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Apple Releases New iMacs with Upgraded ATI Radeon HD Graphics Cards

stonemann said:
It was pointed out to me earlier that the i3 and i5 processors in the low-end iMacs are both dual core. The main difference is the i3s do not support Turbo boost. This is not as big an issue as you might think because low-end Core i5 processors can only overclock themselves by a maximum of 266Mhz with their Turbo functionality. Whether the slightly faster processor speed of the low-end i5 justifies the extra cost over the i3 is down to your budget. Personally, I can't justify the additional £150 (UK price) for the marginal boost in speed.
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Cool, thanks for that. I'm with you, I see the value in it as I don't make money off my machine, so if I have to wait another 3 seconds for a video to encode, I'm okay with that.
 
Ardoptres said:
Too bad the US is out of the recession. Has been for a while.
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Some might say "Out of the fryingpan and into the fire".

We are technically out of the recession, but the US economy is hurting pretty bad right now. While GDP is improving, I would say that the fundamentals of our economy are degrading at a rapid pace.
 
bas-macfan said:
why is the 5750 worse???
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http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_5770_5750_performance/page6.asp

not worse, not much difference

when Intel makes CPU's they all start life as Xeons. since the process isn't perfect there are issues with some. instead of junking them Intel disables features and rebrands them as i3's or i5's or i7s

Nvidia and ATI do the same thing. the top of the line cards are perfect from the manufacturing process. the rest get features disabled and lower speeds and sold of as lower end cards

with the 5750 the CPU part is fast, but the memory subsytem is slower so in real world performance it's not that much difference from a slower last generation card with a faster memory sybsystem
 
jcschlic said:
The 3.2 i3 includes Turbo boost

See here under the tech specs section
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Hmm, interesting, but is it worth $300? I mean you do get twice the hard drive space and a better video card. How much better is the video card though? I don't game hardly at all so I'm thinking I won't be able to tell the difference. They'll both play HD video, which is all I'd even twice for.

shanmugam said:
i think it is a misprint in the apple site, if i am not wrong of the different between i3 and i5 processor are turbo boost

so definitely i3 does not do turbo boost or it is an i5 which apple mentioned as i3?

thoughts?
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Bummer. That's unfortunate for them. Good for me cus I'll spend less money this way.
 
Tallgrass said:
The i3 is dual core but quad threaded. It's faster in apps that can use all those 4 threads. Any Core 2 Duo is fine for email; surfing; watching movies; reading, the difference between C2D and i3 is negligible
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Actually, any iBook G4 PPC could do those things.

s.
 
Ah!

2005CTS said:
These reasons alone are worth the wait and extra cost:
Faster RAM (1333MHz versus 1066MHz)
Newer intel i7 chip
Dedicated Graphics card rather than integrated slower chip
Optional SSD

Then of course the biggest reason I waited...let Apple get the manufacturing problems behind them as it related to the beautiful 27" screen.
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You have an eagle eye. I didn't notice the ram speed bus boost.
 
lifeinhd said:
Let's see... I can get the 2.8GHz 27" iMac with an i5 and the 5750, or I can configure a low-end 27" iMac with a 3.6GHz i5 and the 5750 for only $50 more. 800MHz for $50... I'll take that.

Also really interested to see how the drive bays work. I'm hoping for two 3.5" bays, as I'd love to do a RAID 0 setup.

EDIT: It appears the 3.6GHz i5 is only dual-core. Never mind then.
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FYI, the high end 27" iMac with a 2.8GHz i5 which is a quad core. The low end 27" iMac with a 3.6Ghz i5 is only a dual core.

Big difference in performance. Check this out.

Intel Core i5 680 @ 3.60GHz <-- low end 27"
Intel Core i5 760 @ 2.80GHz <-- high end 27"

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
 
pmz said:
What is SC 2 and how old are you? :rolleyes:

iMacs, despite being good at most games, are not for little kids playing mind-wasting computer games.
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You dont know what SC is? How old are you? lol Not a retro gamer are you?
 
blinkin182 said:
From what I can tell the 21.5 inch iMac with i5 3.6Ghz BTO is only about 300 CHF (I'm in Switzerland) cheaper than the 27inch iMac i5 2.8Ghz quad core!
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Yeah, the 21.5 i5 is the best upgrade (especially for those of us who don't want 27"). That's what some people were waiting for. It wasn't noted on the front page, but I have a feeling that we'll see many of those being picked up.
 
I haven't been able to find the new iMacs on Amazon yet. Does anyone know how long it takes for them to show up on Amazon?
 
Upgrade? What upgrade?

Please help me understand this:

The 27" i5 has increased in price from £1634 to £1649. For that you get a processor speed bump of 0.14GHz and a slightly better graphics processor. After nine months there's no fall in the component costs?

Thank heavens for the refurb store.
 
mac-covetor said:
The 27" i5 has increased in price from £1634 to £1649. For that you get a processor speed bump of 0.14GHz and a slightly better graphics processor. After nine months there's no fall in the component costs?
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The Pound has fallen slightly against the Dollar in the meantime from around $1.60 to $1.55. Hence the slight increase in UK price. It's exactly the same thing that's causing petrol to be so damn expensive at the moment.
ethana said:
Ok... can someone please tell me what is NEW in this iMac??? Besides graphics????

Please break it down for me.
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At the high end not much. You get a small increase in CPU speed and the whole thing runs on a slightly faster memory bus.
At the low end it's massively changed. All 21.5" machines now come with HyperThread-ed processors, discrete graphics and faster memory. That's where the majority of the performance increases will be noticed.

The 27" machines were a generation ahead of the 21.5" under the previous revision. Now they are all running on the same scale.
 
This is a very good day for anyone wanting an Imac now is the time to make your move. Great step forward for Imac's. I'm wishing for an update like this for the 13" Macbook pro in November.
 
BobbyCat said:
Some people here remember how Steve was indeed proud to bring top speed and technology to the masses, in those days where the Mac was a fantastic bargain (G3, G4, G5...). People would still have alternatives in case they wanted more sophisticated stuff for more bucks.
Nowadays the focus is on customers (like you?) who can afford the expensive stuff, as Apple products tend to be more and more luxury products as you point it out yourself.
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Macs were a bargain in the PowerPC era? Really? I must have missed that. Do you remember waiting 6+ months for a new processor from Moto?

We've always paid a premium for design, quality and the OS. That hasn't changed since Jobs' return in 1997.
 
I just recently (last week) purchased the high end 21.5 base model. Is the equivalent refresh model a big enough jump in specs to warrant me returning my iMac. My wife mainly uses this computer for photos and I use it to stream a large audio and video library to my home theater and some video encoding. I'm happy with it so far.....just feel a little cheated.

Thanks for your time
 
Lukinian said:
I just recently (last week) purchased the high end 21.5 base model. Is the equivalent refresh model a big enough jump in specs to warrant me returning my iMac. My wife mainly uses this computer for photos and I use it to stream a large audio and video library to my home theater and some video encoding. I'm happy with it so far.....just feel a little cheated.

Thanks for your time
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The 21.5" inch model upgrades are significant enough to warrant returning the old one IMO, especially the base model. If I were you I would exchange it.
 
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