Besides ivy bridge, is anything else changing with the iMacs?

[GKDAIR]

Also, how much difference will the ivy bridge make?

I really want to get an iMac for my birthday but I know the new ones are coming out soon, my birthday is at the end of febuary. If the new iMacs are coming out in march or april I can maybe wait, but if they aren't coming until the summer then I don't wanna wait unless it really changes a whole lot.

 

[iMikeT]

CPU and GPU are probably going to be the most noticeable upgrades in the next iMac.

It would take the drop of pricing for SSDs for there to be any more significant changes to the iMac line.

As for when you can expect Apple to upgrade and ship any upgraded [2012] iMacs, it will probably be during the summer months, June through August. It is highly unlikely that Apple will upgrade any earlier than June. Honestly, you're better off buying something sooner than later at this point.

 

[redache]

To answer the performance question, Ivy Bridge will be a modest performance increase, nowhere near the increase seen between Nehalem -> Sandy Bridge!. Tom's Hardware has some alleged performance benchmarks for Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge and judging by those it's somewhere in the 5-10% region.

The only new thing that might be interesting is the Tri-Gate(3D) Transistors Intel are using for this architecture, we might see some nice power efficiency gains and higher TurboBoost clocks in the long run. This is also helped by the use of 22nm production.

GPU wise this will be the first Intel IGP with OpenCL support(good for Final Cut Pro X etc.) and support for DirectX 11 which should mean reasonable performance increases. Anandtech are expecting that the speed increase on the GPU might even be 60% which would be a nice bump .

If you have a Sandy Bridge device I probably wouldn't consider an upgrade to Ivy Bridge since it's a tick and tick's in Intel's roadmap rarely mean revolutionary performance increases. You can read a bit more about the roadmap for Ivy Bridge here, the article is probably a bit out of date but it will give you some insight into where things are moving.

Hope this helps on the technical side. As with redesign it's not likely that Apple will bother since the iMacs still sell well. We might see Optical Drives excised though which might make thinner iMacs but the overall look is kind of a dead end, there isn't much they can do to make them look 'better'.

 

[cirus]

To answer the performance question, Ivy Bridge will be a modest performance increase, nowhere near the increase seen between Nehalem -> Sandy Bridge!. Tom's Hardware has some alleged performance benchmarks for Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge and judging by those it's somewhere in the 5-10% region.

The only new thing that might be interesting is the Tri-Gate(3D) Transistors Intel are using for this architecture, we might see some nice power efficiency gains and higher TurboBoost clocks in the long run. This is also helped by the use of 22nm production.

GPU wise this will be the first Intel IGP with OpenCL support(good for Final Cut Pro X etc.) and support for DirectX 11 which should mean reasonable performance increases. Anandtech are expecting that the speed increase on the GPU might even be 60% which would be a nice bump .

If you have a Sandy Bridge device I probably wouldn't consider an upgrade to Ivy Bridge since it's a tick and tick's in Intel's roadmap rarely mean revolutionary performance increases. You can read a bit more about the roadmap for Ivy Bridge here, the article is probably a bit out of date but it will give you some insight into where things are moving.

Hope this helps on the technical side. As with redesign it's not likely that Apple will bother since the iMacs still sell well. We might see Optical Drives excised though which might make thinner iMacs but the overall look is kind of a dead end, there isn't much they can do to make them look 'better'.

The reason that the difference is so small is because intel is changing the TDP of their chips. Most chips are 95 watts (i7-2600k) at the high end. Intels high end Ivy Bridge Chips are on 77 watts (i7-3770k), using almost 20% less power. The article says 7-25% faster (looks like 15% average) which means than ivy bridge is about 35% more efficient.

Also the fact that the TDP is decreased may mean that apple could put a higher tier of chip in the imac, currently only the i7 high end BTO has a 95 watt CPU (2600k), the low end has a 2500S a 65 watt processor. If they replaced that with a standard (77 watt) processor you would see quite a large difference.

 

[B.A.T]

Bluetooth 4.0

 

[iSayuSay]

Same old same old .. I think iMac 2012 is going to be another spec bump ... no redesign, no radical changes and appearance. I think iMac current design hit the sweet spot. Look nice, sleek and no much bigger than regular 27" display. Don't fix if it ain't broken.

So yes, it's going to be a regular CPU upgrade (Ivy Bridge most likely) .. which doesnt mean much for iMac. The new iGP is not interchangeable like it could on MBP with discrete GPU.
So yeah, you can say goodbye to OpenCL support on new Intel iGP for power saving.

Another GPU upgrade, maybe Radeon 7xxxM .. or even switch back to nVidia? Wow I won't touch iMac with nVidia GPU on it, a perfect recipe for disaster.

SSD is still going to be BTO option, the cost is still not good enough for Apple to use it as standard issue. This "small SSD for OS and HDD for the rest" thing is getting old . You can keep dreaming though. Maybe it'll happen in 3 4 years? Well, see you on the other side, sir!

Bluetooth 4.0 .. yeah most likely, don't care too much though. Hardly use bluetooth on my iMac except for keyboard and trackpad. Means nothing for many of us anyway.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Hopefully USB 3.0 too.

 

[AcesHigh87]

Hopefully USB 3.0 too.

Not going to happen, you can guarantee that. Apple doesn’t want to support 3.0, they’ve made that perfectly clear. They are pushing for Thunderbolt. if they wanted USB 3.0 in their computers they would have put it in already.

 

[MatthewAMEL]

USB 3.0 is a given since Intel is building it into the Ivy Bridge chipset (Panther Point).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4377/intel-integrates-usb-30-and-thunderbolt-into-ivy-bridge-platform

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)

 

[GKDAIR]

So overall if I wanted to get an iMac like tomorrow most of you would say just go ahead?

Apple always makes newer models seem a billion times faster then then 1 year older models.

 

[macmastersam]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

So overall if I wanted to get an iMac like tomorrow most of you would say just go ahead?

Apple always makes newer models seem a billion times faster then then 1 year older models.

The iMacs are faster than the previous generation, but not a big as percentage faster as apple say it is. It's a marketing scheme set up by apple to get older iMac users to replace their iMacs and spend at least another £1000 or so depending on thier needs.

Truth is, none of us would replace our iMac generation after generation because they can do what we want it to do and we can change the RAM and HDD and SSD if we want the iMac to perform better.

 

[iMikeT]

So overall if I wanted to get an iMac like tomorrow most of you would say just go ahead?

Yup.

 

[cirus]

So far the 7xxx series (up to 7690m) have simply been rebranding of 6xxx series. Likely faster cards will use AMD's new architecture but the 7xxx series seems to have a lot of re-branding.

Note 7690m is identical to 6770m but will 100 Mhz faster memory speed

 

[theSeb]

So far the 7xxx series (up to 7690m) have simply been rebranding of 6xxx series. Likely faster cards will use AMD's new architecture but the 7xxx series seems to have a lot of re-branding.

Note 7690m is identical to 6770m but will 100 Mhz faster memory speed

Are you sure about this? Normally the previous generation desktop cards become the mobile cards once the new desktop cards become available, with a slight downclock.

In other words, the current 6XXXM series is actually similar to the current 5XXX desktop series. Therefore I am expecting the 7xxxM series to be based on today 6xxx desktop cards and much faster than the current 6xxxM.

 

[Alisha]

So overall if I wanted to get an iMac like tomorrow most of you would say just go ahead?

Apple always makes newer models seem a billion times faster then then 1 year older models.

I was waiting for the new ones to come out, but honestly...the resell value stays for these things. I figured I would go ahead and get the mid-2011 model and if the new ones come out with uber specs that I must have...take a couple hundred dollar hit and upgrade. But I may not need to and this may be all I need.

Do it!

 

[beosound3200]

Are you sure about this? Normally the previous generation desktop cards become the mobile cards once the new desktop cards become available, with a slight downclock.

In other words, the current 6XXXM series is actually similar to the current 5XXX desktop series. Therefore I am expecting the 7xxxM series to be based on today 6xxx desktop cards and much faster than the current 6xxxM.

no, next gen iMac graphic card will be 7970m (if they dont go with nvidia) which will be based on desktop 7870 (28nm, GCN) so you can expect it will be MUCH faster (30-50%) with 10 watts lower consumption, and if they put ivy bridge in it (95watts -> 77 watts) we'll have much cooler and much faster (in graphics department) machines which could solve black smudges problem, in my opinion worth the wait

so, iMac 2012 (due in april at latest, mark my words, if ivy bridge comes on april 8th, and 7970m also comes out in early Q2, it will be 340 days + from the last refresh, so long overdue, theyll probably come out 10-20 days after ivy bridge release) will have the following (100% sure):

high end model
intel ivy bridge i7-3770 (lower power consumption)
amd hd 7970m (lower power consumption, higher preformance)
4gb ram
lower priced ssd, with 512 GB optional
USB 3.0 (100%, integrated in ivy bridge, even intel says thunderbolt and usb 3 supplement each other, so no-brainer)
Bluetooth 4.0

and possibly a small redesign, but dont count on it

and also, maybe they go with nvidia (kepler, also much better performance, lower power consumption, due in april)

this is not speculation, this is a given, you can count on it, the only thing you cant count on is the redesign, mark my words

bottom line, cooler and faster (graphics) machines in april (at least), but we may be seeing big overhaul that comes out in march and starts shipping in april when ivy bridge comes out, it wouldnt be the first time

 

[iMikeT]

no, next gen iMac graphic card will be 7970m (if they dont go with nvidia) which will be based on desktop 7870 (28nm, GCN) so you can expect it will be MUCH faster (30-50%) with 10 watts lower consumption, and if they put ivy bridge in it (95watts -> 77 watts) we'll have much cooler and much faster (in graphics department) machines which could solve black smudges problem, in my opinion worth the wait

so, iMac 2012 (due in april at latest, mark my words, if ivy bridge comes on april 8th, and 7970m also comes out in early Q2, it will be 340 days + from the last refresh, so long overdue, theyll probably come out 10-20 days after ivy bridge release) will have the following (100% sure):

high end model
intel ivy bridge i7-3770 (lower power consumption)
amd hd 7970m (lower power consumption, higher preformance)
4gb ram
lower priced ssd, with 512 GB optional
USB 3.0 (100%, integrated in ivy bridge, even intel says thunderbolt and usb 3 supplement each other, so no-brainer)
Bluetooth 4.0

and possibly a small redesign, but dont count on it

and also, maybe they go with nvidia (kepler, also much better performance, lower power consumption, due in april)

this is not speculation, this is a given, you can count on it, the only thing you cant count on is the redesign, mark my words

bottom line, cooler and faster (graphics) machines in april (at least), but we may be seeing big overhaul that comes out in march and starts shipping in april when ivy bridge comes out, it wouldnt be the first time

And when the iMac line isn't upgraded with how you envision it, can we mock you for making such bold predictions?

 

[beosound3200]

And when the iMac line isn't upgraded with how you envision it, can we mock you for making such bold predictions?

definitely, we can even bet

ivy bridge, next gen gpu (amd or nvidia) usb3, lower cost ssd (probably 100 bucks lower) with 512 gb option (like mbp) and bluetooth 4 are the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM apple will do, mark my words, just use some common sense and logic, like previous upgrade - sandy bridge (which had no usb 3 support), next gen graphics, same as the 2012 one except for bluetooth 4.0 (mba, mbp) dont you think?

you really think apple will 'upgrade' imac w/o ivy bridge, or next gen gpu or redesign?

as i can see it, either they will make imac with ivy bridge/next gen gpu or they will redesign it w/o new internal components which is not very likely

 

[henrikrox]

Are you sure about this? Normally the previous generation desktop cards become the mobile cards once the new desktop cards become available, with a slight downclock.

In other words, the current 6XXXM series is actually similar to the current 5XXX desktop series. Therefore I am expecting the 7xxxM series to be based on today 6xxx desktop cards and much faster than the current 6xxxM.

You are wrong, and he is right, all the 7xxxm series mobile cards, are built on 40nm. We know nothing about high end yet i.e 7970m.

The 6970m was based on 68xx desktop card, there is more of this anandtech. And if it continues like that, the 7970 will be based on a 78xx desktop.

And not a rebranded card with 40nm.

 

[doktordoris]

Also, how much difference will the ivy bridge make?

I really want to get an iMac for my birthday but I know the new ones are coming out soon, my birthday is at the end of febuary. If the new iMacs are coming out in march or april I can maybe wait, but if they aren't coming until the summer then I don't wanna wait unless it really changes a whole lot.

I have said this several times before in threads asking the same question. If you need a new PC buy one now. If you dont, dont.

 

[theSeb]

You are wrong, and he is right, all the 7xxxm series mobile cards, are built on 40nm. We know nothing about high end yet i.e 7970m.

The 6970m was based on 68xx desktop card, there is more of this anandtech. And if it continues like that, the 7970 will be based on a 78xx desktop.

And not a rebranded card with 40nm.

Ah, right of course. I got all of that mixed up in my head. The 6970m is indeed based on the 6850.

 

[Shanea]

Will any forthcoming upgrade to the Imac increase the prices. They are £999 for the cheapest 21.5 at the moment here in the UK. Do they go up in price historically?

 

[iMikeT]

definitely, we can even bet

ivy bridge, next gen gpu (amd or nvidia) usb3, lower cost ssd (probably 100 bucks lower) with 512 gb option (like mbp) and bluetooth 4 are the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM apple will do, mark my words, just use some common sense and logic, like previous upgrade - sandy bridge (which had no usb 3 support), next gen graphics, same as the 2012 one except for bluetooth 4.0 (mba, mbp) dont you think?

you really think apple will 'upgrade' imac w/o ivy bridge, or next gen gpu or redesign?

as i can see it, either they will make imac with ivy bridge/next gen gpu or they will redesign it w/o new internal components which is not very likely

Incremental upgrades are the most Apple will put in the 2012 iMac. My predictions:

CPU = Ivy Bridge upgrade is a given
GPU = Upgrade is a given, Apple will probably use an AMD 7xxxM chip

RAM = Sticking to 4GB standard
HDD = Will probably stick to similar standard of 500GB on the low end and 1TB moving up the line
SSD = Still a BTO option as SSD prices are still too high for Apple in ship as a standard. A possibility is an SSD with HDD combo where SSD is very small in size and only for installing OS and apps, something like a 60GB SSD but the cost for that is still too high. Lower cost for a BTO SSD option, don't count on it as prices are based on market value.

Bluetooth 4.0 = Strong possibility
USB 3.0 = Medium on the possibility scale. Apple is backing Thunderbolt but may add USB 3.0 support as it's included in Ivy Bridge by default.

Redesign = Ha ha ha, yeah right. Don't count on it in any capacity. This is nothing more than wishful thinking than based in any kind of fact. I'm sure Apple is working on future iMac designs, it's just that the next upgrade will not be a redesign.

Announcement and shipping/release = Summer, no earlier than June. If anything, MacBook Pros will be the first to be upgraded and shipping with Ivy Bridge and that might be in April as soon as Ivy Bridge is shipping from Intel.

Mark your words and use some logic? Man you sure know how to make me laugh. Don't tell me that I ever need to use common sense and logic as I'm not the one who needs to make my writing a little more coherent and logical. To quote a wise man, "Check yo' self before your wreck yo' self". People and their rumors on a rumor site...

I'll take that bet. How about the loser publicly apologizes to the winner on this thread in a few months? We can start in April when you think the iMac upgrade will be released. If it doesn't release, you owe me the apology, if it does, I'll apologize to you. Deal?

----------

Will any forthcoming upgrade to the Imac increase the prices. They are £999 for the cheapest 21.5 at the moment here in the UK. Do they go up in price historically?

The next upgrade will probably be another incremental upgrade so don't expect an increase in price.

 

[beosound3200]

Incremental upgrades are the most Apple will put in the 2012 iMac. My predictions:

CPU = Ivy Bridge upgrade is a given
GPU = Upgrade is a given, Apple will probably use an AMD 7xxxM chip

RAM = Sticking to 4GB standard
HDD = Will probably stick to similar standard of 500GB on the low end and 1TB moving up the line
SSD = Still a BTO option as SSD prices are still too high for Apple in ship as a standard. A possibility is an SSD with HDD combo where SSD is very small in size and only for installing OS and apps, something like a 60GB SSD but the cost for that is still too high. Lower cost for a BTO SSD option, don't count on it as prices are based on market value.

Bluetooth 4.0 = Strong possibility
USB 3.0 = Medium on the possibility scale. Apple is backing Thunderbolt but may add USB 3.0 support as it's included in Ivy Bridge by default.

Redesign = Ha ha ha, yeah right. Don't count on it in any capacity. This is nothing more than wishful thinking than based in any kind of fact. I'm sure Apple is working on future iMac designs, it's just that the next upgrade will not be a redesign.

Announcement and shipping/release = Summer, no earlier than June. If anything, MacBook Pros will be the first to be upgraded and shipping with Ivy Bridge and that might be in April as soon as Ivy Bridge is shipping from Intel.

Mark your words and use some logic? Man you sure know how to make me laugh. Don't tell me that I ever need to use common sense and logic as I'm not the one who needs to make my writing a little more coherent and logical. To quote a wise man, "Check yo' self before your wreck yo' self". People and their rumors on a rumor site...

I'll take that bet. How about the loser publicly apologizes to the winner on this thread in a few months? We can start in April when you think the iMac upgrade will be released. If it doesn't release, you owe me the apology, if it does, I'll apologize to you. Deal?

----------




The next upgrade will probably be another incremental upgrade so don't expect an increase in price.

yeah, thats what im talking about, the deals on!

so, my prediction

ivy bridge
next gen gpu
usb 3.0 (really, no-brainer)
bluetooth 4.0 (also a no-brainer, i mean come on man, do some thinking)
due in april, maybe first half of may at the latest (375 days from the last update) - apple (and other oems) already has both ivy bridge and next gen gpu for a month now

so your logic - june - that means 400+ days between refreshes (270 average) and you think it could go up to 460+ days, not happened once in recent apple history except with mac pros because of sandy bridge E delay...

and btw why wouldnt apple release a couple of updates on the same day? happened before...

a question, what do you base your expectations on? i do a mix of a lot of reading on every possible tech news site that has credibility and some common sense and logic - which you obviously dont, hello people, intel stated usb 3 supplements thunderbolt, why wouldnt apple use it? the port is already there, and with ivy bridge implementing it natively, apple doesnt have to move a finger and that is what they have been waiting for, also usb 3 and thunderbolt dont compete each other (thunderbolt - professionals - high speed - expensive + video; usb 3 consumers - cheap - low speed = its clear as a day), jesus, some thinking, why do you think there havent been any thunderbolt to usb3 converters? and why there wont be any? and i read here all the time, how is apple backing up thunderbolt? by not implementing usb 3? look at it this way: when they were designing first mpb with thunderbolt, they took a look on intels plans and saw that next year ivy bridge will be implementing usb 3 natively, so they thought why the heck would we want to implement usb 3 with some 3rd party chip when next years it comes with cpu, a perfect decision from an engineers standpoint, dont you think? the same thing with hdmi, why would you want 2 ports (video + data) when you can have one port - thunderbolt (video AND data), those things are clear as a day, and yet some people just refuse to use their brain, like the following statement:

you say bluetooth 4.0 is a strong possibility? you lost all the credibility with this statement... a no-brainer? it appears theres no brain (not as an organ, rather as an intellect), or no usage of it whatsoever
so every mac that has been updated in the past few months (by that, i mean macbook air and mac mini, the 'real' updates, not mbp 6770m and faster cpus as bto) HAVE bluetooth 4.0 and the bluetooth integration in iMac 2012 is a strong possibility? not a given? sorry i just cant get it out of my head
maybe if it was only macbook air, you could then think that only laptops are getting it, but with minis too...

there is a lot more to say, but time tells the best

and yeah, do you even know what coherent means?

 

[thekev]

CPU and GPU are probably going to be the most noticeable upgrades in the next iMac.

It would take the drop of pricing for SSDs for there to be any more significant changes to the iMac line.

As for when you can expect Apple to upgrade and ship any upgraded [2012] iMacs, it will probably be during the summer months, June through August. It is highly unlikely that Apple will upgrade any earlier than June. Honestly, you're better off buying something sooner than later at this point.

This wouldn't surprise me. The mini launched around that time last year. May has been the early end in terms of Apple releases, but I don't think we'll see it that early this round especially with anticipated launch dates. Also I don't expect a redesign of the machine in the near future. They can't really go any thinner for now. You could see a display panel update if anything is available, but I can't recall any major advancements for LG in their IPS lines.

I think a lot of the previous user base of the imac is probably going toward the macbook pro/air these days. When we have laptops that run silent with higher capacity SSDs standard, it will look even less appealing. Higher screen resolution options are going to pop up for the macbook pros if Apple chooses to implement them, but there aren't any real next generation 27" panels expected for at least a couple more years. It'll probably be 2014-2016 before we see any major pixel density bumps. This isn't really Apple's choice either. It's a matter of what is out there.

Not going to happen, you can guarantee that. Apple doesn’t want to support 3.0, they’ve made that perfectly clear. They are pushing for Thunderbolt. if they wanted USB 3.0 in their computers they would have put it in already.

Were you aware that Intel is basically bundling it for them in their chipsets this round? This means that Apple would actually have to go out of their way not to support it. I'm not sure why the animosity toward usb3 anyway. Thunderbolt is not a direct replacement, especially in its infancy. The manufacturing involved is of greater complexity, and it's really lacking in terms of available accessories.