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Apple Updates iMac with Haswell and Faster PCIe Flash Storage

leman said:
All Haswell IGP's are able to drive 4K (3840 x 2160) displays. Now, there is a difference between driving a display (which is not that hard) or playing demanding games with that resolution (for this, you'll need an SLI setup).
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Aha, good to know they can drive such a display I thought the VRAM might be at the short end, but maybe it count's as 1GB now?

Anyway, that gaming is I whole other story I'm fully aware of.
 
Why does apple put such horrible mobile GPU in it? I would not even pay more $100 on the mobile GPU .

Whey not make the iMac bigger and put a good $700 video card in it?
 
OllyW said:
The UK price includes VAT but the US price is tax free.

If you compare the VAT free price of £1332.50 ($2132) you can see we are only paying an extra £207.50 ($333). :D

They've always charged a lot more outside the US, it used to be a premium of between 8-12% (before tax) in the UK but it has crept up over the last couple of years.

They seem to get away with it so I can't see them reducing it any time soon. :(
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Thank Jobs for Education Discount!!!
 
nec207 said:
Why does apple put such horrible mobile GPU in it? I would not even pay more $100 on the mobile GPU .

Whey not make the iMac bigger and put a good $700 video card in it?
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Because except for a very small percentage of people, iMac owners tend not to be hardcore gamers that require a $700 GPU. And the ones that are usually have a separate custom-built Windows gaming monster.

The 780M on the new iMacs and 680MX on last year's models are, by any measure, extremely powerful GPU's. Very few PC's, even desktops (except of course for custom-built machines or manufactured systems designed specifically for gaming) have a more powerful video card than what is put in the high-end iMac.
 
Justin L Franks said:
Because except for a very small percentage of people, iMac owners tend not to be hardcore gamers that require a $700 GPU. And the ones that are usually have a separate custom-built Windows gaming monster.

The 780M on the new iMacs and 680MX on last year's models are, by any measure, extremely powerful GPU's. Very few PC's, even desktops (except of course for custom-built machines or manufactured systems designed specifically for gaming) have a more powerful video card than what is put in the high-end iMac.
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But why put in $50 GPU? Why not at least $200 GPU for high in iMac.
 
nec207 said:
But why put in $50 GPU? Why not at least $200 GPU for high in iMac.
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A 780M does cost over $200.

Remember, the $150 charge is an upgrade over the base 675MX / 775M, both of which are high-end GPU's themselves.

I don't think people realize that the 680MX and 780M GPU's are two of the fastest GPU's available at the moment, laptop or desktop, period. They are both very high-end cards, and I don't think an iMac ever had such a fast card in comparison to what was available at the time.
 
star-affinity said:
Aha, good to know they can drive such a display I thought the VRAM might be at the short end, but maybe it count's as 1GB now?

Anyway, that gaming is I whole other story I'm fully aware of.
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You only need around 32Mb VRAM for a 4K framebuffer, so VRAM is the least of your problems. Even with aggressive window buffering we are looking at <128MB.

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nec207 said:
Why does apple put such horrible mobile GPU in it? I would not even pay more $100 on the mobile GPU .

Whey not make the iMac bigger and put a good $700 video card in it?
Click to expand...

The 780M in the high-end iMac is faster then ~95% gaming computers currently in existence. Look at the Steam hardware survey and do your comparisons.
 
champ01 said:
I dislike this design so much.Its designed to make people pay way more then needed if they want to max it out. Its also designed so you can't repair it on your own. Basically in a few years it would be out of juice so you need to buy a totally new iMac or its broken and you'll need to pay way more then needed to get it repaired which wouldn't be worth it.
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All computers are going this way. This will not change and this has been the trend since the beginning of time. You will also see this trend in pretty much all areas of tech. Cars are much harder to work on now than 40 years ago, TVs are the same thing.

If you think you can't upgrade or repair things now, wait 10 years.
 
steve119 said:
I was under the impression that the 2012 model wasn't VESA compatible.:confused:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5619

Apple said:
iMac (Late 2012 and later): VESA mount compatibility

iMac 21.5-inch and 27-inch, (Late 2012 and later) computers can be configured to order with a built-in VESA mount adapter when ordering via the Apple Online Store. The iMac with built-in VESA mount adapter lets you attach your iMac to a VESA-compliant mounting solution, such as an articulating arm or wall mount (sold separately).
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leman said:
You only need around 32Mb VRAM for a 4K framebuffer, so VRAM is the least of your problems. Even with aggressive window buffering we are looking at <128MB.
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Aha. Thanks for spreading knowledge! :)

I'm just speculating now, but if there's a lot of apps and windows open I guess the VRAM usage would increase pretty quickly since everything is ”buffered” through OpenGL in OS X. Or of a window is behind another it's not eating VRAM, or how does it work?
 
Bamo!

Love this thing! Just upgraded from my 2007 santa rosa iMac. have had that machine for a long time, it still works pretty good, but this machine ( base 27in. model ) is a whole new ballgame. I love the upgrade, albeit easy to love something 6 years newer, but it is crazy fast and so beautiful. if your on the fence this thing is awesome! thanks apple. I was wondering how much more powerful this unit is than my old one. I figure 8X faster on average, what do you think?
 
star-affinity said:
Aha. Thanks for spreading knowledge! :)

I'm just speculating now, but if there's a lot of apps and windows open I guess the VRAM usage would increase pretty quickly since everything is ”buffered” through OpenGL in OS X. Or of a window is behind another it's not eating VRAM, or how does it work?
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Well, you could fit 50 quarter-screen windows in around 400Mb (even though you probably don't need to buffer that much anyway). More importantly, Intel IGP can access arbitrary RAM location directly (because its using the same memory controller as the CPU). Strictly speaking, the entire notion of 'VRAM' is a bit pointless with an IGP. So the GPU and CPU can access the same data without them needing to transfer it hence and force. With next gen of RAM (beyond DDR) I expect the RAM to be shared by both CPU and GPU anyway. That would simplify graphics programming a lot!
 
leman said:
Well, you could fit 50 quarter-screen windows in around 400Mb (even though you probably don't need to buffer that much anyway). More importantly, Intel IGP can access arbitrary RAM location directly (because its using the same memory controller as the CPU). Strictly speaking, the entire notion of 'VRAM' is a bit pointless with an IGP. So the GPU and CPU can access the same data without them needing to transfer it hence and force. With next gen of RAM (beyond DDR) I expect the RAM to be shared by both CPU and GPU anyway. That would simplify graphics programming a lot!
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It can be a problem if you are doing other ram intensive stuff though. That is why they have GPU ram and CPU ram on performance systems. When each has a dedicated pile of registers (and their own controller) they can better keep up with the processor they are assigned.
The GPUs and CPUs are already faster than the ram, that is why there is cache ram that runs on the chip.
 
calaverasgrande said:
It can be a problem if you are doing other ram intensive stuff though. That is why they have GPU ram and CPU ram on performance systems. When each has a dedicated pile of registers (and their own controller) they can better keep up with the processor they are assigned.
The GPUs and CPUs are already faster than the ram, that is why there is cache ram that runs on the chip.
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The main reason why there is separated RAM is because its unbearably slow, as you say. With next-gen RAM easily reaching speeds of 320GB/s and having its own point-to-point memory controllers, the separation (which is a "dirty" hack in the first place, as so many things in computers) will become unnecessary.
 
I hopen the announce the new MBP in 15 days, that will help.

11thIndian said:
Yup. No longer, like when they introduced the iMac, 13"rMBP, and MacMini last October. Or when they Introduced the MacBook Air and the MacPro in June at WWDC.

Apple has been releasing spec-bump Macs like this for a decade, well before the iPhone. Unless there's a form factor change, a silent website update is the rule, not the exception. This is nothing new or telling.
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Are these any speed upgrades decent over a late 2012 2.9GHz with 8Gb, fusion drive?

To me it looks like a minor bump from my late 2012 iMac?

I've tried to compare my late 2012 top end 21.5" to the new top end 21.5" both with fusion and all I can see is graphic card bump? Is that all?

Looks to be same CPU? Same memory? Same fusion drive?
 
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