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Brushed Aluminum iMac at WWDC?

Wait for speed bump or new design?

REALLY (!) hoped for a new iMac design. I'm an about-to-be Windows-switcher, and now I'm wondering: Do I wait for a speed bump of the current iMacs, or do I wait for a complete design overhaul?

I'm gonna pull my hair out if I buy the current iMac, and the new one comes out in October with "striking new industrial design". On the other hand, my PC (although not that old) is breaking down on me.

What do you guys reckon? A speed bump this month, and new design around October? Any other insights?
 
Wild-Bill said:
Well since they decided to highlight the fact that more video games are coming to the Mac, they may want to UPDATE THE FRIGGIN' VIDEO CARDS IN THE MAC PRO !!!!:mad:
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Preach it brother!! They need to update EVERY video card - they all SUCK!! They aren't even that expensive... seriously, when i bought my iMac G5 they stuck in a turd ati X600 in a £1000 machine. Seriously, where is the sense in that? You could buy a PC card for £30 with the same performance.

The iMac needs a decent video card - it doesn't have to be an 8800 GTS or whatever, just something better than the ones you find in the bargain basement section of PC World.

With the games announcement we should hopefully see some meat on the iMac's bones.
 
ritzuk said:
The iMac needs a decent video card - it doesn't have to be an 8800 GTS or whatever, just something better than the ones you find in the bargain basement section of PC World.
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As long as they make it an upgrade option I'm fine with it.
Powerful GPUs generate more heat, and more heat means more hot air to push out of the box, and suddenly your imac might not be that pleasently silent anymore.
I'll take a silent, low energy computer any day over a powerfull gaming rig. But if a combination is possible, I'm all for it ;)
 
Wild-Bill said:
Well since they decided to highlight the fact that more video games are coming to the Mac, they may want to UPDATE THE FRIGGIN' VIDEO CARDS IN THE MAC PRO !!!!:mad:
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~45 days until intel drops the prices on the quad core xeons to around the same price points the duals currently are. You'll see an all 8-core update around then.
 
aswitcher said:
I wonder if the high end iMac will get an 8 core...
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No. The high end iMac will get a dual core as it is made of laptop parts aside from the hard drive. The 5000x and twin quad-core xeons would be much too large and produce too much heat for the iMac to handle. It would probably have a hard time with regular desktop components let alone workstation components.
 
When again...?

basbr said:
What do you guys reckon? A speed bump this month, and new design around October? Any other insights?
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I know that all of this is mere speculation... but do we have any historical data from Apple in the past that would key us in on when an update/redesign should be expected?

October is, of course, a rather obvious conclusion. Just wondering if there was anything else we could pull from?
 
basbr said:
REALLY (!) hoped for a new iMac design. I'm an about-to-be Windows-switcher, and now I'm wondering: Do I wait for a speed bump of the current iMacs, or do I wait for a complete design overhaul?

I'm gonna pull my hair out if I buy the current iMac, and the new one comes out in October with "striking new industrial design". On the other hand, my PC (although not that old) is breaking down on me.

What do you guys reckon? A speed bump this month, and new design around October? Any other insights?
Click to expand...


I am in the same boat as you but my Dell Latitude D820 is fine right now. It's looking more and more like October and I won't wait that long. If the new iMac's don't come out this month I will build my own pc with Vista so I can get the kids off my laptop.:mad:
 
if imacs are gonna be made out of Al, kinda makes me wonder what will MBPs and MPs be made out of.
 
Two of my friends have been burned by the iMac purchase right before a new design/upgrade. It makes me very nervous.

Count me in as a person just waiting for a new iMac design (while I hand crank my old powerbook). Guess I can limp along until October, but I hope it is no later than that.
 
New Imac

I don't think we're gonna see a new Imac design till next year or later. Leopard was presented with the current style in keynote. I think that's a hint that they are not introducing big changes in a while. I got the iMac 24 a few weeks ago, because my work depends on my computer and I couldn't afford to wait. I had a Imac G4 800mhz that made more than 20 times it worth doing all kinds of jobs. So I didn't thought about it when I had to decide to wait or not for a new release. Every month that I wait I could be losing money. The current design is amazing, I totally love it. If you need a machine just buy one today, you wont regreat it.
 
jpirizarry said:
I don't think we're gonna see a new Imac design till next year or later. Leopard was presented with the current style in keynote. I think that's a hint that they are not introducing big changes in a while. I got the iMac 24 a few weeks ago, because my work depends on my computer and I couldn't afford to wait. I had a Imac G4 800mhz that made more than 20 times it worth doing all kinds of jobs. So I didn't thought about it when I had to decide to wait or not for a new release. Every month that I wait I could be losing money. The current design is amazing, I totally love it. If you need a machine just buy one today, you wont regreat it.
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This a good review but I am commited on the wait. Have been for about 4 months now and am getting sour. My gut says don't buy a iMac now and I always try to listen to my gut instinct. When I don't I later wish I had. I can build a "cool" windows machine that my children will just love for much less then current 20" iMac so that's why I am leaning that way.
 
basbr said:
What do you guys reckon? A speed bump this month, and new design around October? Any other insights?
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That's my thinking. I think we'll see a Santa Rosa upgrade in the next few weeks and a case design later this year.

I'll probably pick it up after the speed bump.
 
Apple seemed quite ready to integrate the iMac into several pages in its new website. Looks like the design's with us for a little longer. :/
 
~Shard~ said:
Webpages can be changed with little difficulty these days... :p ;)
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What's the point in making images for 2/3 weeks and having to update them instead of using ACDs? :)
I'm just being a little pesimisstic.
 
jpirizarry said:
If you need a machine just buy one today, you wont regreat it.
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that's what i did.

Even though I think the iMac will be updated in the next 3 months or so, I am/was happy with the current design, specs, and price. Remember its not like your computer bursts into flames as soon as apple updates specs/design. You still have a nice computer regardless.
 
You'd better be wrong!!

jpirizarry said:
I don't think we're gonna see a new Imac design till next year or later. Leopard was presented with the current style in keynote. I think that's a hint that they are not introducing big changes in a while. I got the iMac 24 a few weeks ago, because my work depends on my computer and I couldn't afford to wait. I had a Imac G4 800mhz that made more than 20 times it worth doing all kinds of jobs. So I didn't thought about it when I had to decide to wait or not for a new release. Every month that I wait I could be losing money. The current design is amazing, I totally love it. If you need a machine just buy one today, you wont regreat it.
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The iMac has been 10 months without a revision and you think it may go another 7 or 8 months? A €1500 2.16 C2D in say Feb 08? I'll be in an insaine asylum by then. Come on Apple! For F**ks sake.... get the iMac out and into the shops. It's bad enough to be shackled to a mobile processor but this waiting around is ridiculous. Anf for what? In all probability it will be just up to 2.33 GHz! Please prove me wrong. And to all of you who say "Buy now" my answer is I need all the power/price reductions I can get. We in Europe pay too much for our machines and not everyone has Octo or even quad sized pockets.
 
Henri Gaudier said:
The iMac has been 10 months without a revision and you think it may go another 7 or 8 months? A €1500 2.16 C2D in say Feb 08? I'll be in an insaine asylum by then. Come on Apple! For F**ks sake.... get the iMac out and into the shops. It's bad enough to be shackled to a mobile processor but this waiting around is ridiculous. Anf for what? In all probability it will be just up to 2.33 GHz! Please prove me wrong. And to all of you who say "Buy now" my answer is I need all the power/price reductions I can get. We in Europe pay too much for our machines and not everyone has Octo or even quad sized pockets.
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There's really nothing wrong with the processors - they're in the same league with the rest of the Core family, just lower power and more expensive. The problem is the video card. The x1600, while it does have its positives, is old news. I could really care less whether there's a redesign or not - I just want the upgraded graphics spec on the 20-inch model, at least to that of the 24" 7600, if not more.
 
Henri Gaudier said:
It's bad enough to be shackled to a mobile processor but this waiting around is ridiculous.
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Bad enough? I love the fact that they use laptop hardware for the iMacs. I'd rather have a slim and quiet computer than a big noisy speed monster.
The iMac 24" is plenty fast for most things. If you need anything speedier there are other alternatives.

I agree however that the performance and price doesn't match that well nowdays. They either need to upgrade the hardware or lower the prices real soon now.
 
If the 24" was upgraded to 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD and 6700 GT at the same price then I'd probably buy it without the redesign. Even though I'm not very fond of the current look.
 
Re the Mobile processor. How much bigger would it have to be? Perhaps a hidden "bum" at the rear? I don't know. I just feel there is too great a discrepancy between the lines. You know .. 4 x 2.33 or 4 x 3.0 or even 8 x 3.0 but at the other end it's just 2 x 2. On top of that, it's a year old. Which in computer years is a long time. If it was possible to get the other chips in with a little rear engineering - I'd jump at it. C2D @ 2.9Ghz .. yes please!

As for the video - I'm okay with that but it's not a concern. Doing music I want something nice and cheap with as much oommmph as possible.
 
Henri Gaudier said:
Re the Mobile processor. How much bigger would it have to be? Perhaps a hidden "bum" at the rear? I don't know. I just feel there is too great a discrepancy between the lines. You know .. 4 x 2.33 or 4 x 3.0 or even 8 x 3.0 but at the other end it's just 2 x 2. On top of that, it's a year old. Which in computer years is a long time. If it was possible to get the other chips in with a little rear engineering - I'd jump at it. C2D @ 2.9Ghz .. yes please!

As for the video - I'm okay with that but it's not a concern. Doing music I want something nice and cheap with as much oommmph as possible.
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It would take another inch at least to use desktop parts. Then again, they could rectify the situation with an actual desktop.
 
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