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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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Does anyone know if the new 27 inch models have the capability to run VR natively, i.e., without the need for a eGPU? Not even immediately, just eventually.
You want to know what is wrong with Apple these days? Look at the new iMacs.
Apple offers VESA mounting iMacs, but guess what? You have to buy them that way. There does not appear to be any way to convert from desktop to VESA or vice versa. They sell completely different computers just for the mounting bracket. How backwards is that. Again Ive and form over function.
Look at the new iMac marketing collateral on the web site, no 360 view from the company that supposedly has embraced AR.
The real Apple today has really diverged from it's predecessor.
Apple offers VESA mounting iMacs, but guess what? You have to buy them that way. There does not appear to be any way to convert from desktop to VESA or vice versa. They sell completely different computers just for the mounting bracket. How backwards is that. Again Ive and form over function.
Look at the new iMac marketing collateral on the web site, no 360 view from the company that supposedly has embraced AR.
The real Apple today has really diverged from it's predecessor.
Something better is always coming along. For example, this Apple External Graphics Development Kit works with any Thunderbolt 3 device, it's shown with a MacBook but it would work with a new iMac. Ships with a basic AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card but you could put something hotter in there. Some end-users were already testing these expansion chassis for VR and game apps before Apple made it a developer product.
The need for Pro Macs was largely built around the desire for massive internal expansion with extra drive bays and slots for higher powered GPU cards. This is unnecessary with Thunderbolt 3 expansion options.
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There is a third-party VESA mount for iMacs. But it attaches to the existing stand, so you can't get the display any closer to the desk than the normal stand would allow.
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The brand is very likely "Apple". Several years ago, they bought a company that designed SSD controllers.
Even the fastest thunderbolt is only 1/4 to 1/3 the speed of current PCI-E, and currently you can only do GPU arrays using PCI-E. Currently I use an array with 4-GPU'S. That is something not currently available with Thunderbolt at any speed. PCI-E is still very dominate over TB3 for High End. TB3 has some great expansion abilities, to to force the Pro users to replace TB3 with PCI-E is what has Pro users in my market so frustrated. I would flood a TB3 doing CUDA rendering and still it would be slower than my current MacPro 5,1 external GPU chassis.
If the new MacPro's don't have PCI-E, then everyone in my field will have to move to Windows. TB3 is NOT a PCI-E replacement for the high end.
Crazy (I know) but I am still running my 2006 Mac Pro. I maxed out the Ram, CPU and GPU and run two monitors and hacked El Cap onto it. It is THE MOST stable Mac I have now or have ever had. I had expected problems but instead I have had ZERO issues. I did this late last year after I purchased and returned a maxed out iMac 27. I just didn't feel good about buying 18 month old hardware. SO GLAD I waited - for the same exact same money I get Kaby, more NITS, more GPU, old and new ports. I ordered a 27 right after the Apple Store opened back up. I thought about waiting for the iMac Pro - but had to admit that I just don't do the kind of computing that machine is designed for and at 2X (or more) the cost of the current top of line iMac I can take a nice vacation. Sorry to ramble on - just so grateful and excited about what Apple has done here!!
This is the one question that, if answered will either make me pass or make me buy.
It still has USB-A ports, it still has ethernet. The price doesn't seem too bad compared to the previous models (I don't know exactly if it went up or down but whatever it was it wasn't that much) so all in all that looks like something they should've done with the MBP, too. Improve something that already works instead of gutting it. Too bad I don't need an iMac. Not even the Pro.
The 21 inch iMac is back to upgradable RAM it seems? But only by Apple. Wonder what's going on inside, or if they just swap the whole board?
"Note that the 21.5-inch iMac comes with 8GB of memory built into the computer. If you think you may need more memory in the future, it may be preferable to upgrade at the time of purchase. Memory can only be upgraded by Apple or an Apple Authorised Service Provider if you choose to update at a later date."
"Note that the 21.5-inch iMac comes with 8GB of memory built into the computer. If you think you may need more memory in the future, it may be preferable to upgrade at the time of purchase. Memory can only be upgraded by Apple or an Apple Authorised Service Provider if you choose to update at a later date."
I'm very happy with the new iMacs. I was about to order the 27" one. Then I wondered if I have to buy the expensive Apple RAM and used the chat to for more information. You know what? The RAM is soldered on board and you can't upgrade later 
. Apple DOESN'T listen to what it's customers want and solely focus on $$$$. I cancelled my order and will rethink the possibilities.
. Apple DOESN'T listen to what it's customers want and solely focus on $$$$. I cancelled my order and will rethink the possibilities.So your plan was to sell your iMac in the week after WWDC? What a genius plan. You had to wait until this exact week of course. You couldn't just have sold it a few weeks earlier. And then you were taken completely by surprise, because who could have guessed that new iMacs would be announced?! Some people... And the value of your iMac already drops after the announcement, not just when the new iMacs are actually available.
I don't think so. I suppose this was posted in the euphoria following Apple's announcement of new hardware. Any new hardware. The new Mac Pro doesn't drop till next year and Apple needs to throw a bone to its disaffected professionals; so this is the stopgap until the real Pro hardware is ready to ship.
I wouldn't expect any updates to this format unless it is surprises us by selling by the bucketload despite its high ticket price for an AIO, with almost as crippled a format as the existing nMP. I expect it to be neglected and fade away quietly (except for the wailing and gnashing of teeth by early/only adopters on this forum) when the new nMP is announced.
I'm very happy with the new iMacs. I was about to order the 27" one. Then I wondered if I have to buy the expensive Apple RAM and used the chat to for more information. You know what? The RAM is soldered on board and you can't upgrade later
Hm? This is contradictory to earlier posts. An earlier post mentioned Apple chat claimed the 27" iMac RAM IS user upgradeable. Hopefully we get confirmation within the next few days. Also would like to know if target display mode is enabled on these sets.
Once you get off the SSD part of the Fusion Drive, it's going to be orders of magnitude slower, especially for random reads and writes.
Modern games tend to make use of all the VRAM they can get. For everything else, probably not.
It's still going to be a niche that is probably in the scores of thousands per quarter and I think it could be in the six figures.
Yes it is. Confirmed in Apple's own technical sheets. Ignore Apple Chat - they are confusing the 27" with the 21.5" and 27" iMac Pro, neither of which is (easily) user-upgradeable.
They are generally Samsung units. The new ones are said to be faster than what I have, which is over 2000MB/s read and over 1500MB/sec write.
I'm very happy with the new iMacs. I was about to order the 27" one. Then I wondered if I have to buy the expensive Apple RAM and used the chat to for more information. You know what? The RAM is soldered on board and you can't upgrade later
Apple Chat is passing on incorrect information. The 27" is just as user-upgradeable as it has always been via the panel in the back of the case.
Even the 21.5" now uses SO-DIMMs as opposed to soldered RAM. You just have to take the LCD display off to get to them.
Some people are happy with the new computers, some people aren't.
I guess I'm somewhere between, but closer to being happy.
I would have preferred a more user customizable computer, instead of trying to just buy the max unit that I can afford, and I would have liked to have seen the most powerful graphics cards all available. But I do think that this is a leap in the right direction, and they needed a large leap, because they hadn't done much for 3-6 years, depending on what model you are comparing to the new releases.
This was a lot more than just a window dressing upgrade. Had they been steadily improving their line all of their models would be beyond what was announced, but if they were just doing this half heatedly then they could have done a lot less and mostly gotten away with it.
The real proof will come from this point forward. Do they go back to ignoring the computer side of their business for another 6 years-or longer-or are there steady, or hopefully dramatic, improvements on a regular basis?
I think reactions to these models will end up dictating which way it goes. Poor sales will give the "why bother" faction at Apple ammunition. Healthy sales will provide impetus to the innovators there.
I bought an iMac a little over a year ago, and was not happy compared to how I felt buying my first iMac in 2008. I intend to try to sell my current model and buy a new iMac. I think this has potential, is MUCH better than what I have, and I want to support the people trying to improve the Mac line instead of justifying the why bother crowd.
I guess I'm somewhere between, but closer to being happy.
I would have preferred a more user customizable computer, instead of trying to just buy the max unit that I can afford, and I would have liked to have seen the most powerful graphics cards all available. But I do think that this is a leap in the right direction, and they needed a large leap, because they hadn't done much for 3-6 years, depending on what model you are comparing to the new releases.
This was a lot more than just a window dressing upgrade. Had they been steadily improving their line all of their models would be beyond what was announced, but if they were just doing this half heatedly then they could have done a lot less and mostly gotten away with it.
The real proof will come from this point forward. Do they go back to ignoring the computer side of their business for another 6 years-or longer-or are there steady, or hopefully dramatic, improvements on a regular basis?
I think reactions to these models will end up dictating which way it goes. Poor sales will give the "why bother" faction at Apple ammunition. Healthy sales will provide impetus to the innovators there.
I bought an iMac a little over a year ago, and was not happy compared to how I felt buying my first iMac in 2008. I intend to try to sell my current model and buy a new iMac. I think this has potential, is MUCH better than what I have, and I want to support the people trying to improve the Mac line instead of justifying the why bother crowd.
I have been waiting for apple to release some new imac models! My 2008 maxed imac is slow as dirt, rightfully slow. Is it worth it to upgrade out of the fusion drive to the 512gb solid state?? Will there be that much of a difference? 16gb ram upgrade worth it? I am looking at getting the 4.2 i7, I will play games on it and also start dabling into HD/4k video editing, which I couldn't do on my previous Imac due to speed. Thanks people!
I can only speak about my experience having a fusion drive in my year old iMac vs the SSD drives in my work (Windows OS) computer, but I intend to buy and I intend to buy an SSD model iMac. The difference in performance on Windows was stunning, and I upgraded from disc to SSD on my work computer so I saw how fast it was with both types of drives. My 5 year old Windows laptop made my newer iMac look slow, at least when accessing moving or copying large files. I think that the difference will be substantial between fusion and SSD drives on an otherwise identical iMac.
Thank you for the response. I just need some storage on the computer etc for pictures. Even through I back them up to a ext. drive. I have 280gb of photos. Worry about filling that ssd fast then having to always connect an ext drive to access files etc. which I don't necessarily want to do unless the performance is that much better.
I really hope the person from Apple I've chatted with was wrong. Can you ask in the chat application from Apple? Because the service is closed over here now (evening in the netherlands). I would like to know if its upgradable or not. If not, the iMac is a no go for me.
Thunderbolt 3 aside these refreshed iMac offerings with Kaby Lake processors are welcome.
With regards to Thunderbolt 3 Apple could have included Thunderbolt 2 just as they did with Firewire 800 and Firewire 400.
With regards to Thunderbolt 3 Apple could have included Thunderbolt 2 just as they did with Firewire 800 and Firewire 400.