Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I think we will see a retina Thunderbolt Display with the Mac Pro before it comes to the imac in the generation after Haswell, but that's just my gut feeling reading Mac news all the time. A retina display imac would get me to upgrade my late 2012 imac, which I love. I don't use wifi so a wifi bump wouldn't matter to me, if you use wifi, it might be of interest to you to wait...but the wait might be 1-2 quarters and at that point you might wanna take a look at the Mac Pro and retina display. The next imac will also have a faster SSD, and maybe better SSD options. In reality, the current SSD is as fast as you need, you will have a tough time saturating it. So if you want an imac, buy today's...it's awesome. If your not in a rush, wait..and see. I waited almost 2 years and am very happy I did because I wanted usb3

A retina display is my primary reason to hold out, using my macbook retina daily there is less strain on eyes as the text is less pixelated. A 27" Imac retina would look spectacular, it would be hard to imagine how my pictures, movies and games would look on anything above 3,000 resolution, it would put the current iMacs display to shame.
 
Last edited:
I'm sorry guys, but i don't think that there'll be a Retina iMac this year. Or the next :( Thats what the Mac Pro is for, running 4k res (around the res of a retina iMac). Apple won't release something that will detract from their Mac Pro sales, or vice versa with iMac... If that makes much sense? Unless theres no news of a refresh in the next two days, i'm going to buy and build a gaming computer on Monday. And use either a 13" or 15" rMBP for all my OSX needs. Thoughts?
 
I'm sorry guys, but i don't think that there'll be a Retina iMac this year. Or the next :( Thats what the Mac Pro is for, running 4k res (around the res of a retina iMac). Apple won't release something that will detract from their Mac Pro sales, or vice versa with iMac... If that makes much sense? Unless theres no news of a refresh in the next two days, i'm going to buy and build a gaming computer on Monday. And use either a 13" or 15" rMBP for all my OSX needs. Thoughts?

i would get the 13" macbook to save money and space. Seeing you are buying a gaming rig, I take it you are not going to do gaming on the macbook. So a base macbook 13" retina will work great for surfing the net, word processing emailing etc.
 
My maxed out 27in came in yesterday, pretty happy with it so far. The 680mx could be a little better but for a Mac it is great.
 
For the people who are not able to think rationally, a 4k display with the current price tag of an imac 27" is not going to happen before the end of 2014!
Believe it or not! When the new Thunderbolt display goes with an 27" or higher 4k display, the price will raise for at least 300$, probably more!
Its easy, look it up...
My girlfriend owns the latest MBA and mine is from 2011. So in real life performace there is no real difference between a SSD which writes and reads about 200mb/s and a PCI based SSD with 800mb/s. The boot time is almost the same! So when you dont want to wait 10sec or even a full minute longer, wait. To the rest, dont waste youre time.
Wifi ac, better signal strength, more performance. But when you dont need more than 20mb/s download speed or your house is wired and you can use the ethernet port, its not worth the waiting.
The Haswell CPU either. Performace boost 8%. WOWwwwww.
A little example for our gamers, maybe the 780MX is 20% faster than the 680MX...So when you play a game with 20fps which isnt much, then you have a brand new 780MX which performs the same game with 24fps. Maybe something lighted up above your head.....

Common people......
 
Last edited:
People said that about the retina ipad...... And the retina macbook pro.
 
The bigger the screen the harder to raise the resolution.....The prdouction of a 4k 10" display is not the same like the production of 4k 30" display! The most people not even see the difference between an ipad retina and an ipad non retina, so there is all about advertising!
The resulution of a screen is no sign of quality....So when you think the resolution is a sign of quality than you automatically think a 1920x1080 screen is more worse than a 4k screen. When you show people two identical screens and you say the one screen has a higher resoluton than the other, all will say the picture of the screen with the higher resolution looks better....The same thing with megapixels and cameras, after 10 years the people finally got it...big numbers are not everything....
 
Last edited:
Thats because megapixels were simply supported resolution, while the quality was in the lens. The quality of a lcd panel is in the making, and Apple already uses IPS panels, so this is not a really good comparison.

Also, with a camera, you don't NEED to have really big pictures. They can look really high in quality without having to be big. A computer will be something you use often, not look at for a few seconds.
 
Buy or not to buy now: may become head banging

Hi. I can understand the hesitation of the OP. I'm kinda in the same position. I posted earlier: I want to have a new iMac after 7 years of use of an old late 2006 white/2.0 ghz Core2Duo/2 go memory/160 HD/mat screen for a 27/3.2 hgz i5/1 to fusion/GeoForce 675. I'm always ready to order but I come here and after reading some posts about the possibility remote or not of an update soon, very soon or soon enough, I postpone my ordering. You know, for someone like me who ain't a dedicated tecchie nor a gamer or a number cruncher, it may become head banging. I've always had Apple computers since 1986 but it's more and more complicated to find a machine that suits your needs. And I can understand the frustration of buying "Monday" and learning "Wednesday" that an updatet model has shown. In a nutshell: should I wait the 2025 models before buying...;);););)
 
I think I showed enough self restraint....

I was pretty much in the same boat...buy or wait...my early 08 was starting to strain only in terms of speed with Aperture really via an external HDD.

I waited and thought, thought, then waited, read and thought some more but in the end bought a refurb of the UK store.

I'm not a gamer, but i guess I was pleased ( don't ask me why) to see the spec was bumped with a 680 card when expecting 675 - if I'm really honest is it going to change my life, no - does it feel like I got a better bargain than the deal I got, yes.

Do I feel future proofed - yes, and secure that all pics are over onto the fusion drive and backed up on TM - yes (phew).

FWIW i'm glad I went for it, yes something will be round the corner, but that is one of the reasons I love apple to read about what is happening now - reality is this is more than I need and given my limited tech experience, I'm not sure I would notice the minimal upgrade on any component - but I certainly do 5 years on.

Good luck whatever your decision.
 
Hi. I can understand the hesitation of the OP. I'm kinda in the same position. I posted earlier: I want to have a new iMac after 7 years of use of an old late 2006 white/2.0 ghz Core2Duo/2 go memory/160 HD/mat screen for a 27/3.2 hgz i5/1 to fusion/GeoForce 675. I'm always ready to order but I come here and after reading some posts about the possibility remote or not of an update soon, very soon or soon enough, I postpone my ordering. You know, for someone like me who ain't a dedicated tecchie nor a gamer or a number cruncher, it may become head banging. I've always had Apple computers since 1986 but it's more and more complicated to find a machine that suits your needs. And I can understand the frustration of buying "Monday" and learning "Wednesday" that an updatet model has shown. In a nutshell: should I wait the 2025 models before buying...;);););)

Just out of curiosity how long those a iMac take before it become sluggish for emailing, surfing the net, watching iTunes movies etc, my late 2009 was still running like new when i sold it back in May.

I am now thinking of hanging onto to my next imac for 5 - 6 years instead of 3 - 4 years, whilst in 6 years would i still be able to update to the latest osx versions?
 
Just out of curiosity how long those a iMac take before it become sluggish for emailing, surfing the net, watching iTunes movies etc, my late 2009 was still running like new when i sold it back in May.

I am now thinking of hanging onto to my next imac for 5 - 6 years instead of 3 - 4 years, whilst in 6 years would i still be able to update to the latest osx versions?

I have an '07 and am running 10.6 for multiple reasons:

* I plain HATED the ios-like Lion bits
* Some of the programs I relied on either would not work or had not been tested on Lion
* Lion wanted more memory to run smoothly

Can you upgrade the OS in 5-6 years? Maybe, but you also may not want to. I tend to consider 5-6 years as the "buy a new machine" phase even though the old machine is still usable. I had maxed out the machine I got before but various programs got more bloated and caused the old one to show its age, especially if I wanted to try a new OS.
 
I have an '07 and am running 10.6 for multiple reasons:

* I plain HATED the ios-like Lion bits
* Some of the programs I relied on either would not work or had not been tested on Lion
* Lion wanted more memory to run smoothly

Can you upgrade the OS in 5-6 years? Maybe, but you also may not want to. I tend to consider 5-6 years as the "buy a new machine" phase even though the old machine is still usable. I had maxed out the machine I got before but various programs got more bloated and caused the old one to show its age, especially if I wanted to try a new OS.

Thanks for the feedback i will max out the next 27" I will buy which should last me 5 years before I make the switch. As Three to four seems early too me.
 
Just out of curiosity how long those a iMac take before it become sluggish for emailing, surfing the net, watching iTunes movies etc, my late 2009 was still running like new when i sold it back in May.

I am now thinking of hanging onto to my next imac for 5 - 6 years instead of 3 - 4 years, whilst in 6 years would i still be able to update to the latest osx versions?
I would agree that a late 2009 iMac would still be quite useable today for a lot of people. Where it would fall short would be those people who are running their computers at full tilt.

And the answer to being able to still get OS X upgrades after 6 years is it depends. Within 5 years, I'd say the answer is pretty much yes. And why worry about an upgrade if you're going to be replacing the computer after 6 years?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.