0.5 TB on the entry level is a bit disappointing at the price, though. 1 TB with a dual TB option would be more in line with the times.
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Apple Releases New Sandy Bridge Quad-Core iMacs with Thunderbolt
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0.5 TB on the entry level is a bit disappointing at the price, though. 1 TB with a dual TB option would be more in line with the times.
Here's what I'm trying to figure out. Is there a real possibility that something like the lacie little big drive ssd config hooked up via TB could achieve similar throughput speeds?
iMac ethernet still has no Jumbo frame support?
Yeah, that's why I'm a little upset with the 27" iMac I bought last fall. But the thunderbolt technology makes the jumbo frames in ethernet a moot point. You can also network with Thunderbolt at over 10 times GBit Ethernet speeds. I've been trying to sell my iMac in time for this update but am too late now.
27" iMac 2.93 GHz i7
12 GB DDR3 RAM
256 GB SSD drive + 1TB SATA
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB DDR5
Yeah, that's why I'm a little upset with the 27" iMac I bought last fall. But the thunderbolt technology makes the jumbo frames in ethernet a moot point. You can also network with Thunderbolt at over 10 times GBit Ethernet speeds. I've been trying to sell my iMac in time for this update but am too late now.
27" iMac 2.93 GHz i7
12 GB DDR3 RAM
256 GB SSD drive + 1TB SATA
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB DDR5
And that's EXACTLY what separates perfectionist Mac users from ordinary Windows hobbyists...for the latter it's all about specs without any regard to battery life, design, noise levels and overall build quality.
Bottomline: I do NOT want to build my beige box, I do NOT want to worry about custom cooling, I do NOT want to infringe OS X's license by using it on unsupported machines and I do NOT want to worry about stickers on my keyboard or CPU.
Now if someone could explain the enormous Swiss/European subsidy to the benefit of US customers...
I did not know iMacs had batteries. I also did not know that PC cases were beige, can you sell me one? What's "custom cooling"? I though this one was mostly used for overclocked computers - something Mac users have no idea about. BTW, how do you explain use of 3GB SATA? Due to noise concerns? Could you also give us one example of PC with a sticker on a keyboard? BTW, if this is such a concern, you can always buy vanilla keyboard in BestBuy and still save a lot (compared to iMac price). And those weird stickers on CPU? Are you OK? Maybe you should go to a certain specialist to check for some weird phobias. I am sure you will be the first who is afraid of stickers on your CPUs (unless you got confused by a somewhat relevant problem of MBP CPUs having bad quality control over application of thermal paste).
I can easily agree with that. Alternatively, an easier way of getting to the HD.
It's really high time Apple re-designes the iMac so an actual desktop GPU can be used, hard-drives/SSDs can be easily replaced and upgraded and to refresh the look of the iMac.
The glossy screen is annoying, though as a long time user of CRTs it isn't anything that I'm not used to (after using CRTs with their glare for almost 20 years) but I do think it is a step back and unnecessary.
The mobile GPU is really annoying. The iMac is a desktop machine and yet is chained down to laptop graphics. One of the main benefits of a desktop machine is that they are a magnitude more powerful than laptops, and the price paid is that they are stationary. While iMacs sort of bring the worst of both worlds - because the chassis just doesn't support desktop GPUs.
The lack of a Blu-ray drive is bewildering. Though it has been upgraded from a "bag of hurt" to "mafia" which indicates Steve's recognition of the ability of organization by Blu-Ray, one imagines.
Honestly one of the biggest turn-offs with this new iMac is the Superdrive. It has no ability to present 1080p videos on a 27" high-res screen. There are literally discs available in the store that I can't use because I have only the latest and greatest Macintosh. Not because of any hardware reasons, Macs already support all hardware and software DRM and in fact use it for Apple store videos.. it's just that it happens not to support BD decoding.
The discussion of whether optical media is dead or not is completely uninteresting while iMacs and Macs in general actually HAVE an optical drive. They just have the optical drive of the last century. In fact it would be a heck of a lot better if the iMac had been available with an optional BD drive, even though it *couldn't* play any BD movies, but just burn BDs. Even that would be better than the "superdrive".
In the end, there is still no BD because Steve just doesn't like BD. He's fine with DVDs apparently.
The rest is all pretty predictable (and nice for what it's worth) but unimaginative and without any apparent vision of where the Mac is going as a platform in the future.
Here's my prediction of the next iMac upgrade:
It will most likely:
- get the Ivy Bridge chipset (still all quad-core)
- put a second Thunderbolt port on the 21.5" iMac as well
- retain the already familiar flatpanel form factor
- offer even bigger SSDs
- silently add USB3 support, since it's already part of Ivy Bridge
- still no Blu-ray drives, but still superdrives
- still use a mobile GPU
It will be released around march of 2012 and offer the trackpad as a standard, but for a small fee you can choose the mouse.
The glossy screen is annoying, though as a long time user of CRTs it isn't anything that I'm not used to (after using CRTs with their glare for almost 20 years) but I do think it is a step back and unnecessary.
The mobile GPU is really annoying. The iMac is a desktop machine and yet is chained down to laptop graphics. One of the main benefits of a desktop machine is that they are a magnitude more powerful than laptops, and the price paid is that they are stationary. While iMacs sort of bring the worst of both worlds - because the chassis just doesn't support desktop GPUs.
The lack of a Blu-ray drive is bewildering. Though it has been upgraded from a "bag of hurt" to "mafia" which indicates Steve's recognition of the ability of organization by Blu-Ray, one imagines.
Honestly one of the biggest turn-offs with this new iMac is the Superdrive. It has no ability to present 1080p videos on a 27" high-res screen. There are literally discs available in the store that I can't use because I have only the latest and greatest Macintosh. Not because of any hardware reasons, Macs already support all hardware and software DRM and in fact use it for Apple store videos.. it's just that it happens not to support BD decoding.
The discussion of whether optical media is dead or not is completely uninteresting while iMacs and Macs in general actually HAVE an optical drive. They just have the optical drive of the last century. In fact it would be a heck of a lot better if the iMac had been available with an optional BD drive, even though it *couldn't* play any BD movies, but just burn BDs. Even that would be better than the "superdrive".
In the end, there is still no BD because Steve just doesn't like BD. He's fine with DVDs apparently.
The rest is all pretty predictable (and nice for what it's worth) but unimaginative and without any apparent vision of where the Mac is going as a platform in the future.
Here's my prediction of the next iMac upgrade:
It will most likely:
- get the Ivy Bridge chipset (still all quad-core)
- put a second Thunderbolt port on the 21.5" iMac as well
- retain the already familiar flatpanel form factor
- offer even bigger SSDs
- silently add USB3 support, since it's already part of Ivy Bridge
- still no Blu-ray drives, but still superdrives
- still use a mobile GPU
It will be released around march of 2012 and offer the trackpad as a standard, but for a small fee you can choose the mouse.
how much to upgrade to an i7
I'm about to put my order in for one of these "wonderful toys", the 2.7 quadcore i5 21.5 inch imac, I'm maxxing it out to 16 gb of ram, and I'm wondering if I should upgrade to the 2.8 quadcore i7.... it's primarily a music recording machine, and I'm using tons of real time amp modeling and effects, running Digital Performer, Reason, and Amplitube almost full time... does anyone know if that upgrade would make a difference and how much the upgrades are?
thanks!
I'm about to put my order in for one of these "wonderful toys", the 2.7 quadcore i5 21.5 inch imac,
I'm maxxing it out to 16 gb of ram, and I'm wondering if I should upgrade to the 2.8 quadcore i7.... it's primarily a music recording machine, and I'm using tons of real time amp modeling and effects, running Digital Performer, Reason, and Amplitube almost full time... does anyone know if that upgrade would make a difference and how much the upgrades are?thanks!
I did not know people were still buying 21" monitors or computers with just 500GB. Do you think OS/X will fit on such a small drive?
I'm about to put my order in for one of these "wonderful toys", the 2.7 quadcore i5 21.5 inch imac,
thanks!
DON'T BUY THE RAM UPGRADE FROM APPLE!!
If you want 16MB Ram, get the iMac with 4MB, then order 16MB from OWC at Macsales.com for $207 and get a rebate for you original 4GB of $26. Your final price for 16MB will be less $175 vs. $500 from Apple.
Easy, easy, easy upgrade for you to change out the RAM. Don't get ripped off by Apple's RAM prices.
Don't do it for hyperthreading
I disable HyperThreading (HT) on almost all of my systems with HT. (Effectively turning Core i7 CPUs into Core i5 CPUs.)
Unless you're building a render-farm for seriously multi-core aware jobs, IMO disabling HT is a good thing.
Go for GHz and cache, not virtual cores.
I disable HyperThreading (HT) on almost all of my systems with HT. (Effectively turning Core i7 CPUs into Core i5 CPUs.)
Unless you're building a render-farm for seriously multi-core aware jobs, IMO disabling HT is a good thing.
Go for GHz and cache, not virtual cores.
This may sound like an elementary question but I need to ask. I am going to be running a 3 monitor display (adding two 24" displays) on my new IMAC and hooking them up via Thunderbolt port. Does the 2GB upgrade make sense, or is the thunderbolt port links to my external monitors pulling from RAM? Sorry for the dumb question but I am configuring the iMac for purchase. I think I will add more ram and get the stand GPU but need advice.
Jim
Jim
I did the same thing with the Knoxville, Tennessee store. Oh well, it worked out to my advantage. I was able to order from Amazon and saved a little money on the 9.25% sales tax.
I did the same thing with the Knoxville, Tennessee store. Oh well, it worked out to my advantage. I was able to order from Amazon and saved a little money on the 9.25% sales tax.
How did you order from Amazon? I'm wanting the high-end 27" i5, and can only find it for pre-order on Amazon with no info about when it will be available.
Did you pre-order too, or did you get the order to go through? If so, any details about shipping?
Just ordered the 27" 2.7GHz Core i5 model + 16 GB of Crucial RAM from Amazon. Excited that this will be my first desktop Mac, replacing my 2009 13" MacBook Pro that just can't seem to keep up with the Illustrator/Photoshop demands.
Total cost for the RAM was only $165.98 and a little elbow grease to perform the install myself. That sure beats the $600 that Apple charges to upgrade the RAM. Plus, unlike with the Apple RAM upgrade, I'll get to keep the old 2x2 GB that come standard with the iMac in case I need to upgrade another machine at some point in the future.
Total cost for the RAM was only $165.98 and a little elbow grease to perform the install myself. That sure beats the $600 that Apple charges to upgrade the RAM. Plus, unlike with the Apple RAM upgrade, I'll get to keep the old 2x2 GB that come standard with the iMac in case I need to upgrade another machine at some point in the future.
Sorry, I should have clarified. I just pre-ordered. No idea on shipping times, but in looking at and talking to some of the other Apple Resellers out there (PowerMax, MacMall, JR, etc.) + my local Apple store, it sounds like everyone's expecting them in the next few days. I'm taking a gamble that I won't have to wait too long. Hopefully for the sake of my COMMAND + R keys, I won't have to too.
While the Sandy Bridge Quad -Core, dual thunderbolt is definitely an impressive machine, it would have been nice to see some cosmetic changes such as a thinner bezel etc.
I'm surprised that Apple released this without much fanfare.
Prices are reasonable except for the SSD.
Oh well enjoy it . I'm in for one.
I'm surprised that Apple released this without much fanfare.
Prices are reasonable except for the SSD.
Oh well enjoy it . I'm in for one.
So the short version. Portal 2 does not run on the new iMacs (yet).
So I bought Portal 2 a few days ago at the GameStop sale. Being self employed. I was going to avoid installing it until I finish the contract I'm working on was done (I'm self employed). I caved just had to try out my expensive new computer/toy.
Portal 2 won't even launch unless you have 10.6.7 installed, presumably because they got Apple to put out bug fixes for GL drivers in it. As it turns out, the new iMacs come with a custom build of 10.6.6 without an upgrade path to 10.6.7 available yet. I guess I'll be waiting a little bit longer to play it then. Oh darn, I guess I have to be productive.
More annoying is that I forgot to buy a DVI dongle for my second display. -_-
So I bought Portal 2 a few days ago at the GameStop sale. Being self employed. I was going to avoid installing it until I finish the contract I'm working on was done (I'm self employed). I caved just had to try out my expensive new computer/toy.
Portal 2 won't even launch unless you have 10.6.7 installed, presumably because they got Apple to put out bug fixes for GL drivers in it. As it turns out, the new iMacs come with a custom build of 10.6.6 without an upgrade path to 10.6.7 available yet. I guess I'll be waiting a little bit longer to play it then.
Oh darn, I guess I have to be productive.More annoying is that I forgot to buy a DVI dongle for my second display. -_-
Fanfare about what? All other manufacturers have had the same or better machines on the market for quite a while. It's better for Apple to keep quiet about this fact. And dual TB was a really great idea. This way at least people have something to connect these ports to namely - each other.
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A lot of people, just because you don't means nothing. 128 gigs would be absolutely nothing for me, I have 250 gigs and am constantly deleting things so I don't get too low.
I am a relatively new user here, But reading the posts of "BRLAWYER" , It's obvious that he doesn't care about "beige boxes".. Good, Neither do I - I personally don't care what the case looks like. I DO understand that the Specs lead directly to performance.
IMO, BRLawyer (and other posters here who parrot his view) just want a computer that is "gorgeous, delicious, elegant, and of course "magical". Specs don't matter because he doesn't understand them anyway - which is why instead of making an intelligent argument, his criticism of PC's consists of "they're crappy, clunky, junky, and ugly"...
I Love my Mac and I love my PC. They both have uses in my life, and each excels at different tasks. I also understand them - a little better than "Oh golly gee, I'm not hobbyist, my elegant mac just works"..