23-inch iMac on September 12th?

[Machead III]

The X1600 is underclocked in the iMac..
Lots of people have installed Windows on it and found this out using ATI's control panel.

Yep, my X1600 came at 320/300, hugely underlocked. On the windows side I clock up to 450/450, the performance increase is immense and there has yet to be a technical hitch.

Apple underclock the MBP even more so. In that case I assume it's to save energy and prevent overheating, but with the iMac, neither of those things are a big deal, so I don't get it.

Things are looking up for APple with gfx cards though. In a couple of generations you mark my words, you'll see a lot of previous PC owners switching to Mac Pro/iMac gaming rigs, installing Windows for games only.

 

[~Shard~]

So if we are getting a 23" iMac, does this mean we can get dual HDDs so we can make the most of Leopard (Time Machine)?

I'm thinking only if the case is redesigned - not sure how Apple would shoehorn 2 HDDs into the current iMac since real estate is at a premium.

 

[swingerofbirch]

I'm thinking only if the case is redesigned - not sure how Apple would shoehorn 2 HDDs into the current iMac since real estate is at a premium.

To me the benefit of having two hard disks is not having them right next to each other. Say something fell on your iMac and crushed it. Well, if you're lucky, your backup might be sitting a few feet away.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Whoa! 4 Am Eastern Apple Store Down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chundles]

Whoa! 4 Am Eastern Apple Store Down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maintenance. Move along.

 

[swingerofbirch]

It happened right as the clock turned 4 am...I was on the Apple page..clicked on an item and got the "back within an hour" message!!!!!!!!!!!! God, how am I gonna sleep now??????????????

 

[gnasher729]

Yep, my X1600 came at 320/300, hugely underlocked. On the windows side I clock up to 450/450, the performance increase is immense and there has yet to be a technical hitch.

Apple underclocks the graphics cards while they are not doing much work. Clock rate is increased when the performance is needed.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Maintenance. Move along.

How do you know? Do they always do that at 4 am?

 

[Chundles]

How do you know? Do they always do that at 4 am?

On a weekend - yes. It's early Sunday morning there now isn't it?

Time for a chill pill. Go to bed, releases from the store come at around 7am Cupertino time and always on a weekday. This is just routine maintenance, no other stores are down.

 

[swingerofbirch]

On a weekend - yes. It's early Sunday morning there now isn't it?

Time for a chill pill. Go to bed, releases from the store come at around 7am Cupertino time and always on a weekday. This is just routine maintenance, no other stores are down.

Sorry to raise a rucus over nothing. I have actually taken some chill pills and they're not working yet. I have a toothache so that's why I haven't been able to sleep......the tropical storm shut off electricity Friday so I couldn't see my dentist then, and then Monday is labor day, so I have to wait till Tuessday..ahhh....all the same I'm going to try to sleep now....perchance to dream of iMac C2D's............

 

[Shotglass]

Haha dude you don'T have to explain why you're up at 4 AM. Just tell them insomnia. Works for me. Thing is I really can't sleep before 2,3AM.

 

[lazyrighteye]

Sad?

then the truth of the matter is this: You are not one of us. You aren't sold on the Mac platform, and therefore you sold out to PC. I look sometimes over the fence at the PC platform and the deals i can get, and then I actually bought one 2 months ago, and sold it in 2 weeks since I despised the OS. I applaud you for making a choice, I am just sad to see a person on MacRumors who wasn't 100% sold on Mac.

Does that really make you sad?
As someone who is "100% sold on Mac," I am 100% glad that not everyone in this forum is... what's the point of that?
Thoughtful, diverse opinion is what makes for a better forum, product, user experience, world, etc.

Now if 09/12/06 would just get here already...

 

[baxterbrittle]

Why does nobody think the iMac is upgradable?

Hmmmm let me see on the current iMac people can add the following features:

Socketed processor Merom Compatible
Up to 4GB of RAM (yes people have made 4GB work)
Up to 500+ GB of internal storage
Just about any USB 2.0/FW device you can think of.
A second display up to 1920 x 1200
Hell on the 17" you can probably even upgrade the screen to 1920 x 1200 res.

On a 23" iMac you would be able to run another 23" ACD giving over 5 Megapixels of screen real estate.

"Oh but you can't upgrade the GPU...."
I don't care. I couldn't care in the slightest. 99% of all people buying an iMac couldn't care less. It's all you friggin Winblows switchers who can't leave your beloved platform. You want upgradable GPU's - buy a PC or a Mac Pro. Apple are not going to lose any sleep over it what so ever and neither are the many many people buying them. These iMac are THE most upgradeable iMacs ever.

 

[Erasmus]

Hmmmm let me see on the current iMac people can add the following features:

Socketed processor Merom Compatible
Up to 4GB of RAM (yes people have made 4GB work)
Up to 500+ GB of internal storage
Just about any USB 2.0/FW device you can think of.
A second display up to 1920 x 1200
Hell on the 17" you can probably even upgrade the screen to 1920 x 1200 res.

On a 23" iMac you would be able to run another 23" ACD giving over 5 Megapixels of screen real estate.

"Oh but you can't upgrade the GPU...."
I don't care. I couldn't care in the slightest. 99% of all people buying an iMac couldn't care less. It's all you friggin Winblows switchers who can't leave your beloved platform. You want upgradable GPU's - buy a PC or a Mac Pro. Apple are not going to lose any sleep over it what so ever and neither are the many many people buying them. These iMac are THE most upgradeable iMacs ever.

I am saddened after reading your post.

I have NEVER owned a Windows computer. Neither have my parents. My family has owned an old Apple IIe, and an LC. I have had an LC2, and of course my Cube. My parents have a black G3 Powerbook each, and my dad presently uses a 17" G4 Powerbook bought by the school he works at.

I have always hated Windows, and would never consider buying anything other than a Mac. I realise my fanaticism probably borders on insanity, but I really don't care. I have spent half my life defending the Mac OS and their hardware in debates with friends. I am not about to change.

I must be a Windows switcher just because I want an iMac that can be EASILY (note that CPUs, hard drives, and although I don't know for sure, to some extent RAM, are very difficult to upgrade) upgraded in the future? Just because I don't like the idea of a soldered on PATHETIC GPU that cannot be upgraded makes me a "friggin Winblows switcher"? I don't want to blow six grand (I've posted visual proof) on a Mac Pro. I want a decent, upgradeable iMac.

I find your comments insulting.

If you can't see that the iMac can go a lot further than it does at the moment in upgradeability, then you are deluded. I realise that what I want will probably not happen, but it is what I want, and that at least should be respected.

 

[MacsRgr8]

It's always the same debate:

Upgradable grfx card or not...

Q: Why do people want to upgrade their grfx card in an iMac?
A: Games. The iMac is a consumer product, and games are (usually) played by consumers. The latest and greatest games require the latest and greatest hardware.

I think you can safely say that the CPU's inside the iMac (especially since the Core Duo's) are high-end enough for these games. The grfx card however is not. The X1600 is not as bad as the previous complete crap low-end 5200 (in the original G5 iMac), but it still is no more than middle of the road.
Wanna play Doom 3, or Quake 4 on an iMac? Sure, they'll run, but the great details and eye-candy will be turned down, as the hardware can't cope playing @ 30 fps. Too bad for a new not-cheap consumer product..

So, IMHO, many consumers would like to upgrade the GPU. If it were a CTO option for the iMacs that would be even better.
I am sure that once you put in a great grfx card, you won't find that these consumers need to upgrade in the future.

Trouble is how much will it cost Apple (and thus drive up the price), to let the iMac have a CTO grfx card option? It surely will make the assembly process more expensive, and so every iMac more expensive.
Is it worth it?
Maybe not. Should Apple then always put in a high-end grfx card in the high-end iMac, and let many consumers who don't play games pay (much) more for their preferred iMac (as it has the biggest screen)?
Probably not.

So that is why Apple probably go the safest route:
Put in a good (read: okay) grfx card, and hope that consumers who do play games on their Macs either buy a Mac Pro with a great grfx card, or that they sacrifice a little, and buy the iMac anyway. Those who don't play games (or not the latest and greatest), still have a decent grfx card for Core Image, and Core Animation related stuff, but don't pay a premium...

... just my € 0.02

 

[Manic Mouse]

Like many of you I also don't understand why Apple insist on putting pathetic GFX cards in their iMacs. I've been looking into buying a Mac for nearly a year now however because I play games the only viable option to me is the Mac Pro (with an over-priced Apple X1900) which would cost a heck of a lot and be more than I need (I don't need quad-processors!).

Is it too much to ask for Apple to produce a nice, well rounded, desktop machine? Even the option to upgrade the GFX card, or use standard PCIe cards (if possible) would be wonderful. A 23" iMac would certainly allow enough space for standard desktop GFX cards.

 

[Erasmus]

It's always the same debate:

Upgradable grfx card or not...

Q: Why do people want to upgrade their grfx card in an iMac?
A: Games. The iMac is a consumer product, and games are (usually) played by consumers. The latest and greatest games require the latest and greatest hardware.

I think you can safely say that the CPU's inside the iMac (especially since the Core Duo's) are high-end enough for these games. The grfx card however is not. The X1600 is not as bad as the previous complete crap low-end 5200 (in the original G5 iMac), but it still is no more than middle of the road.
Wanna play Doom 3, or Quake 4 on an iMac? Sure, they'll run, but the great details and eye-candy will be turned down, as the hardware can't cope playing @ 30 fps. Too bad for a new not-cheap consumer product..

So, IMHO, many consumers would like to upgrade the GPU. If it were a CTO option for the iMacs that would be even better.
I am sure that once you put in a great grfx card, you won't find that these consumers need to upgrade in the future.

Trouble is how much will it cost Apple (and thus drive up the price), to let the iMac have a CTO grfx card option? It surely will make the assembly process more expensive, and so every iMac more expensive.
Is it worth it?
Maybe not. Should Apple then always put in a high-end grfx card in the high-end iMac, and let many consumers who don't play games pay (much) more for their preferred iMac (as it has the biggest screen)?
Probably not.

So that is why Apple probably go the safest route:
Put in a good (read: okay) grfx card, and hope that consumers who do play games on their Macs either buy a Mac Pro with a great grfx card, or that they sacrifice a little, and buy the iMac anyway. Those who don't play games (or not the latest and greatest), still have a decent grfx card for Core Image, and Core Animation related stuff, but don't pay a premium...

... just my € 0.02

I completely agree with you. I think this occurrence is the most likely, however I still think it is far from optimal. As I have said before, (I seem to be doing this a lot, but it seems to be necessary) I think the iMac should get Conroe, and therefore one would think that the equipment required to dispose of the heat of this chip could also be utilised to remove heat from the GPU. This is one reason why making an upgradeable iMac is a benefit to everyone. Even if Apple make the iMac difficult to upgrade to the average user, if they at least have the ability to put different CPUs and GPUs in there, meaning no soldered on GPU (or CPU for that matter), it would make it easier for Apple to make much better BTO options. Obviously the ATi X1900 XT or XTX would be fantastic, but more realistically when we look at TDP is the Geforce 7900 GT or maybe even GTX. Clearly if Apple design the iMac to be able to handle the cooling of the smoking X1900 (I'm not going to start with the X1950) and a high end Conroe, then it will benefit all users, no matter what their specs, as lower specced computers could be almost guaranteed to be too quiet to hear.

Every month the X1600 looks worse.

It's a bit of a Catch 22. If iMac gets Conroe, Apple could easily afford to put in an excellent GPU, but would then have to worry about how to pull out huge amounts of heat, and so will probably stick in a low end X1800.
If iMac gets Merom, it could probably handle the heat of a high X1900, but would instantly increase in price by a few hundred dollars, therefore we will end up again with a low end X1800.

I really don't think Apple will continue using X1600's, as they really are now heading towards the bottom of the pile. With X1950 and Geforce 7950, and nVIDIA's G80 and ATi's R600 looming on the horizon to take GPU performance to a whole new level, and with DX10, I think the X1800 is the new X1600. The iMac would simply be too crippled if they kept the X1600.

No doubt Apple will prove me wrong however. But one good thing about being a pessimist, is you are never dissappointed. Pity I'm not one, and will no doubt be extremely disappointed when we end up with iMac's top of the line being a 17" with 1.86 Ghz Merom and Integrated graphics...

 

[Chundles]

Games folk, what do you want??

I've heard all this "we want decent graphics card" malarkey, well, put some model numbers down on the table. What would you guys consider a decent but inexpensive card (remember, not everyone needs game-standard graphics, I'd rather a cheaper price) that should be in the iMac. Not an upgrade, but the standard card - Steve's not going to let you upgrade his all-in-one baby, we've seen that since the new iMac design for the iSight/G5 model.

What card do you want?

Choose one from ATI and one from Nvidia.

 

[Erasmus]

I've heard all this "we want decent graphics card" malarkey, well, put some model numbers down on the table. What would you guys consider a decent but inexpensive card (remember, not everyone needs game-standard graphics, I'd rather a cheaper price) that should be in the iMac. Not an upgrade, but the standard card - Steve's not going to let you upgrade his all-in-one baby, we've seen that since the new iMac design for the iSight/G5 model.

What card do you want?

Choose one from ATI and one from Nvidia.

I think I've made my choices reasonably clear, however here we go to make it clearer, and in point form.

What I most Want:
ATI X1900 XT or Geforce 7900 GTX

What is more likely:
ATI X1800 512 Mb or Geforce 7800 512 Mb. Or whatever the nVIDIA equivalent is.

I would personally prefer ATI cards, although I suppose it doesn't matter, if Apple can get nVIDIAs cheaper and cooler, than I'm all for them.

I don't care about the '50s. They are well over priced and generate much too much heat. I think the X1900 XT is possible pricewise, as it only costs ~400 US, which is about 200 more than the pathetic X1600s do now. Conroe price savings could allow a X1900 to be thrown in for free compared to a similarly clocked Merom.

I would not call myself knowledgable in the ways of GPUs and Games, as the newest game I have is Quake 3, and I'm still using my two pipeline 16Mb ATI Rage 128. I've said before, If the card can support Quake 4's Ultra setting on native resolutions with HDR, FSAA, AF, Shadows etc. all on full, while still getting very playable framerates, I would say that is easily futureproofed enough for another half decade of gaming, and the card is good enough for me.

 

[dropadrop]

NO. ALL Conroes have 4Mb Cache. NOT ALL (but at least the decent ones) have 4Mb Cache.

Allendale is not called Conroe for a reason.

Pretty much identical processors, except higher clock speeds, and FSB, for higher TDP. And Less Money.

Merom 2.33, 4Mb L2, 667Mhz Bus TDP 35 -> $637
Conroe 2.67, 4MB L2, 1066MHz Bus TDP 65 -> $530

CLEARLY... Conroe is the better choice for iMacs.

Sooo... Speculating that Apple does really go with Merom:

- They are plain stupid
- They want to be differant
- Unlike most of us they have actually tested a Conroe inside an iMac and found that it generates too much heat to make silent enough

Which one would you guess?

An X1900 In An iMac Would Make It An Amazing All Round Machine, Including Excellent For Games, With Only A Minimal Cost Increase (X1600 Pro -> X1900XTX ~ +US$200, half of this cost could be covered by choosing Conroe over Merom. Then we add cheaper Motherboard, and RAM, and suddenly we have an X1900 up from X1600, plus an extra dual 333Mhz to play with, all for free!).

I don't find an x1900 to be an "all around" videocard, and would definatly not want anything that hot inside my imac. Remember how thin this machine is, and it's clear there would be no way on earth to silently cool down a Conroe AND an x1900 in it, especially when it seems they are not even managing to cool the Conroe sufficiently enough to use it.

 

[Bengt77]

The iMac is essentially a laptop on a stand, the form factor can't tolerate a CPU that generates a lot of heat. That's why Apple will also introduce a Conroe-based minitower on the 12th, with room for one HD, one optical drive, possibly one spare drive bay, and one double-wide express slot for graphics.

In case the new to be introduced iMacs really do use Meroms instead of Conroes, then, gawd, I hope you're right. A good graphics card BTO-option will cost dearly, but at least the machine will be relevant for quite some time to come. Although as opposed to what you state, I'd like to see place for 2 HDs. Especially with Time Machine in Leopard.

 

[Erasmus]

I don't find an x1900 to be an "all around" videocard, and would definatly not want anything that hot inside my imac. Remember how thin this machine is, and it's clear there would be no way on earth to silently cool down a Conroe AND an x1900 in it, especially when it seems they are not even managing to cool the Conroe sufficiently enough to use it.

I did say an all round Machine. Like an iMac that can do video editing, encode CDS faster, play high definition video, and play the very latest games with amazing levels of eye candy.

And modern GPUs throttle down to like 20 TDP when not in use. This means if you are using iTunes, you're iMac is not going to melt, and if you are doing some serious gaming, or applying half a dozen clip effects in iMovie, you are not going to care about a noisy computer, because either the sound of lots of high powered weaponry will drown it out, or just add to the atmosphere, or you'll be off somewhere else getting a coffee.

Well that's my opinion at least.

 

[axma]

I need a new laptop.
I will switch to mac if apple launch a 17" MBP rev with:

- merom
- ATI x1800 or GeForce 7800


I'll wait until 16 september

 

[Bengt77]

I did say an all round Machine. Like an iMac that can do video editing, encode CDS faster, play high definition video, and play the very latest games with amazing levels of eye candy.

And modern GPUs throttle down to like 20 TDP when not in use. This means if you are using iTunes, you're iMac is not going to melt, and if you are doing some serious gaming, or applying half a dozen clip effects in iMovie, you are not going to care about a noisy computer, because either the sound of lots of high powered weaponry will drown it out, or just add to the atmosphere, or you'll be off somewhere else getting a coffee.

Well that's my opinion at least.

Wow, don't know why, but your post makes me quite happy. I'm totally with you on not caring about some more noise coming out of it when busy gaming (and while doing so I'm always using headphones anyway). Thank you. Could you please talk some sense into Steve and/or Jonathan?

I'm liking the idea, too, of making a lousy GPU a BTO-option. Make the iMac downgradeable, not upgradeable. Well, at least on the GPU front. I'm going to upgrade everything anyway, when buying one (if buying one at all, might the fabled 'Mac' com out), so seeing the price for a maxed out machine instead of seeing the price rise with every option I add will be quite nice and will ease my mind considerably.

 

[Bengt77]

I need a new laptop.
I will switch to mac if apple launch a 17" MBP rev with:

- merom
- ATI x1800 or GeForce 7800


I'll wait until 16 september

Good for you, switching to Mac! But why talk a MBP solely in an iMac thread? Talking fabled 'Mac/xMac/Mac Pro mini/Mac mini Pro/Mac headless' here I can understand, but MBP?

But, anyways, I think those are very reasonable specs for a new MBP. Change the 17" to 23", the Merom to Conroe and the X1800/7800 to X1900/7900* and I'm sold on a new iMac.

*) And NO 7900GS please! That's a totally crippled card. If any Nvidia card at all, then a GT or possible even GTX, but NO GS!