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Apple's New Retina iMacs Offer Slight Performance Boost Over Non-Retina iMacs

pscl said:
hmm are you sure?

i mean... if you play in 1080p on a 1440p screen it looks really bad and blurry.

i guess its the same with 1440p on a 2880p screen. maybe the ppi will make things better but overall i think the new imac will struggle hard.
Click to expand...

You are guessing wrong.

The problem is that 1080p display doesn't fit into 1440p pixels. Three pixels are displayed in four pixels. It doesn't match. That's why it looks blurry.

With 1440 x 2880, you have one pixel matching two pixels _exactly_. The image is exactly the same as on a 1440p display.
 
wigby said:
There's a reason Apple spent so much time detailing their custom timing chips for the 5k display. There should be no issues in this rev.
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It's marketing, not cold hard facts.

"Timing controller" means nothing until hands-on usage proves how effective it really is.
 
pscl said:
ridiculous.

the new imac is so useless. now its not even possible to play games with the highest specced imac. simple impossible to play native.

despite the fact that all slimmed down imac displays are yellowish and have very serious ghosting.
Click to expand...

I hope you bought a car that you can drive at its top speed without exceeding the speed limit.

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Peace said:
Am I missing something ? Why is there no Core i7 2014 iMac's listed ?

You are comparing Core i7 to core i5.
Click to expand...

Two explanations: (a) Too expensive to buy. (b) Doesn't demonstrate that older Macs are faster.
 
I need to see i7 vs i7 as well as 2GB/4GB NVIDIA GPU vs AMD GPU.
If the 4.0Ghz i7 isn't a barn blower compared to the 3.5 i7 then I am just going to to pick up last year's model on the refurb shop.

I don't give a **** about Retina, I only care about the processor and GPU horsepower.
 
So what is Apple saying here?
If you want a beautiful screen here it is but you are going to pay for it in performance???
I don't get it.
 
Serban said:
Maybe the 21.5" will be the next 4k 24" in the imac lineup

i really think next year we will have imac with 4k and 5k displays
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That'd be nice. I'd love a 24". Had two Apple 23" CCFL LCD's, from 2004-2009. Replaced them as one started burn-in, couldn't get another, needed same size dual displays so got two 24" LED LCD's. Three years of bad panels, power supplies, etc., Apple replaced them with two new 27" LED LCD's and free AppleCare (one of the reasons I stick with Apple, at least they backup what they sell and AppleCare service is stellar).

I liked the dual 24" better, my dual 27" displays can be too much sometimes.

Serious question: Why doesn't Apple make a full display lineup instead of reusing their larger iMac LED LCD panels? Pro's swore by their CCFL LCD line. They required little calibration, were anti-glare w/ great pixel density, superb quality and aesthetics. I know first hand Apple profited well. Jobs obsessed over the iPad around then, resulting in the iPhone first in '07, then iPad '10. His "post-PC era" prediction seems to slightly off based on recent sales across markets. Desktops, notebooks and tablets all have their own place. The new Mac Pro was heavily marketed as a 4K device, this seemed the perfect time for Apple to win back that market, pushing sales further with a full display line. The naysayer's on a "niche" market have proven off mark as Mac Pro sales are much better than expected, and would be even higher if Apple catered fully with displays again.

Thoughts? I know many pro's (and prosumers) who want an Apple display and have the money. Apple certainly could afford a new production line, follow a similar market drive as before: 21.5" for Mac Mini owners, 24" and 27" for prosumers and professionals. Trust me, they'd sell. If Apple can make an all-in-one 5K iMac, I can't imagine a 4K display costing near the Sharp listed on Apple's site at $3595.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
Won't happen for a few years. There's no standard cable right now capable of carrying that much bandwidth. Dell's 5K externals require you to plug in multiple cables simultaneously (so it's kind of like they took two external screens and put them in a single case.) I wouldn't expect Apple to be willing to make a compromise like that.

Apple could try making their own non-standard cable, but because of the low volume of them they would make, it would be an expensive cable. And the port on the Macs would be expensive because it wouldn't be used other than for Apple. And the port on the monitor would be expensive, too. So making your own non-standard cable when you're a small player isn't a good choice. Apple can do it with iOS because their iOS devices are so popular. Not so when you get into their headless computers.
Click to expand...

Actually, the DisplayPort 1.3 standard was released this September and devices supporting it should start trickling out sometime early in 2015. ¹

The main barrier to an Apple display is their commitment to Thunderbolt, which won't have support for DP1.3 until Skylake which is at least a year out. Apple won't revert to Mini Displayport on their Macs to support the additional res, and they won't ship a display which their Macs can't use to the fullest.
 
pscl said:
ridiculous.

the new imac is so useless. now its not even possible to play games with the highest specced imac. simple impossible to play native.

despite the fact that all slimmed down imac displays are yellowish and have very serious ghosting.
Click to expand...

Um, is there any system that allows you to play games native at that resolution?
 
bedifferent said:
Thoughts? I know many pro's (and prosumers) who want an Apple display and have the money. Apple certainly could afford a new production line, follow a similar market drive as before: 21.5" for Mac Mini owners, 24" and 27" for prosumers and professionals. Trust me, they'd sell. If Apple can make an all-in-one 5K iMac, I can't imagine a 4K display costing near the Sharp listed on Apple's site at $3595.
Click to expand...

They should keep it to two sizes, a 24" 4K and a 30" Widescreen, whose top sites flush with the iMacs, because WHY ON EARTH WOULDN'T IT???
 
pscl said:
hmm are you sure?

i mean... if you play in 1080p on a 1440p screen it looks really bad and blurry.

i guess its the same with 1440p on a 2880p screen. maybe the ppi will make things better but overall i think the new imac will struggle hard.
Click to expand...

It's not the same, the ppi makes scaling better but theres a much simpler reason, at least when it comes to 1440p on a 2880p screen compared to 1080p on a 1440p screen.

When you play a game at 1080p (1920x1080) on a 1440p (2560x1440) screen the game is scaled so that every pixel in game takes up ~1,78 native pixels, and since that's not a perfect fit, you can get a blurry image.

But, play a game at 1440p (2560x1440) on a 2880p (5120x2880) screen and the game is scaled to take up exactly... 4 native pixels, perfect fit, no blur.
 
wigby said:
As if it's possible to play native 5k games on the world's fastest PC? Seriously, who buys an iMac for games? You buy a Mac to work or create. When you're done with work for the day, you then pop in a game for some fun. You don't build or buy an expensive PC around games unless you're planning to deal with a Windows, GPU upgrades and driver updates.
Click to expand...

I buy a Mac for everything, games included. But I'm okay with playing at lower graphics than other people. 20 FPS at 1280 x 800 is just fine for me when I'm playing a game or watching a movie.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I buy a Mac for everything, games included. But I'm okay with playing at lower performance than other people. 20 FPS at 1280 x 800.
Click to expand...

Yup, I will be playing games on my iMac... I don't buy it for games, I buy it as an all around machine which can play games. I did buy the upgraded gpu though and cpu because those are what will age a system in terms of gaming the fastest (specifically gpu).
 
gnasher729 said:
You are guessing wrong.

The problem is that 1080p display doesn't fit into 1440p pixels. Three pixels are displayed in four pixels. It doesn't match. That's why it looks blurry.

With 1440 x 2880, you have one pixel matching two pixels _exactly_. The image is exactly the same as on a 1440p display.
Click to expand...

Weird, I've played a variety of games at different resolutions on my rMBP and they have never looked blurry to me.
 
Plan on just getting a 4k Tv for around $400 and attaching that to my current imac.

Anyone done the same and if so what are some good ones to look at?
 
These are the most recent consumer-grade CPUs that Intel has to offer. They're fine. Progress will be made every year. You could wait until the end of your life, and you'll still not have a perfect computer. If you want a 5K Mac today, this is the only option. If you want to play state-of-the-art games, build a gaming PC for $1000 and run it at 1080p, with a desktop-grade video card.

There's currently no MacBook that could drive a 5K display. Even if Thunderbolt had the bandwidth, Intel graphics is not optimal for that. As an external display, we would be better off with 4K for the time being.
 
teslo said:
games. lol

call me when work professionals give a crap
Click to expand...

Work professionals use iMacs ....... Lol.... Heard of the mac pros? Or did you buy an iMac therefore it's a professional machine all the sudden lol...

Mate, the iMac is an all purpose machine . Your fooling yourself if you believe it's for professionals.

Seriously why would those idiots buy mac pros eh.... :p
 
johnnyjibbs said:
Never mind those benchmarks, what about the graphics performance? I noticed there were no benchmarks on speed in the keynote which suggests it could lag quite a bit. Four times the pixels but only 45% more graphics power?
Click to expand...

The M290X/M295X GPU is OpenCL and apps like FCPX/Premier Pro will be doing all their rendering on the GPU - as in it will be a nice fast video editing machine even at 5K (specced up with decent amount of RAM and SSD).

You aren't going to be playing the latest games at 60fps at 5K, not even 4K. Especially not on one mobile version of this GPU. See this really detailed article on Kotaku using two DESKTOP R9 290X's in SLI ($1400 value) to achieve 60fps at 4K across a range of games:
http://kotaku.com/i-built-a-4k-ultra-hd-gaming-pc-and-i-love-it-1564135136

Playing games at 1080p/1440p on this Retina iMac will look great though, it is still going to be a great display to play games on, and crisp 5K when doing other stuff.

Of course, this is the main reason you wouldn't buy this if you plan to play games a lot. It isn't capable of playing demanding games at 5K, you can't upgrade it, you are paying for a 5K screen you're not using. If you want a Mac to play games on you really should wait until a refresh of the GPU's to something like this 295X or above in whatever model you choose.
 
gnasher729 said:
I hope you bought a car that you can drive at its top speed without exceeding the speed limit.
Click to expand...

That has to be the worst analogy when describing a GPUs ability to drive a display at native resolutions.
 
leenak said:
Weird, I've played a variety of games at different resolutions on my rMBP and they have never looked blurry to me.
Click to expand...
One reason might be that there's simply much more pixels on a retina Mac so the scaling is harder to notice (like on the iPhone 6 plus)

To take the example of 1080p on a iMac vs 1080p on a retina iMac

1080p on 1440p = ~1,78 native pixels per "game pixel"
1080p on 2880p = ~7,11 native pixels per "game pixel"

1080p doesn't scale perfect on any iMac but thats a huge difference in pixels.
 
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