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Apple Refreshes 21.5-Inch and 27-Inch iMacs With Brighter Displays, Kaby Lake Processors, and Faster Storage
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no, that space gray was tossed in there to get more buyers just for the case and keyboard color
When you say "Pros" you mean "avid hobbyists" don't you? It is silly to think "Pro users DON'T what [this or that] and think every Pro user is the same.
Wow, a hard drive is still standard. They really need to make SSD standard and hard drive an upgrade. Too many users are too ignorant about the performance difference or simply don't think about BTO. It doesn't need to be a Samsung 960 Pro, or whatever to tier SSD they used this time, either a plane ole 240GB AData SATA-III is more than enough for the budget model and regular user.
Then when I set it up for them. I have to explain to a client why their brand new $1,100+ computer feels just as slow as the 8 year old Core 2 Duo iMac they just replaced or why their two year old Macbook Air feels so much faster.
The super speed SSD is a needless expense anyway. Real world testing shows no appreciable difference between various NVMe SSD for workstation tasks there is less than a 1 second difference between a WD Black NVMe and Samsung 960 Pro. They are too fast for a single user to tax them. Although differences are apparent in synthetic benchmarks. It would require some very specialized workstation application or a server for their differences to be noticed.
Then when I set it up for them. I have to explain to a client why their brand new $1,100+ computer feels just as slow as the 8 year old Core 2 Duo iMac they just replaced or why their two year old Macbook Air feels so much faster.
The super speed SSD is a needless expense anyway. Real world testing shows no appreciable difference between various NVMe SSD for workstation tasks there is less than a 1 second difference between a WD Black NVMe and Samsung 960 Pro. They are too fast for a single user to tax them. Although differences are apparent in synthetic benchmarks. It would require some very specialized workstation application or a server for their differences to be noticed.
Why are you using your iMac's HDD for Time Machine? For that matter, how can you?
Yeah they really should have made Fusion the base drive for the 21.5" like they did on the 27". Either take the margin hit of $50 or just raise the price by that. It would have been a better experience for end-users, especially now that APFS is coming which is designed around SSDs.
I'm a pro user and I'm not gawking at the price, but the fact that it won't be readily available until 2018.. There is no reason to announce something that far off other than to just tease the Pro users and appease the people who say they just make consumer hardware. Also iMac Pro can't be used in a Rack Mount environment. In my studio all the Professional computers are housed in a central machine room, with monitors and peripherals run via extension boxes. This is common practice with commercial film and tv production studios.. An iMac Pro is overkill IMHO. Misses what a Pro User is entirely.
That said.. I would love to have one for my home..
Misses what you as a pro user is entirely.
I know thousands of pros who this machine is going to be most-welcomed and that is why I expect it to be very successful for Apple.
Depends on if Apple has been able to drop the custom timing controller they needed to offer 60Hz 5K. If they have, then TB3's ability to support 60Hz 5K over a single cable might mean TDM is back.
Sounds like it's not right for your particular pro environment. I know thousands of pro users where it'll be perfect though. One machine can't be everything to everyone.
If you need rack mounting options, you've moved away from Apple long ago when they stopped offering the Xserve back in 2004.
Are these Kaby Lake processors any faster than the equivalent previous Skylake chips in the previous generation (iMac late 2015)..? I notice the processor speeds on the new iMac page are about .3 GHz higher the old models (e.g. 3.2 i5 model upped to 3.5). Presumably the new Kaby Lake processors offer higher performance even at the same clock speed.
Anyway, my prayers have been answered. I actually emailed timcook@apple.com pleading for a wireless Magic Keyboard Pro, with 101 keys, a full numeric keypad plus a separate block of arrow keys. Of course I got no answer.. until the WWDC iMac Pro announcement, which showed exactly the keyboard I wanted.
Anyway, my prayers have been answered. I actually emailed timcook@apple.com pleading for a wireless Magic Keyboard Pro, with 101 keys, a full numeric keypad plus a separate block of arrow keys. Of course I got no answer.. until the WWDC iMac Pro announcement, which showed exactly the keyboard I wanted.
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My main issue with the current enclosure/form factor is that cooling is inefficient, with resulting excess fan noise - usually after about 2 years of use, in my experience. A thicker enclosure might make that less of an issue.
Actually, the base model iMac Pro is targeted precisely for users like me - Capture One Pro uses multiple cores effectively, and it also uses GPU acceleration better than any other RAW processor for photography. I can easily use two displays, but like I said, there's no way I'd pay $5,000 for that machine when I can build a better one for far less.
Apple is charging $200 for an 8GB 2400Mhz ram upgrade on their new regular 2017 iMacs (from 8GB to 16GB). I can get 32GB 3000Mhz for $275. To go from 8GB to 32GB in a regular 2017 iMac, it would be a $600 upgrade. ...And the fact it's an closed system (beyond the ram) is worse.
Apple also crippled the 21" iMac - wish they'd have offered at 4.2Ghz CPU in that little thing, along with an option for an 8GB GPU. That might have been my perfect machine for a dual display set-up. But nope!
I never said the iMac Pro isn't going to be perfect for a large number of pros. I'm saying it's overpriced, even for those large number of pros.
As for the Mac Pro....I've already been waiting 8 years for a worthy upgrade. If the iMac Pro is starting at $5,000, it's a fair bet the Modular Mac Pro will start somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,000 without a display. It won't start less than $5,000. I'll be surprised if it starts at $5,000.
If you don't need anything more than a 4 core machine, then the 21" iMac is probably perfect. If you're going to use any of the iMacs (regular or Pro), it's just flat out over priced. By a long shot. And waiting 3 years for a modest speed boost with an Intel chip that'll be outdated in three weeks... ?
I was very much like most Apple users, as I've been an an unapologetic Apple fanboy for 35 years. But over the past year, as Apple continued to ignore their "pro users", I began looking for other options. I was really hoping to be wowed today, and perhaps have a little bone thrown to the pro users for waiting this long, like drop that entry level iMac Pro price by $1,500, (and drop the price of the 2017 iMac by $500), and I'd be all over the Pro.
But yeah. Please don't tell me the iMac Pro isn't for me. It is. It's just too freaking expensive.
This was exactly my thought as well. Just drop the spinning drives and go all SSD. Couldn't believe they announced the fusion drive again.
Wish there was an option for both and SSD and an HDD being onboard. It would be nice to have an option for a fast moderately sized SSD (256 MB) and a large HDD (1 or 2 TB) onboard for large storage. I have a laptop with that configuration, and it has the advantage of fast SSD system/swap with large HDD for data.
It's a machine room, some is racked and some is not, when you have about 500TB of active Firbre central storage some of those systems have to be racked. Some computers just sit on shelfs the are racked.. BUT the Machine Room lets you swap out computers, clones or backups, when systems die, so you don't have to fiddle with wires in the client rooms..
For a Freelancer doing video, yeah an iMac Pro seems fine, but get a studio with 30 of those using the same central storage.. A mess..
But most impressive.. You know thousands of Pro users and can speak for each of them? You must have a beefy rolodex..
I think that they'll sell plenty of the Pro, really.
Re: target display mode, I really do need to find out. It's a must for me and if they have it, I'm ready to order. Hmm... I wonder... I guess I'll wait for a writeup.
This is the setup I have in my 2009 27" iMac (popped the SSD into the optical drive slot). Unfortunately, my screen (or something that drives it) just died a few weeks ago. Contemplating my next move. Today's announcements just might change my prior plan . . .