac BTO options are probably not a super high volume order. The main batches gonna still be Polaris 10 and 11.
I am not suggesting the iMac is waiting for it either, just that it could become a BTO option for the upcoming generation (if it really gonna launch in March).
Let's be realistic. The 7700K, the direct successor to the 6700K in the 2015 iMac was released all of 5 weeks ago. That means Apple is ready to drop it in.
The successor to the 395X GPU for the iMac will 95% be something they call the 495X with an incremental performance boost. 10% or 20% perhaps. Not some wacky new release although many of us would love an Nvidia 1070 or something like that. They will also rely on the iGPU wherever they can.
Since the 7700K offers no real performance jump, they will tout its native HEVC H265 encoding/decoding and ability to deal with 4K streams. Slim chance of a refined chassis.
You'll also get DDR4, USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3.
So it's just a matter of ramping up production and finding a suitable window to release it, probably in March. In terms of cost/performance for Apple's line up, they are not likely to make any drastic changes and try to serve some niche market. They will want to serve their Final Cut Pro and consumer customers -- not gamers or enthusiasts.
The successor to the 395X GPU for the iMac will 95% be something they call the 495X with an incremental performance boost. 10% or 20% perhaps. Not some wacky new release although many of us would love an Nvidia 1070 or something like that. They will also rely on the iGPU wherever they can.
Since the 7700K offers no real performance jump, they will tout its native HEVC H265 encoding/decoding and ability to deal with 4K streams. Slim chance of a refined chassis.
You'll also get DDR4, USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3.
So it's just a matter of ramping up production and finding a suitable window to release it, probably in March. In terms of cost/performance for Apple's line up, they are not likely to make any drastic changes and try to serve some niche market. They will want to serve their Final Cut Pro and consumer customers -- not gamers or enthusiasts.
Well, realistically speaking I'd expect more than this, unless they gonna make it thinner and consequently cut down the cooling system further.
RX 480 (150W) beats R9 380X (190W) with 20-30% better performance in average, while cutting 40W of rated total board power. Guess what would happen to the Polaris 10 chip when you fit it into the power envelope of M395X (100-125W)?
I wish the updated iMacs would come out already. I need to buy (3) for my business at the end of the month and I hate the fact I'm dropping that amount of coin on something that is soon to be updated. SMH!
Vega 10 is supposed to launch in the first half of this year. This chip has already been demoed in public. Vega 11 is a separate chip and will almost certainly be released after Vega 10. Whether its a week or 3 months we have no way of knowing. Polaris 11 (in the RX 460) was available 1.5 months after the release of Polaris 10 in the RX 480. Given the fact there is almost no info out there on Vega 11 specs, I would guess it comes later rather than sooner after Vega 10's release.
Unless Apple adopts AMD's Ryzen platform. Then we could see an 8 core chip at 4 Ghz. While I would characterize this as unlikely, its not out of the realm of possibility given Apples commitment to AMD GPUs.
The m395X is rated for ~3 TFLOPS at 125 W. The polaris 10 based WX7100 is ~5.7 TFLOPS at 130 W. Use that in the iMac and its almost a 2x increase in performance at roughly the same thermal constraints.
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Or Radeon E9550 which has spec similar to RX 480 and WX 7100 but is rated up to just 95W. This is probably the best bin of Polaris 10.
Whilst I'd really like to see an update in March I think too much is on the cusp of happening that I think it's more likely to be delayed until at least mid year. They've waited this long, what's another two months.
Another angle is if they finally discontinue the Mac Pro it could be even more reason to believe an iMac re-design (or iMac Pro?) is on the cards with very high end BTO options to part way placate neglected Mac Pro users.
Another angle is if they finally discontinue the Mac Pro it could be even more reason to believe an iMac re-design (or iMac Pro?) is on the cards with very high end BTO options to part way placate neglected Mac Pro users.
There are literally new iPhone 8 rumors every day on this site and absolutely f*ck-all about the new iMac (and the phone won't be out until September!). So yeah...not looking so great for a March refresh.
You could very well be correct. A total lack of rumours is not convincing me of a March release, but we all could be wrong.
I wonder how many more jump ship if nothing is announced !
My needs are for a FCPX video editing desktop system which could definitely be met by the current i7/ssd 2015 model. So my dilemma is:
- stick with mac and either pay top dollar now for an aging 2015 imac which is not terribly smart or wait for a new imac release to either buy the new model or perhaps a 2nd hand 2015 model at a discount;
or
- switch to pc and have the choice of components at the cost of moving to a different video editor.
If it weren't for my preference of working with FCPX as that's what I've spent time learning then it'd be an almost no brainer choice to go PC... Ideally since I have the iphone and macbook 12" an imac fits into the apple ecosystem and I like the idea of not having to subscribe to a video editing product like premiere.
That said in Australia a BTO imac can get up to $6K whereas I can build a more powerful PC/mon for $2-3K so the savings there could easily cover an adobe subscription.
Jumping ship is definitely an option but I'll probably wait a couple more months to watch the amd/intel showdown before making that call.
- stick with mac and either pay top dollar now for an aging 2015 imac which is not terribly smart or wait for a new imac release to either buy the new model or perhaps a 2nd hand 2015 model at a discount;
or
- switch to pc and have the choice of components at the cost of moving to a different video editor.
If it weren't for my preference of working with FCPX as that's what I've spent time learning then it'd be an almost no brainer choice to go PC... Ideally since I have the iphone and macbook 12" an imac fits into the apple ecosystem and I like the idea of not having to subscribe to a video editing product like premiere.
That said in Australia a BTO imac can get up to $6K whereas I can build a more powerful PC/mon for $2-3K so the savings there could easily cover an adobe subscription.
Jumping ship is definitely an option but I'll probably wait a couple more months to watch the amd/intel showdown before making that call.
I thought the reputable KGI analyst had said that iMac is expected to "launch in mid-1H17". While it was back in Oct 16, it is still something.