Apple's New iMacs Up to 20% Faster Than Previous Models in Geekbench Testing

[colourfastt]

Greed is not good. FACT.

Gordon Gecko would disagree.

 

[AtheistP3ace]

Not bad at all. Man I want a skylake rMBP!!!

 

[840quadra]

If I were to buy the 4k iMac, I'm already on the hook for 1,500 and I have to add 500 bucks for a decent sized SSD, pushing the computer in the 2k range and I still have no dGPU option? Yes, people can configure the components to improve the performance but that does drive the price up.

You are one of the first to touch on the true problem with this device. As opposed to focusing on the 5400 RPM drive, you bring up some of the real concerns with this product.

To me, the only thing the Retina 4K iMac looks good against, is it's crippled sibling, the top (and mid spec) Mac Mini. While you can buy a Mac Mini, and get a decent 3rd party 4K display for a similar price as the iMac, you are stuck with dual core processors, and the similarly limited RAM options.

Not bad at all. Man I want a skylake rMBP!!!

Honestly at this point I am hoping they skip right to Kaby Lake.

 

[MrGimper]

When I look at the photo, the only thing I see is that new keyboard and trackpad......me want!

Me got. Magic keyboard 2, mouse 2 and trackpad 2 delivered today (birthday gift to myself). V nice.

 

[fastlanephil]

we need a six core iMac before we see a real improvement

Don't hold your breath with Apple's thin design trend.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

I agree with many concerns shared here.
Apple has become infatuated with profits and are sacrificing quality at an alarming rate, whilst simultaneously pushing up the costs of upgrades, in a non upgradeable system. This reeks of greed
Furthermore, I still do not understand why they left out the alpine ridge controller giving us TB3, and the abscence of usb 3.1!

Apple seem to despise their long term (semi) prosumers, whom helped cultivate the cult of mac into the largest tech company on the planet. Our thanks - a middle finger from Tim Cook and super slim edges by Ives.

When will Ive's fat shaming hatred end, the rImacs are slim enough, please give us desktop components that are upto-date.

 

[Smeaton1724]

You are one of the first to touch on the true problem with this device. As opposed to focusing on the 5400 RPM drive, you bring up some of the real concerns with this product.

To me, the only thing the Retina 4K iMac looks good against, is it's crippled sibling, the top (and mid spec) Mac Mini. While you can buy a Mac Mini, and get a decent 3rd party 4K display for a similar price as the iMac, you are stuck with dual core processors, and the similarly limited RAM options.

Unless you pick up a 2012 Refurbished Mac Mini Quad Core, in the UK Apple do have them up occasionally. Although now they are very weak for graphics in terms of processor these iMacs just beat it. I had one and sold it, bad decision in hindsight!!

 

[OC40]

Hmm. I'll be using my new 5k mostly for photo editing in LR and Photoshop. Some 4k video stuff here and there. I opted for 16gb ram and SSD, but was torn on whether to choose the 395x 4GB graphics upgrade or the i7. I ended up going with the bigger graphics card, thinking the i5 3.3 would be plenty fast. Wondering if I should have done the other way around?

In addition to video editing here and there, I just couldn't help but assume the bigger graphics card would help push all those pixels around. I'd hate to see laggy UI anywhere.

For everyday use, do you believe that the M390 with 2G will be sufficient?

 

[Thunderhawks]

"Hard drive sucks". Yes it does. So upgrade it to an SSD when you buy one. It's not THAT much.

i have a 2008 MBP 17" which despite putting in a 1 TB hard drive couldn't handle what I do.

So, eventually I put in a 512 SSD from OWC , took out the Superdrive and used the "spare" HD in that bay.

It was like getting a new MBP.

For Apple which abandons old technologies as fast as possible to still put in "spinners" is pretty embarrassing.

Yes, we get it: money decides, but at the quantities they buy it can't be that much more to charge consumers
for an all SSD only line.

 

[pat500000]

Gordon Gecko would disagree.

I don't care what Gordon thinks. FACT.

 

[citysnaps]

Meanwhile, the standard 5400RPM hard drive is exactly 0% faster than the one in an 1999 iMac.

Is someone pointing a gun to your head demanding you go with the base drive? You should call the police!

 

[pat500000]

Other than clock speed, i7 only exhibits improved performance running programs that can take advantage of hyper-threading. Most people will never really take advantage of this.

Video editing?

 

[69Mustang]

Oh my, I think we agree

Apple really should be pushing us towards SSDs. They did this with the iphone, and finally killed the ipod classic. They are doing that with the ipads. They are doing that with the Mac Air and MacBook. None of these even have a hard drive option. I would have expected them to start pushing SSD further up their line, but it seems they have taken a step back. Maybe temporary in order to get the 4k out, but they really do need to get back to the march for SSD.

We agree? Oh hell no! I change my mind about what I said. 5400 rpm platters are just fine.

Seriously, I vote with my wallet. If I liked AIO's, which I don't, that hard drive would be unacceptable to me at that starting price point. I've been waiting for 2 years for an acceptable mac mini. Reality is setting in that it's never going to happen, so I've started looking at NUC's. SSD's? 100% agree (what the hell is wrong with me). At a minimum, fusion drive should be offered.

 

[Kissaragi]

Just wish there were an option for a desktop GPU in the 27 inch. I wonder how much thicker the chassis would have to be to use desktop spec cards.

 

[Soccertess]

Our thanks - a middle finger from Tim Cook and super slim edges by Ives.

.

That is Tim for you... He needs to step down.

 

[mabaker]

Meanwhile, the standard 5400RPM hard drive is exactly 0% faster than the one in an 1999 iMac.

That is not true. It's surely about 600% faster than the one from 1999.

 

[scott911]

I'm starting to think windows 10 isn't all that bad. It lets me launch my applications. done.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

Only a very small percentage (like single digit or less) will ever upgrade their RAM or hard drive. So if you can save a couple cents by not having to pay for the slot used with removable RAM and can cut down tech issues (RAM can loosen in the slots causing problems), then why not.

People here need to stop assuming their own use is the norm. Normal people don't take to the internet to discuss technical capabilities of computers. They just buy a computer with the options they need and use it. They don't care about how fast the processor is or how much RAM it has as long as they can check Facebook, send email, and maybe do some word processing when required. If you're on this forum, you make up a very small percentage of the non-normal user. Apple didn't make the iMac for you. They made it for the other 99% that buy a machine and use it as-is without ever having a need to upgrade a thing. If they need more hard drive space, they buy an external rather than complain that the internal options are too expensive/limited.

How do you know this, have you conducted a planetary census to painfully document and record this, or are these your assertions?
I agree with your assertions for the base models and laptops. For higher models, such as the rmbp and rImacs, these most like represent pro-sumers, that often frequent forums like these, and I bet they represent more than 1% of the top tier pro products.

The original iMac was $1200 US and that was 17 years ago. Adjusted for inflation it would be $1,754.47. So this isn't a bad deal.

Do you really believe this
There are so many other covariates. Like the cost of core components, changes in market conditions, usage of Pcs in general, especially desktops, the exponential decrease in manufacturing costs with an exponential growth in ram, storage, although CPUs and house seem to have stagnated recently.

Having just completed some upgrade work on my 2002 G4 Powermac, I am saddened to see yet an other Apple system go to soldered memory.





There are plenty of great responses on this subject within this discussion already. In addition to those, you also need to remember that modern software is 64Bit, (can address 4gb and more memory), and is capable of swapping vast amounts of memory with the processor without touching (much slower) disks. Additionally, Each processor core requires a slice of the available memory to function, as well as any active hyper thread (consider it a virtual processor).

Software is also much more complex, and is designed to run more from active memory than previous versions (to some extent).


It's before our time, but people used to pay MUCH more than that for 1MB of Memory, back in the early computer days. One of the reasons the 1st macintosh had only 128kb of memory.

We really have it easy now!

This is a temporal fallacy, one generation will always complain that they had it harder than the previous, even when standardised for rate events like disasters and war.

For everyday use, do you believe that the M390 with 2G will be sufficient?

Yes it should be, if not you not using it properly

 

[JustMichal]

Why do people take Geekbench seriously ? For arm cpus it might make some sense since we don't have any decent alternative bot for big os x computers real world benchmarks would be much better.

 

[vetruvian]

Video editing?

Most people, say maybe 70-80% don't edit video. And those that do will most certainly pickup a 27" and pay for the $250 i7 upgrade.

 

[OC40]

Yes it should be, if not you not using it properly

Lol.

 

[doelcm82]

I am looking forward to the release of the new TV to see what 1st world issue plagues our forums with that device.

Well, to start:

• it's not 4K, and
• developers have to make their games compatible with the Siri remote, and can't make FPS games where you run, strafe, crouch, and toggle the invisibility cloak at the same time because there aren't enough physical buttons.

(Won't stop me from getting one, though.)

 

[840quadra]

This is a temporal fallacy, one generation will always complain that they had it harder than the previous, even when standardised for rate events like disasters and war.

What does that have to do with the overall decline in RAM prices over the years?

 

[macs4nw]

I am not in favor of 5400 hard drives, whenever I could, I would use 7200 hard drives.
However, the story of 5400 is not as straightforward as it seems, I think.
In 1999, disk cache was probably 2 mb, RAM was 64-128 mb, so disk caching was very, very heavy and performance was not optimal. They were also ATA hard drives.

Yes, now we still have 5400 disks, but they have much larger cache (8-64mb), SATA controllers, and have excellent reviews like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...re=hard_drive_5400_1TB-_-22-236-221-_-Product

So I wouldn't fixate much on RPM only. With much larger RAM (8GB standard), you don't have to use disk drive that much as before. I have OS X on my SSD drive and a reserve installation on usual hard drive 1TB (Seagate), and under normal use, except boot times, difference is not like that much.

Although somewhat disappointing, those 5400RPM drives on the non-BTO 21" iMacs is obviously purely a money-saving (or profit-preserving depending on your outlook) move by Apple.

Had they included faster drives and raised prices somewhat, people would have complained about those higher prices. Apple likely knows or believes that for the people buying those basic non-upgraded units, these 5400 drives are not too objectionable. Heavier users would obviously upgrade and pay the difference.

 

[melendezest]

I think it is much more about the way they sell this weak hardware. When Phil Schiller states in the press release that "the spirit of iMac has never wavered — deliver the ultimate desktop experience with the latest technologies, gorgeous displays and cutting-edge designs", this might be true for the display as well as for the design, although the thick bezel and the overall appearance of the body hasn't changed much since 2009, which is an eternity in the digital world, but I think it is a blatant lie.
They ship only the 27" iMac with the latest Skylake CPUs, use no DDR4, use no Thunderbolt 3, no USB C, no dedicated GPU option on the 21,5" iMac... THAT would be the latest technology, Phil! Instead they still ship the entry options with outdated HDDs, just to push the consumers to Fusion Drives, where they shrunk the Flash memory down from 128 GB to 24 GB to maximize profit. Why don't they include a 250 GB or 500 GB SSD in the base model? I think it is because then, they couldn't charge $200 or $500 for it (fun fact: the rMBP can get a 1 TB SSD for $500 more). It is really a shame to take this computer and to put the vision behind it on the same level of the first iMac.
It may sound harsh, but this is pure greed showing that there is no intent to give their customers the best hardware. They chose to satisfy their Stakeholders, not their customers. In the short term, they may succeed, but in the long term, I am deeply worried about the company that I really admire.

This X1000.

Welcome to the "new" Apple. They used to be the best value in the industry. Not anymore.

Still holding on to my 17" and 15" cMBPs and my 2011 iMac, until 2TB+ SSDs become both pervasive and (relatively) inexpensive.

Apple just keeps pushing customers harder and harder into the yearly upgrade path by crippling their machines on purpose.

I refuse to buy an appliance as my main (or even secondary) computer, even if it means leaving Apple altogether (although I don't want to).