So you're just arguing then for what? The fun of it? If you agree, why are you replying with arguments for Apple when even Apple themselves aren't defending their actions of pure greed?
You could have fooled me. Your reply in another thread to people accusing you of just whining about every little thing resulted in you stating you would give your opinion all you want, but your opinion seemed to be nothing but defending Apple on everything everyone else had an issue with.
You're stating the obvious. It's why people are complaining. You claim you agree, but you keep defending Apple's decision. It makes no sense to defend them if you don't agree with them. We disagree and you call it hysteria. You disagree and you call it your opinion.
OK, then. That makes your statement random, at best. I don't recall discussing their choices of Intel integrated GPUs, but rather their decision to stop offering discrete GPUs with better performance on the 21.5" model. The thing about that model is that people don't choose their monitor size just on how big a monitor they can afford. For some, 27" is just too big at a given sitting distance. For others, they would rather put their money into a better GPU than a larger monitor. Apple offers these people nothing now. They USED TO offer them something, but no longer. Now you tell me why would anyone on here be upset about that? And why are they whiners or hysterical for voicing their opinion but it's just your opinion when you voice yours?
It's not terrible for gaming at lower resolutions. But Apple chose to go to 4K and 5K on all iMacs. For some, that means they'd like an appropriate GPU for the resolution. Personally, I think 4K is overkill for a 21.5" monitor and I would have preferred a lower native resolution. The problem with down-scaling is the text looks blurry and so it's not really an option to use lower resolutions except maybe for gaming but that will suffer in clarity as well.
I'm using a 22" monitor right now and it's only 1680x1050 16:10. I've got two 28" monitors (both 16:10 ratio and both greater than 1080p resolution) in this very room (5 monitors total). I use one for driving games on the PC and used to use the other for video editing (mostly transferring VHS and Hi8 and some hard to find Laserdisc to digital) on the Macbook Pro when it's docked here. I'm done video editing at the moment, so I could move that monitor over here no problem. But that would make gaming slower yet on this Mac Mini and I honestly find the screen size a bit large for day-to-day browsing and such. I like everything in my center field of view so I'm not craning my neck side-to-side all the time (why I mostly use my 2nd monitor to watch the news so I'm not staring at it for long periods of time turning my head).
I don't feel ANY need for 4K on this size a monitor. NONE. In fact, 1080p equivalent isn't even really necessary (I don't normally watch movies on it; I've got a 93" projector and a 48" TV in other rooms for that sort of thing). I've got another 22" monitor here as well to my right (the other monitor on the PC) except it's a 16:9 version as I could no longer find a 16:10 model when I bought this to replace a monitor that died) and I prefer the 16:10 ratio for browsing, etc. That monitor will do 1080p, but it's smaller vertically and wider horizontally. I think at that ratio, I'd rather have a 24" monitor, but 27/28" is pushing it for this sitting distance (OS X uses menu bars and the larger the monitor and resolution, the further away those bars get as you cram more windows into a display, etc. El Capitan probably should have had 4 "snap" windows for full-screen mode, really as it's kind of useless on larger monitors compared to just sizing your own windows).
Just measuring some CPU or GPU test that doesn't look at the resolutions being driven and the hard drive performance, etc. doesn't tell the entire story. I'm pretty sure you know that, so I can only question your motives in bringing up some generic spec test that doesn't deal with the things people are complaining about in this thread. Again, what's your point in doing so? Are you trying to get me to change my mind? Are you trying to convince someone else I'm stupid or something? I'm really at a loss at this point. I think some people just want to argue to argue and yes I AM being stupid to keep playing this game.
LOL. I honestly don't know if you're trying to be obtuse again or not. You should know full well that Apple doesn't need to create a big GAMES logo on their store or create Metal for OS X to improve mostly gaming, etc. if they don't care one whit about gaming as you seem to claim. I think the truth is SOME people at Apple DO care (apparently on the OS programming side) but they are being overridden by decisions in the hardware side of things and these guys don't talk or get along as far as I can tell. Johnny Five is too busy asking people if they'd like to be a pepper too rather than asking anyone if they'd like to have a better GPU rather than a thinner one.
Apple isn't a person, dude. It's a corporation. It's made up of a lot of people and at this point I don't think Tim Cook makes those type of decisions. He seems vastly more interested in stock buyback programs and where to place the next Apple store than hardware/software ones. He leaves that sort of thing to people like Johnny Five and Johnny...well he likes to make things look DIFFERENT so he can claim to be the new face of Apple. He makes changes for change sake rather than actual improvements. I think that should be obvious with Yosemite and iOS8. He couldn't let Scott Forestall's legacy survive, after all.
So design the case differently. Have a look at past iMac models. They could put the SSD drives and GPU in a base/stand at the bottom (wouldn't hurt a thing; it's just a plain boring flat metal-painted support there anyway) with its own fans, etc. and internal PCIe connection even). You could even have nice ports on the back of the stand part like real computers have. In essence, it would be a REAL DESKTOP then and yet still all-in-one and easy to change drives and even the GPU could be on a (OMG!) CARD that you could replace instead. Oh, but wait. That would mean your iMac wouldn't be out of date the very next 6 months! We can't have that. Hell no! Make it so you can't FIX or UPGRADE ANYTHING and sell those fat cats another computer next year!
I'm glad you're here to tell me the obvious again and again. It could be one with a simple motherboard change to use regular i7 CPUs and a NVidia Maxwell GPU instead of those "Pro" cards and a regular PCI slot. How hard would that be to do? Not hard at all. Piece of cake, really. It could easily sell for around $2k. I best it would sell WELL too....very well indeed. The problem is that it would ALSO cannibalize Mac "PRO" sales because 95% of Mac Pro users don't actually need Xenon CPUs or those Pro graphics cards just to edit 1080p video or to run Logic Pro. And let's face it, that Mac Pro is PURE PROFIT MARGIN.
I'll tell you what since you don't believe the OBVIOUS. You buy me a new iMac and an old one and I guarantee I will personally test both drives in every possible manner I can think of to see how they compare. I will keep the sample models. Deal?
It does seem that way, doesn't it?
Eh? You just told me about it so NOW I would know dammit!
Nobody said it wouldn't boot faster. In fact, I said the opposite. I said it would boot very well and then it would have far less impact than the 128GB model because it would have to swap out more often your most used programs and swapping takes time the first time it does it. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out the larger the SSD part, the less often it will have to use the 5400 RPM part and the faster overall it will run.
But no no no. Some of you want everyone to believe that you can take a lawn tractor that used to hold 2.5 gallons of gas while I have a reserve portable can with me I can drag along in holder on the back to refill the running tank when it runs out of gas that holds 20 gallons with an average large lawn job of 10 acres with some smaller lots of 1, 2 an 5 acres and the occasional 50 acre lot and then reduce that running tank to 0.25 gallons while keeping the 20 gallon reserve can the same and tell me that you won't lose any time mowing those 10 acres by having to stop more to refill the 0.25 gallon tank compared to the 2.5 gallon tank. When I point out that's absurd, that it's obvious you will have to stop more often to refill the smaller running tank from the larger can since the average size lawn being mowed here is too large to mow with only 1/4 gallons, I'm then told that I CAN'T POSSIBLY KNOW THAT. I simply MUST do a double-blind scientific study and analysis and get it published in a peer review journal to PROVE that running a smaller active gas tank will result in running out of gas sooner than with a larger tank before having to refill it with a gas can. After all, since I'm carrying the reserve gas can with me, I might be able to to refill it while driving or something by standing on my head and pouring explosive gasoline near a hot engine while continuing to drive with my other hand or something equally ridiculous.
Sorry, but if you use a smaller gas tank, you have to refill it more often. That's just how it is.
Do you even have a fracking clue how this system works? Honestly, read the above lawn tractor story again. It's a hard drive. It's not a new hacking algorithm to break passwords faster with a new technique....
You're now into the land of engines that run on water and carburetors that get 300mpg. Dude, the 5400 RPM drive runs at 80-90MB/sec! It can't go any faster under any conditions! The SSD runs probably at 200-300MB/sec. I don't care what "code" you use, you CANNOT swap files back and forth to the 5400 RPM drive any faster than 80-90MB/sec! If your programs used to buffer 128GB worth of your most used stuff, you would get more times in average use where the SSD handles the data than having to swap out data with the slow 5400 RPM drive than on a system where you cut the SSD down to less than 1/5th that size to only 24GB. Now it will depend on what you do. If you only use calculator all day long for the rest of your life, then you're right. You probably won't notice ANY difference! But if you run any Applications what-so-ever, it's going to run slower! If you don't run just a couple of applications over and over (say you only ever check your email and run Firefox), you might not notice much difference. If, however, you run a wider variety of programs, you are DEFINITELY going to notice the new system is SLOWER. It's UNAVOIDABLE. It's 1/5 the size of the old SSD! The 5400 RPM drive is slow as hell! It's having to stop the tractor 5x as often to refill it with gas if you're using more than just a few programs all the time.
Worst of all, this is NOT rocket science and I should NOT have to defend such a fracking BASIC concept that an 4th grader could easily understand in science class demonstrated with a couple different size glasses of water!
No, guy. I'm VERY well educated. I've got multiple degrees in electronic engineering to be precise. What I'm reading in this thread is what is "uneducated" comments. They are SO uneducated that I weep for the future and that is no small thing.
It has NOTHING to do with whether an application is "Pro" or not. It has to do with the size of the overall files you use most often. Small programs like calculator are easily buffered if you use it a lot. Larger programs like a web browser take up more space. Games take up massive amounts of space, for example (A couple of games could easily use up that entire SSD all by themselves these days. Swap to Microsoft Office and you're off-loading the games and putting on the Office. Go back and you're off-loading the Office and re-loading the games. How are you going to get a benefit there? You're really not if you switch back and forth or reboot the computer or do whatever else that isn't just that one large app. The 128GB drive, OTOH, could buffer a LOT of Apps. It would buffer MOST Apps. It would leave things like large movies and sound files on the slow drive as they don't need to be buffered or loaded quickly. The old Fusion drive would easily be fast with MOST things. The new one? Not so much. But then maybe Apple thinks of the average iMac user as just using Safari and Mail and some Twitter stuff and not much else. Maybe they're right too....
What is tiresome to me is having to explain BASIC things like the above to people. Gaming is just an obvious use of a GPU. Other people will do other things with it. Until Metal, the Mission Control animation wasn't even smooth on some of these Retina Macs. Asking for a better GPU benefits more than just casual gamers. But in 2015 with a Mac App store and lots of games available from Apple's own App Store and Steam and companies like Aspyr porting AAA titles and Apple themselves making Metal for improved gaming performance, why is it wrong to ask for a better GPU *OPTION* in 2015? It's not like it would be difficult for Apple to put a Maxwell Nvidia chip in an updated Mac Mini instead of Intel integrated. Apple actually bragged having a discrete GPU in the very first Mac Mini and has used them in some models since then. It's not hard to make a small computer case slightly larger to accomodate a fan and a real GPU. PCs have sold such computers for years. Valve is selling a Steam machine that is like 1/4 the size of an XBox one with more power. Certainly, the richest tech company in the world could throw some of us a bone so we don't have to keep buying ANOTHER COMPUTER to game. I can boot into Windows, but I can't make the stock GPU any better.
It amazes me that people like you don't get that or don't think it's a valid point-of-view. If I wanted to run Windows, I'd run Windows. I have preferred OS X. What I'm talking about is not different than Linux users asking for native gaming so they can ditch Windows once and for all, except they can easily get the hardware they want without playing "hacker" to make a Hackintosh.
Some of us would simply like to see MORE from Apple than just the same tired Email and Browsing hardware. Apple used to cater to PRO markets. Where is the Pro hardware now? Where is the pro software now? They've been steadily destroying those markets for years. They already killed their XServe project and yet oddly now they tout they are working with IBM to provide Enterprise machines. Well gee, do you want to do Enterprise or not? It's hard to tell with Apple. They send mixed signals ALL THE TIME. They do something that makes you think they're all in one minute and then abandon it the next. It's getting old.
And given how much money Apple has, it's ABSURD too. There's simply NO VALID REASON that Apple could not do these things and it would cost them next to nothing to do so at that.
