Apple Releases Core 2 Duo iMac, Adds 24" Model

[Multimedia]

20" Extra 128MB Video RAM = Total 256MB ATI X1600 Might Help Support An External 24"

Does the video mem upgrade on the 20" make a significant difference? Apple.ca wants CAD$150 for it, which seems a bit cheeky.

I'm thinking the extra 128MB Video RAM for a Total of 256MB of the ATI X1600 on the 20" Might Help Support An External 24" better - probably any external monitor will benefit. I'm only guessing though.

 

[Multimedia]

What Kind Of Video Socket Is In The 24" iMac? PCIe, PCI-X or AGP?

The 20" is also upgradable to 256 ATI X1600 card for only $75 - not only the 23".

No no you miss understand. The graphics card is a completely seperate module to the logic board on the 24". On the X1600 machines (17 + 20") the GPU is on the logic board and cannot be upgraded beyond ordering with 256MB on the 20". The 24" can be upgraded after you buy it. Not sure what format it uses but it could be very interesting.

So on the 24" iMac only you may be able to go inside and upgrade what may be a standard PCIe video card? Do we know what kind of video card/slot is inside there and how much room there is for regular more powerful cards and if heat may play a limiting role in their adoption yet?

 

[johnmcboston]

Also, just curious: Why does it cost $175 to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB of RAM, but another $575 to go to 3GB?

Interesting - a quick look shows $250-$300 for 2x1GB memory cards, so $175 isn't too out of line... Couldn't immediately find 2GB cards on the popular memory sites (at least listed inder the imac family)

- J

 

[DrFrankTM]

Am I the only one who thinks that the big Apple logo under the iMacs is lame? I can't imagine watching a movie for hours with that thing hovering in the lower part of my vision.

Please, Apple. Shrink and move the logo discreetly into the corner, or be bold and remove the logo entirely! We all know it's a Mac!

Sorry if it has already been answered, but by the time I finish reading the other 15 pages of comments, there will probably be another 20 new pages, and we'll be September 16th or so...

(EDIT: No, it hadn't been answered... unlike the dead-horse headless Mac, the 3GB RAM, the "Yeah, but is it HD?" and a bunch of other things.)

I had a 20-inch iMac G5 in my bedroom and used it all the time to watch anime. The Apple logo has never bugged me in any way. I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but I absolutely loved my iMac. Watching video was perharps its single most important use and it did the job perfectly. iMacs are great TVs as far as I'm concerned.

 

[odedia]

Hi - first post.
Also, just curious: Why does it cost $175 to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB of RAM, but another $575 to go to 3GB?

because a 1GB sticks is cheap and a 2GB stick is dead-ass expensive these days.

 

[Evangelion]

1 - your machine up there doesn't run Windows and OS X...therefore, it cannot be the most powerful;

Some people don't care about OS X. Really.

2 - 64-bit support in Vista is gonna be lousy when compared to Leopard

How do you know? Besides, you could run "real" 64bit OS on that Dell if you want to.

3 - we have been exchanging picky arguments for a long time, Mr. Shaw...so you should know better that I love to state my support of the Mac platform, especially when the forum we call MacRumors is full of PC supporters...and I love to get rabid reactions from Thurrott's fans here, it's real fun...

What "Thurrot fans" are you talking about here? You seem to think that if someone is not foaming-at-the-mouth Mac-fanatic, he hates Macs. I for one love Mac-hardware, and I think OS X is a pretty good OS. That does NOT mean that I hate Macs, nor does it mean that I cream my pants whenever Steve Jobs says something. I'm somewhere in the middle.

BEST OS

Debatable.

BEST DESIGN

It's pretty good design, but it seems to be short on PCI-e-expansion and optical-drives.

BEST SUPPORT OF THE MARKET

Can I get on-site support with the Mac?

BEST CHIPS AND MOBOS

Same chips and MoBo that are used by their competitors.

And BTW: TYPING IN ALL CAPS DOES NOT MAKE YOU SOUND MORE PROFOUND.

 

[moonfacekid]

I wouldn't worry about it. HDTV Video is not Video Graphics intensive like 3-D and gaming is. It'll be perfect. Just add an EyeTV hybrid and a Terk TV5 and you're in HD reception & recording business for only $200 extra.

Sorry off topic but...

Multi, I'm interested in this comment because I have an Sony HDTV and want to try free over-the-air HD channels. I live in a condo so an outside antenna is a no-go. What is the farthest distance you recommend from a TV station tower? According to http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx I am less than 40 miles from many local Boston TV stations. Will this antenna be good enough to get a good quality HD picture? If not, can you recommend any other indoor antennas?? Thanks.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

So on the 24" iMac only you may be able to go inside and upgrade what may be a standard PCIe video card? Do we know what kind of video card/slot is inside there and how much room there is for regular more powerful cards and if heat may play a limiting role in their adoption yet?

They're not standard desktop-style PCIe cards (the way the Cube used a standard AGP card,) they are (rumored) to be the notebook-computer standard called MXM. It's a PCI express electrical connection, in a small form factor made for notebook computers.

 

[whatever]

Nice try, thanks for playing, but we've been there already. The MP isn't a desktop, it's a workstation. Everyone else offers a headless desktop with expansion in the $1000-1500 range. Where's that option from Apple?

Let's see, based on your reasoning (which is greatly flawed I must add), since many car manufacturers sell pickup trucks, then BMW should also.

Apple has three options, a Consumer model, a Professional model and a entry level (mini).

If you own a monitor you can use it with any model Mac. For under $1,000 you can even buy an iMac and use your existing monitor in a dual display setup. If you want to expand the memory, disk space, etc you can do that with all of the current Macs.

As I've stated (and others have too) before, Apple already tried doing this, it was called the Cube. One of the coolest computer designs ever. However, it didn't sell. The consumers that drive the market all opted to buy either iMacs or G4 towers.

Don't you think it's time to move on!

By the way I'm typing this on my new Mac Pro (3GHz) attached to my new 30" ACD. It's awesome. The speed is incredible. I've been working on a Flash project which involves over 100 screenshots that I had to edit in Photoshop. Well, on my old Dual 1GHz QuickSilver it took about ten minutes for all of the files to open, on this machine it took under two minutes. Granted I'm not comparing Apples to Apples (pun intended), but I state this, because everything is relevent to what you're used to. If I upgraded to either a iMac or a Mac Mini, the performance would be equally astounding for me. All non-Universal apps are faster (thank God).

The funny thing about this purchase is that as a Non-gamer, the only app that I couldn't run on my old QuickSilver is actually a game, Legos Star Wars.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I'm thinking the extra 128MB Video RAM for a Total of 256MB of the ATI X1600 on the 20" Might Help Support An External 24" better - probably any external monitor will benefit. I'm only guessing though.

GAH!

Video memory alone does NOTHING to boost resolution any more. The highest resolution display currently on the market is a WQUXGA monitor, made by Viewsonic and Iiyama for IBM. At a resolution of 3840 x 2400, this has 9.2 million pixels, or FOUR times Apple's 23/24" monitors. At 32-bit color, this is 4 bytes per pixel, or 36,864,000 bytes of video memory needed. Even a 64 MB video card could run it just fine (assuming it had dual dual-link DVI ports.) In fact, the video card supplied with the monitor, a Matrox G200MMS-Quad, included specifically to run this monitor (because no other cards could at the time,) only came with 32 MB of RAM! (It ran in 24-bit color mode, which only requires 27,648,000 bytes of video RAM. Which, for the most part, is indistinguishable from 32-bit color mode.)

Anything beyond that is used for 3D functions, such as textures, double-buffering, and other 3D things. It doesn't even necessarily help with frame rate, it all depends on the game's texture needs. If a game doesn't load very many textures into video RAM, it won't help at all. For really complex texture games like Doom 3 or Quake 4 (which have 'super-extreme' settings made for 512 MB cards that didn't even exist when they were released!) it will help.

A 128 MB video card can run two 1980x1200 displays (the internal on the 24", plus an external) just fine out of the box. The memory buys you 3D extras. (Although, often, video cards with more memory are also faster clocked. But I haven't seen confirmation of this for the iMac.)

 

[mrdice87]

merom?

just a question, and I may be wrong, but how so we know that the imacs are using merom and not conroe? I couldn't find anywhere on the apple site that gave processor numbers, only speeds...

 

[Evangelion]

As I've stated (and others have too) before, Apple already tried doing this, it was called the Cube. One of the coolest computer designs ever. However, it didn't sell. The consumers that drive the market all opted to buy either iMacs or G4 towers.

Cube didn't sell because it was hideously expensive. It was basically less espandable and slower than the regural PowerMac was, yet it had a price to match. So the only thing the user got for it's machine was a cool-looking and silent computer (although the G4 Tower wasn't ugly either) with less performance for same amount of money.

The peope who are now wishing for a minitower, are asking for a machine that is smaller, less expandable and slower than Mac Pro, but it would also be less expensive.

 

[Evangelion]

just a question, and I may be wrong, but how so we know that the imacs are using merom and not conroe? I couldn't find anywhere on the apple site that gave processor numbers, only speeds...

FSB-speeds, among other things.

 

[MacinDoc]

uh, what?
even single CPUs....

Sorry, but you're comparing the power consumption of an entire Power Mac G5 desktop computer (CPU, GPU, power supply, fans, HD, optical drive, powered ports) with the power consumption of the Conroe CPU only. Average power consumption of the single core G5 chip on 90 nm/2.1 GHz was 25W, according to IBM specs and ArsTechnica. And according to real-world tests (115W for an iMac at full CPU usage minus 82W with CPU ide), maximum power usage of the G5 in the 2.1 GHz iMac is 33W. Approximately half that of Conroe.

 

[flopticalcube]

GAH!

Video memory alone does NOTHING to boost resolution any more. The highest resolution display currently on the market is a

...

A 128 MB video card can run two 1980x1200 displays (the internal on the 24", plus an external) just fine out of the box. The memory buys you 3D extras. (Although, often, video cards with more memory are also faster clocked. But I haven't seen confirmation of this for the iMac.)

Thanks for that. I gather that the MXM GPU is "welded" into place on the mobo, so the only upgrade path for video on the 20" is the memory, and that has limited benefit (save for games such as Oblivion, etc.). Thanks ehurtley and Multimedia. For US$75, its a no-brainer, but at CAD$150, grey matter is required.

 

[DrFrankTM]

The unexpected first...

I don't know if this has been mentioned earlier in the thread, and its far too long by now to go all the way through and look so i'm just gonna fire away.
IMO, I think its rather silly for Apple to release the new and improved iMacs before the notebooks get upgraded. Why? School is going into full swing very soon if not already in many many places. Students need portability. Don't get the wrong, I think the new 24" iMac is SWEEEEEEEET! I just would have thought that Apple would release the new portables before the desktops. ::shrugs:: Now I feel like a need a 24" iMac..THEN a merom notebook..when those are released..

We know that the MBP will be updated to Merom soon. We expected it for the iMac too (although many thought it'd go Conroe), but no one expected the 24-inch model until what? a few days ago? Had Apple updated the MBP first, many would have been frustrated if they would have gone with a 24-inch iMac instead. By pushing the new iMac out the door first, Apple avoids that trap. People know what's coming...

 

[DrFrankTM]

If you're lucky you might get a nice case re-design as well. Make sure you say 100 "hail Steve"s before you go to bed.

Our father, who art in San Fran
Hallowed be thy processors
Thy OS come
Leopard be done
On earth and in cyberspace
Give us this day our daily keynote
And lead us not into Redmond
But deliver us from Windows
For thine be the distortion field
And the PPC
And the x86
For ever and ever (thanks to time machine)

Amen.

That one made me laugh so much that I cried. Great stuff!

 

[dropadrop]

just a question, and I may be wrong, but how so we know that the imacs are using merom and not conroe? I couldn't find anywhere on the apple site that gave processor numbers, only speeds...

Merom and Conroe are the same processor. Merom just has 667mhz buss speed vs. 800mhz for Conroe, also Merom has models with 4MB L2 cache starting at 2Ghz, while Conroe get the extra cache at 2.4Ghz.

 

[whatever]

Cube didn't sell because it was hideously expensive. It was basically less espandable and slower than the regural PowerMac was, yet it had a price to match. So the only thing the user got for it's machine was a cool-looking and silent computer (although the G4 Tower wasn't ugly either) with less performance for same amount of money.

The peope who are now wishing for a minitower, are asking for a machine that is smaller, less expandable and slower than Mac Pro, but it would also be less expensive.

Alright I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but let's pretend that Apple releases the following:

2.5 GHz Conroe Mini Tower, with one drive bay, one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot and 1 full length PCI Express slot.

The price would be $1,499 and that would be low, the price should really be closer to $2,000.

What would people in this forum say.

 

[blackstarliner]

Alright I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but let's pretend that Apple releases the following:

2.5 GHz Conroe Mini Tower, with one drive bay, one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot and 1 full length PCI Express slot.

The price would be $1,499 and that would be low, the price should really be closer to $2,000.

What would people in this forum say.

It would make the MacPro look like a bargain. Might as well spend the extra.
Or save money and take an iMac with the screen thrown in.

 

[singersongwrite]

24" imac on the way!

my 24" imac has left Shanghai!

 

[Evangelion]

Alright I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but let's pretend that Apple releases the following:

2.5 GHz Conroe Mini Tower, with one drive bay, one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot and 1 full length PCI Express slot.

The price would be $1,499 and that would be low, the price should really be closer to $2,000.

What would people in this forum say.

I was actually thinking something like...

1x Conroe
2x HD-bays
1x Optical drive
3x PCI-e slots, maybe 2 16x slots among them
4x RAM-slots

As to case... Take the Mac Pro case, and shrink it down a bit. Price that machine at around 1399 - 1999 (depending on config), and you would be all set.

That machine would basically be half of Mac Pro (although it would be as fast, and maybe slightly faster on some things) CPU-wise, while still offering expandability. The people who really needed a workstation, would still opt for the Mac Pro, while those who don't have that extreme needs, could get one of these instead.

 

[balamw]

Alright I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but let's pretend that Apple releases the following:

2.5 GHz Conroe Mini Tower, with one drive bay, one double-wide PCI Express graphics slot and 1 full length PCI Express slot.

The price would be $1,499 and that would be low, the price should really be closer to $2,000.

What would people in this forum say.

Where the heck are you puling $1500K or $2K from. I can price a Dell Dimension 9200 for < $1500

Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E6700 (2.66GHz, 1066 FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional
FREE UPGRADE! 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache

Drop the base configuration to the 2.13 GHz chip and you have a $1200 box.

Another way to look at it. Drop the LCD from the 20" iMac and substitute 1-2 PCI slots. Should it cost any more than the iMac?

B

 

[nagromme]

How do you know? Besides, you could run "real" 64bit OS on that Dell if you want to.

I'll take this one

64-bit support in Leopard (not Tiger) is superior to Windows, for both users and developers, in the following ways:

1. 64-bit support is standard and non-optional with every Leopard installation. Vista is 32-bit normally, and only if you CHOOSE a different version to install will you get 64-bit support. (Same as with the old XP.) This means a Mac developer's 64-bit efforts will "just work" on any 64-bit Mac, while a Windows developer has to face that many people won't be able to run 64-bit software EVEN if they have 64-bit hardware! A huge barrier to adopting 64-bit computing in the Windows world. So, why would any Vista user NOT choose the 64-bit install? Well aside from people not understanding the difference between the installs and not bothering (an issue that doesn't exist for Macs), and aside from PCs shipping with the 32-bit version pre-installed despite the 64-bit chip inside, there are the following problems:

2. On a 64-bit Mac, Leopard also runs 32-but apps at full speed and without emulation. Most apps don't need 64 bits, most apps are 32-bit, and so 32-bit apps should not be second-class citizens. In Vista, they are. Vista 64-bit requires emulation (a layer called Windows on Windows) to run 32-bit apps. That's right--this means MOST Windows apps will run in emulation under Vista. Unless you give up all 64-bit support. And worst of all:

3. 64-bit Vista can emulate only 32-bit apps--not 32-bit drivers. Their dual 64/32-bit support only goes so far. Leopard on the other hand supports 64-bit and 32-bit code as equal citizens from the ground up--as OS X has long been designed to do. That means current 32-bit drivers run fine in Leopard. Not so with 64-bit Vista. If you choose the 64-bit install for Vista, you must give up any hardware that doesn't have re-written ("signed") 64-bit drivers. That's a lot of hardware headaches for users and developers alike. On a Mac, if a driver doesn't NEED 64-bit functionality, it can keep on running as it always has--at full speed and fully compatible.

Thus the benefits of a through ground-up 64-bit solution like Leopard vs. a halfway compromise like Vista.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33666

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Leopard-Quad-Universal-Vista-One-Trick-Pony-32912.shtml

"Note that the non-emulated support in OSX is for applications and drivers. 32-bit programs on Vista 64 need to work on WOW emulation to run in Vista, and 32-bit drivers are a no-no. Lack of driver support is the main reason Windows XP x64 hasn't been widely adopted, and why the Vista fudge will ensure hardware incompatibilities between the two Windows versions remain for sometime to come."


Also of note: UNLESS Vista users install the optional (and less compatible) 64-bit version, they will not be able to play high-definition movie discs:

http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne...other-feature-full-hd-playback-in-32bit-vista

"PC users will now have to choose between a PC that can play high definition content (64 bit) versus one that can potentially run older devices that only have unsigned drivers available (32 bit)."

Ouch.

EDIT: See next post for more clarification on the movie thing.

 

[balamw]

Also of note: UNLESS Vista users install the optional (and less compatible) 64-bit version, they will not be able to play high-definition movie discs:

That article has been corrected.
http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/08/1147/we-were-wrong-about-hd-playback-in-vista-microsoft

The real deal is that no version of Windows Vista will make a determination as to whether any given piece of content should play back or not. The individual ISV providing the playback solutions will choose whether the playback environment, including environments that use 32-bit processors, meet the performance requirements for playback of protected High Definition content.

B