Agreed. My 2009 still going strong (albeit with an HDD replacement, which was surprisingly not that difficult). I do wish it had USB 3 and a beefier GFX card, but nonetheless it's still a fabulous machine.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Launches New Cheaper 21.5-Inch iMac Starting at $1,099
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Agreed. My 2009 still going strong (albeit with an HDD replacement, which was surprisingly not that difficult). I do wish it had USB 3 and a beefier GFX card, but nonetheless it's still a fabulous machine.
I don't know, but I keep thinking 1.4 Ghz is a typo and it should have been 2.4 Ghz. Can an OEM even get bulk supplies of 1.4 Ghz dual-core chips anymore?
Common available bulk prices. ...
First, the 'old' entry iMac has a i5-4570R ( with Iris Pro GPU) which is $255. http://ark.intel.com/products/76640 So the gap isn't as big as your making it. $315 to $255 is a 19% drop.
Profits across the whole Mac line up probably matter more. This 4260U is same CPU package sold across the current whole standard MBAs line up. So the number of 4260Us that Apple will buy from Intel is roughly # of MBAs + number of new entry iMacs. That is probably alot bigger than the 'old' entry iMacs all by themselves. So say 2M versus .350M (something close to a order of magnitude difference). Intel might be persuaded into offering an even bigger ( e.g., 8-10%) discount to 'unload' those Haswell ULV CPUs while the Broadwell ULV are just over the horizon slowing down sales.
If Apple can get bigger discounts on the MBA component(s) then margins on those go up and they sell in much higher numbers (relative to a single sub configuration of iMac).
Even without a huge discount from Intel, Apple has probably shaved costs out of the screen ( not new), HDD , and fixed memory configuration (probably still DIMMs, but no build to order options so cheaper to make). The bigger margin drops Apple will probably take on these are that a significant number are going to be bought in bulk (e.g., edu labs buys) and the price will get pushed below $999.
It isn't "worse" as much as about to be superseded. While generally the new Broadwell models won't arrive until 2015, it looks like the ULV variants will roll out in Fall 2014. Orders should be trending down for these particular CPU ULV models. Broadwell is substantially better at being a very good ULV solution that the current stuff.
They didn't have lower speed (at least the x86 dimension). Simply moving away from Iris Pro would have cut costs. But Mac Mini piggybacking on MBP CPU volume buys is a tactic they have used before.
Kind of queasy about future of Mac Mini.... If Apple couples it to the baseline MBA CPU buys also then "low end" CPU performance has hit a plateau. IMHO it would make more sense to drive up the entry desktop CPU buys by merging it with the Mac Minis rather than dragging everything back to MBA performance levels. At least if Apple wants to keep these desktop price points long term.
This iMac is using smartphone/tablet-memory (LPDDR3), just like the MBAs.
The MBPs are using laptop-memory (DDR3L).
http://ark.intel.com/products/75030/Intel-Core-i5-4260U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz
This is a new, and relatively expensive part ($315 per in bulk).
The newer ULV processors have been going down in baseline clock speed with higher turbo max. 2, 1.7, 1.4/1.3, etc..
Edit: someone beat me to the Google-fu.
Last edited:
I think it is a good move. Remember when the entry level Mac was the Mini? Now the iMac is starting to move into that territory. You don't need that much power for basic tasks which this is what its made. A larger screen is something a MacBook air does not have.
Thanks both Brent and Hurda for the info. Well, I guess my next question is why? But I suppose there will be customers who only use their machine for basic office tasks and Internet who don't need a fast processor, but who still want Apple either because of integration with other devices or the build quality.
kind of sad that the other models didnt' even get a minor speed bump. Also, no new Geforce 800 parts. what is apple smoking?
On the last question, no. Substantive resources in the last few and future iterations are being placed on GPU performance. The rather obsolete view that the mainstream CPU package simply consists of x86 cores is fundamentally disconnected from reality.
Yes there is a large effort toward larger power but computationally on "embarassingly parallel" computation power there are significant increases. On the x86 front through updates like AVX and on the GPU core side by just even more broad ranging increases.
200% is rather extreme, but 2 years old is also not going to win alot of fans who are tracking specs either.
There are substantially better graphics options for a new Mini is Apple sticks to common Mini characteristic/constraint that the Mini rely on an integrated GPU. Whether the Mini would see those and keep the same price points is another question.
I think deconstruct60 hit it really well above. Apple are masters of using economies of scale, so commonality amongst different models helps the supply chain.
I'll preface this with saying I don't follow the Intel roadmap closely, but Apple may have also been targeting a Broadwell CPU for this model and it simply has not developed.
The notion that this is a slow CPU is also really misguided in my opinion. People get hung up on specs, but I don't think most would find it slow. And as someone else posted earlier today this is an "up to 2.7GHz!" part in Dell's language.
You can't measure speed in GHz. This 1.4GHz CPU is more than enough for most tasks you throw at it.
People seem to forget that many people (especially in the Apple-market) doesn't need much more than being able to send/receive e-mails, browse the web, syncing iPhone/iPad/iPod via iTunes, managing photos etc.
Apple raised the price with the slim iMacs, and now the cheapest model is back to "normal" again, so Apple yet again can target that user-segment.
My girlfriend actually have the 2014 Macbook Air with (I guess it's the same as the new iMac) 1.4GHz i5 + HD5000, and she runs Autodesk Inventor (3D CAD software) in a Parallels VM under Windows 7 just fine, without any lags or whatsoever. So this hardware is actually more powerful than people might think
I suspect of those people that desire a touchscreen mac, a significant portion of them, not necessarily all of them, want it.....just because, well, everything has a touchscreen, why hasn't the mac? Little consideration is spent on how it'd improve the experience.
I suppose there is some limited usage case. An iMac, for example, as a presentation tool would possibly benefit from a touch screen assuming standing desks etc. Still, I believe that would hardly be worth the effort, we're getting niche-y. I have zero desire for it personally, but a MUCH refined, bulletproof, integrated version of the Leap Motion would probably work better for such purposes.
I suppose there is some limited usage case. An iMac, for example, as a presentation tool would possibly benefit from a touch screen assuming standing desks etc. Still, I believe that would hardly be worth the effort, we're getting niche-y. I have zero desire for it personally, but a MUCH refined, bulletproof, integrated version of the Leap Motion would probably work better for such purposes.
Well they switched from SO Dimm DDR3. To LPDDR3
I am not a ram expert, so I admit I may be wrong here but I thought someone else in the thread mentioned they switched to laptop ram
And the start of too many SKUs at Apple had begun. Add in the rumoured iPhablet too. It's a bad trend. And we don't have an other Jobs like person to piss off all the superfluous products from Apple. This smells like the 90s all over again.
I do agree this iMac has a purpose. But If you keep thinking everything like this has a purpose, eventually you have too many SKUs.
I do agree this iMac has a purpose. But If you keep thinking everything like this has a purpose, eventually you have too many SKUs.
Huh? I was under the impression that Intel Graphics were integrated, meaning not a separate chip. Is this something new or a sloppy choice of wording on the writer's part?
EDIT: I should point out that I understand that Intel Graphics are on their own chip but it's rarely (if ever) stated that way. The way it's written implies that it's a discrete graphics component separate from other components.
Am I the only one to think they've done this because they need to sell these stocked/ordered cpus because macbook air sales have been mediocre due to everyone holding off for a retina air ?
It would make sense with a new intel generation on the horizon, and possibly updates to the air.
It would make sense with a new intel generation on the horizon, and possibly updates to the air.
