Core i7-Based 27" iMac Now Shipping

[Rocketman]

Ever since the LightPeak post, and RUMOR that Apple wants to use it, hit this site everyone wants to talk LightPeak in every thread... it's a long ways off... No, longer than that. USB 3.0 is now getting pushed back to 2011 for Intel chipsets, and that has been in progress for years.

Since going public was a marketing decision not a technical decision, this means it is having chips made to check for production errors.

The delay of USB3 is itself a tick-tock sort of thing. I suspect USB3 and LP will come out together along with the next die shrink. This will drastically improve consumer level high I/O, increase low power delivered processor speed, and do it in a way suitable for handtops and laptops.

mDP was approved as a standard in record time and in such a way the licensing is practical according to a couple of articles I read. The standards body is already looking forward to the double speed version being adopted as a standard "soon". If Apple is a bit forward leaning maybe they could avoid the whole USB1.1 bottleneck they imposed on Mac users and go right to mDP2 as soon as it is practical.

USB3 already exists among bleeding edge adopters, but when Intel does the silicon, everybody at the commodity level will have it. LP will interface with these and others. A limited plug device now, say like the Air has a USB, a display and a power port. Not much. Audio too. An iPhone has audio and dock, which itself is USB+.

If an iTablet2 had mDP, LP, USB, SD, audio, it would be pretty adept at being either local or connected or ingesting content or puking it.

Rocketman

 

[Bafflefish]

I think my point overall is that all this LightPeak mindshare is giving Apple a lot of leeway from the user base to completely ignore eSATA, SATA 6 Gbps, and USB 3.0 while every other vendor moves on right now.

Oh I see, yeah, you're right. Par for the course though, right?

That is rather refreshing. Though I think mini Display Port is more useful on an Eyefinity 5870 more so than a notebook with a single output.

Definitely. My i7 system has a Radeon 5850 in it, and while I think Eyefinity is great, I would love to see something along the lines of 3x mDP connectors vs. the current setup the card uses (2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DP).

 

[tezro]

A mobile 4850 at a much higher resolution than 1920x1200, mind you

Honestly though, I'm guessing one of the primary reasons they didn't go for anything beyond the mobile 4850 is simply thermal output. While the Lynnfield-based i5 and i7 are fairly cool/efficient processors, they're still consuming considerably more power than the prior mobile Core 2s, and so since Apple probably wanted to keep the total thermal envelop of the system down, they decided to stick with the 4850.

Yeah, realized that later about the resolution. I have a 27" Dell on the wall, which does 1920x1200. Easily mistaken.

Thermal problems would be my guess too. It's logical, but it still sucks...

 

[Solidarnosc]

What type of shipping did you receive?

Apple's email suggested a Nov-16 delivery, but FedEx say it will be this Friday Nov-13!!!

MAC 27"/4850-512MB Z0GF

Ship Date: Nov 11, 2009
Estimated delivery: Nov 13, 2009 by 10:30 AM

Destination: San Francisco

Nov 11, 2009 9:52 PM In transit SHANGHAI CN
Nov 11, 2009 8:46 PM In transit SHANGHAI CN
Nov 11, 2009 11:02 AM Left FedEx origin facility SHANGHAI CN
Nov 11, 2009 10:59 AM Picked up SHANGHAI CN
Nov 10, 2009 8:44 PM Shipment information sent to FedEx

Hi there, I was just wondering what type of shipping Apple gave you. My i7 left Shanghai on the 11th as well on the way to San Diego, but my delivery date is the 16th according to FedEx (Apple says the 17th). You would think SF and SD, both port cities, would have the same delivery date. My shipping type is designated as:

Service type
International Economy Distribution - Indirect Signature Required

Did you have something better than economy?


FYI, for those wondering, I ordered my i7 (stock) on October 22nd.

 

[Bafflefish]

I doubt it will affect the true "pro" buyers at all. Now, those who are just buying the Mac Pro to be cool can now buy an iMac and get the 27" display for free essentially over the Mac Pro. So, it will affect a very small group of Mac Pro buyers who would have been better off with the iMac anyways. The real "pros" will definitely need more customization than the iMac allows... especially when wanting to upgrade graphics and etc down the road. I am sure Apple has done the math on it.

Oh, I agree that the 27" iMac will likely have generally a limited impact on even the entry-model Mac Pro, because the customer who is likely to go for a Mac Pro, has already convinced themselves of why they need it (and for the most part, it's likely perfectly justified).

It makes me wonder though just exactly what most purchasers of the entry-level Mac Pro use it for. If it is for situations where they actually take advantage of the expandability, then you're absolutely correct. I guess I just see it as how many people buy it because they view the expandability as a good thing, only to then never actually take advantage of it? When I purchased my PowerMac G4 867 back in 2001 (for the wonderful ol' price of something like $2500 or so), I had told myself it was because there were two things I wanted: the G4, and the option to expand as needed. Now I very much appreciated the G4, and I did end up replacing the GPU later on, but ultimately I wonder whether too much emphasis is put on the expandability part when it comes to Mac Pro purchases for some. For times when someone just thinks they need the processing power, and likely isn't going to expand, the i7 860 iMac is likely more than enough. Remember, the 860 easily matches (and sometimes surpasses) the 920/Xeon 5550 in pretty much every benchmark (the only one it doesn't are memory-intensive benchmarks, thanks to the triple channel memory controller of the i7 9**/Xeon 55** series).

One last note, this iMac really shows us that Apple has no plans for the "headless" Mac no matter how many want it. Apple has to sell the display too for the margin and revenues required to keep stakeholders happy.

Oh I fully agree. It's a shame though, because here can try and say just how enterprise-friendly Apple products are, but I honestly believe one of the major issues preventing Apple from truly making large inroads into the enterprise sector is the lack of a more affordable, headless Mac. There are certainly other major issues too, but it doesn't help.

And regarding LightPeak, I agree it's a ways off (although Intel is trying to get it pushed for release for late 2010, so we're talking a year away if Intel can pull it off). However, while Intel is lagging some on USB 3.0, motherboards are already shipping now with USB 3.0 present. A number of companies are simply adding on the necessary chipset to allow USB 3.0 connectivity (and expansion cards offering 3.0 are on the way too). Intel is just late as usual

 

[lanceh5]

It shipped!!

My i7 was ordered on Oct 29 with numeric keypad, 1TB HD and minimum 4GB memory. Great news.

Shipment Date:
Nov 11, 2009

Delivers by:
Nov 17, 2009

 

[Bafflefish]

Yeah, realized that later about the resolution. I have a 27" Dell on the wall, which does 1920x1200. Easily mistaken.

Thermal problems would be my guess too. It's logical, but it still sucks...

Yeah, well, here's hoping when the mobile 58** series debuts, Apple will incorporate it into their product lines. Then again, given TSMC's yield problems...

 

[KaneBaker]

The biggest challenge for the iMac is external I/O more so than the limited GPU upgrade paths for the Mac Pro. You're capped at FireWire 800 for anything outside the local disk and that's much more limiting. Apple needs to add some eSATA/USB ports.

Going from my Q6600 to a Core i5 750 is noticeable as well. Handbrake really takes advantage of the CPU hardware available.

Handbrake

Hey I wrote a little blurb about it at depixelator.com (completely ad free).
It's funny that the imac now supports more ram than the single socket pro. Lot's of pure power, but very limited connectivity. Two eSata ports and maybe one extra firewire port and we'd be rolling.

 

[LagunaSol]

I think my point overall is that all this LightPeak mindshare is giving Apple a lot of leeway from the user base to completely ignore eSATA, SATA 6 Gbps, and USB 3.0 while every other vendor moves on right now.

Whoa, other vendors are shipping USB 3.0 machines???

Yeah, well, here's hoping when the mobile 58** series debuts, Apple will incorporate it into their product lines.

I suppose I'll be waiting for that to happen before I upgrade to a 27" from my 24" iMac (with 4850).

 

[KaneBaker]

My i7 was ordered on Oct 29 with numeric keypad, 1TB HD and minimum 4GB memory. Great news.

Shipment Date:
Nov 11, 2009

Delivers by:
Nov 17, 2009

Did you custom order the keypad keyboard ?
What i really want is a wireless full sized keyboard.
But I noticed that the new wired keyboards are the same keypad less ones.

 

[tezro]

Yeah, well, here's hoping when the mobile 58** series debuts, Apple will incorporate it into their product lines. Then again, given TSMC's yield problems...

But mobile stays mobile which, well, sucks.
Plus Apple only ships 512MB models. Newer games on the native resolution like 1GB more and more. Especially newer games.
Ok, this might require you to run Windows but that's besides the point.

 

[Eidorian]

Oh I see, yeah, you're right. Par for the course though, right?

I don't expect much more from Apple.

Definitely. My i7 system has a Radeon 5850 in it, and while I think Eyefinity is great, I would love to see something along the lines of 3x mDP connectors vs. the current setup the card uses (2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DP).

I've seen the triple display Eyefinity demos on current hardware and it's very enticing but not so much on my wallet. I'll need to do some more research on how the hardware layer works in spanning.

And I think talking about LightPeak is ridiculous as it's going to be several years before any manufacturer uses it. And there is no proof that Apple has any intentions of using it. It takes a long time for a standard like this to be implemented and accessory makers to incorporate it into their peripherals.

Ever since the LightPeak post, and RUMOR that Apple wants to use it, hit this site everyone wants to talk LightPeak in every thread... it's a long ways off... No, longer than that. USB 3.0 is now getting pushed back to 2011 for Intel chipsets, and that has been in progress for years.

USB 3.0 is only pushed back on Intel's chipsets. NEC offers a USB 3.0 controller for current motherboards. Gigabyte and ASUS are releasing their USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps hardware on revisions of their P55 and X58 lines this month and next. AMD should have USB 3.0 support on its 800 Series chipset.

Since going public was a marketing decision not a technical decision, this means it is having chips made to check for production errors.

The delay of USB3 is itself a tick-tock sort of thing. I suspect USB3 and LP will come out together along with the next die shrink. This will drastically improve consumer level high I/O, increase low power delivered processor speed, and do it in a way suitable for handtops and laptops.

mDP was approved as a standard in record time and in such a way the licensing is practical according to a couple of articles I read. The standards body is already looking forward to the double speed version being adopted as a standard "soon". If Apple is a bit forward leaning maybe they could avoid the whole USB1.1 bottleneck they imposed on Mac users and go right to mDP2 as soon as it is practical.

USB3 already exists among bleeding edge adopters, but when Intel does the silicon, everybody at the commodity level will have it. LP will interface with these and others. A limited plug device now, say like the Air has a USB, a display and a power port. Not much. Audio too. An iPhone has audio and dock, which itself is USB+.

If an iTablet2 had mDP, LP, USB, SD, audio, it would be pretty adept at being either local or connected or ingesting content or puking it.

Rocketman

Like FireWire, USB 3.0 is going to be a premium product due to the need for an additional controller given the lack of support from Intel on its chipsets. Though it's not that uncommon for vendors to use additional controllers where Intel doesn't provide.

Hey I wrote a little blurb about it at depixelator.com (completely ad free).
It's funny that the imac now supports more ram than the single socket pro. Lot's of pure power, but very limited connectivity. Two eSata ports and maybe one extra firewire port and we'd be rolling.

The iMac is going to be on the heels of the Mac Pro for one or two I/O ports. Otherwise this is the first time in ages where the all-in-one can muster desktop performance and exceed its Mac tower sibling.

Whoa, other vendors are shipping USB 3.0 machines???

ASUS and Gigabyte have boards coming out soon. It's rather old news.

 

[KaneBaker]

I didn't expect it to get that close and at that price. I can't justify a pro now when i can get the imac for the price of what i was willing to pay for a monitor.
I'll have to deal with the connectivity issues, but it's worth it.
I got a hard drive dock with FW800 and tried chaining it to my FW400 case. Seems to work, hardly optimal but workable.

Latop style PCI expansion slots would be a great solution since it could meet a lot of needs, i use them on mac pro's already for eSata ports. I use a AJA video capture device with a RED camera for on set playback, and the AJA takes over all the FW bandwidth. The only way to connect more drives is through the expansion slot.

 

[isepic]

whats so hard?

ASUS and Gigabyte have boards coming out soon. It's rather old news.

Why is it so hard for you to understand the difference between SHIPPING and COMING OUT SOON. Its not "rather old news" at all, because NONE of them are SHIPPING. Damn don't be so smug, especially when you're WRONG.

 

[evilcat]

i7 iMac vs Quad MPro

Here's the thing... the Quad Mac Pro isn't that expandable. I still have my Quad Core Power Mac G5 and it runs great. As far as expansion (inside the case) goes, I can add more RAM, change the hard disks and add an SATA controller card. I already have the fastest card produced for it (7800GT) and I can't use more recent 16xPCI-E cards because the drivers don't exist.

I believe pretty much all the above applies to the Quad MPro once you throw in a 285GTX. While you have the potential to add lots of cards and disks, if you're that kind of a power user they why look at the Quad? The RAM upgrades are so expensive it's cheaper to get an Octo core with 16Gb RAM than put 16Gb into a Quad.

That's why I reckon the 27" i7 iMac will eat base MPro sales.

It's perfect for me -- after 4 years on a quad core I couldn't go back to dual. It has nothing to do with software using all the cores, but lots to do with the fact that I multitask. The difference when you have Mail, Safari, Firefox, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash all open at the same time and you are actively switching between them is phenomenal. Using a dual core at work really makes it apparent.

However, the G5 sucks electricity like no-one's business and it's about time to move to an Intel Mac for me... Can't justify a Pro because of cost, power usage and I really don't need 8 cores (I think the G5, except when encoding, rarely uses more than 320%). Throw in the i7's beautiful screen and I have a winner to replace my Power Mac, which cost 3 times what this system.

That said, if next Jan/Feb the Pro bumps to 6 and 12 core models then this i7 won't eat too many sales

 

[Solidarnosc]

Shipping type?

Same here

Shipping to the Midwest and delivered by the 13th? Wow. Did you have an expedited form of shipping? I'm in San Diego, closer to Shanghai, yet my delivery date is the 16th (Apple says the 17th). The computer left China today, the 11th, with the following shipping type:

Service type
International Economy Distribution - Indirect Signature Required

 

[Eidorian]

Why is it so hard for you to understand the difference between SHIPPING and COMING OUT SOON. Its not "rather old news" at all, because NONE of them are SHIPPING. Damn don't be so smug, especially when you're WRONG.

ASUS had a demo board with USB 3.0 at Computex 2009. SATA 6 Gbps was only delayed on P55 because Marvell had IDE compatibility issues. Compound that with Intel releasing the news that they wouldn't support USB 3.0 until 2011 on their chipsets only provided an additional boost to the Light Peak bandwagon.

Damage control had to be done because a lot of people started to believe that USB 3.0 had been completely abandoned. USB 3.0 is coming out in 2009. I never said the components were shipping today.

 

[KaneBaker]

Here's the thing... the Quad Mac Pro isn't that expandable. I still have my Quad Core Power Mac G5 and it runs great. As far as expansion (inside the case) goes, I can add more RAM, change the hard disks and add an SATA controller card. I already have the fastest card produced for it (7800GT) and I can't use more recent 16xPCI-E cards because the drivers don't exist.

I believe pretty much all the above applies to the Quad MPro once you throw in a 285GTX. While you have the potential to add lots of cards and disks, if you're that kind of a power user they why look at the Quad? The RAM upgrades are so expensive it's cheaper to get an Octo core with 16Gb RAM than put 16Gb into a Quad.

That's why I reckon the 27" i7 iMac will eat base MPro sales.

It's perfect for me -- after 4 years on a quad core I couldn't go back to dual. It has nothing to do with software using all the cores, but lots to do with the fact that I multitask. The difference when you have Mail, Safari, Firefox, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash all open at the same time and you are actively switching between them is phenomenal. Using a dual core at work really makes it apparent.

However, the G5 sucks electricity like no-one's business and it's about time to move to an Intel Mac for me... Can't justify a Pro because of cost, power usage and I really don't need 8 cores (I think the G5, except when encoding, rarely uses more than 320%). Throw in the i7's beautiful screen and I have a winner to replace my Power Mac, which cost 3 times what this system.

That said, if next Jan/Feb the Pro bumps to 6 and 12 core models then this i7 won't eat too many sales

I agree with your poitns and the 27" eating at the sales, that is what i am doing and i documented why.
However ram prices are not significant as long as you buy them yourself rather than apple. Ram is dirt cheap now (just not at the apple store, even there it's a bit closer to reality than it used to be

 

[Bafflefish]

I suppose I'll be waiting for that to happen before I upgrade to a 27" from my 24" iMac (with 4850).

Yeah, I wouldn't upgrade before then. The i7 27" iMacs are nice, but with the 4850, the graphical capabilities are severely limited.

But mobile stays mobile which, well, sucks.
Plus Apple only ships 512MB models. Newer games on the native resolution like 1GB more and more. Especially newer games.
Ok, this might require you to run Windows but that's besides the point.

Yeah, well, you never know. The new desktop 58** series are actually fairly power efficient. They still consume a high amount of power at full load, but their idle power draw is very, very low (relative to past desktop GPUs). I think Apple could pull it off, but it'd possibly mean extending the depth of the iMac some, and given Apple (and a lot of users') lust for all things thin, I doubt they'd do it. It's a shame though, because a i7 860, Radeon 58**-driven 27" iMac would definitely be an amazing machine.

And to be honest, I think Apple sticks to the 512MB mobile models because that's what the standard AMD-suggested spec is. A lot of times, when you see models with larger amounts of memory (both desktop and mobile variants), it's actually the GPU integrator/manufacturer who is expanding the ram the card has available. AMD and nVidia usuall give the manufacturers leeway to make changes such as that. Something tells me though that Apple wouldn't deviate from the path much (plus, extra RAM = extra costs, which cuts into the ever-so-wonderful margins that people rave about).

I've seen the triple display Eyefinity demos on current hardware and it's very enticing but not so much on my wallet. I'll need to do some more research on how the hardware layer works in spanning.

I'm running a 3x 24" Eyefinity setup. It is nice, but there are definitely still issues to be worked out, such as Eyefinity CrossFire suppor, lol.

 

[Eidorian]

I'm running a 3x 24" Eyefinity setup. It is nice, but there are definitely still issues to be worked out, such as Eyefinity CrossFire suppor, lol.

I'll have to upgrade from my 22" screen to something larger. I don't have the need for multiple displays but I know a friend that wants to buy my display since they have two identical ones to mine.

Then I want them to get a 57xx/58xx card for Eyefinity.

Living vicariously but he's building a new computer for Christmas and he's taking my component advice too.

 

[Bafflefish]

I agree with your poitns and the 27" eating at the sales, that is what i am doing and i documented why.
However ram prices are not significant as long as you buy them yourself rather than apple. Ram is dirt cheap now (just not at the apple store, even there it's a bit closer to reality than it used to be

Ah, but the current Mac Pro's rely upon ECC memory, which drives the cost of expanding the memory yourself quite a bit.

The i7 860 iMac uses standard DDR3 non-ECC memory, which is considerably cheaper.

 

[Bafflefish]

I'll have to upgrade from my 22" screen to something larger. I don't have the need for multiple displays but I know a friend that wants to buy my display since they have two identical ones to mine.

Then I want them to get a 57xx/58xx card for Eyefinity.

Living vicariously but he's building a new computer for Christmas and he's taking my component advice too.

In the infamous words of Monty Burns... "Excellent".

I won't lie, my i7 system's top purpose is gaming and some basic AV work. Eyefinity is nothing more than a nice luxury, but it is a luxury that's definitely nice . My only "issue" right now is that my 3x 24" monitors aren't all of the same make, so it's a little awkward with the bezels. Not too bad though. I'm hoping next year to maybe see if the price will come down on the Dell U2410 so I can pick up three of them (and sell my current monitors).

I'm just glad that I was able to pick up a 5850 though. With TSMC's yield problems, both 5850s and 5870s have become very hard to find, and AMD even recently semi-officially raised the price of the 5850. Thankfully I bought mine not long after they were introduced, so was spared the now-long wait and price increases.

 

[evilcat]

Ah, but the current Mac Pro's rely upon ECC memory, which drives the cost of expanding the memory yourself quite a bit.

The i7 860 iMac uses standard DDR3 non-ECC memory, which is considerably cheaper.

Also, with the MPro Octo you have twice as many slots to fill with that 16Gb so you can use much, much cheaper RAM than in the 4-core.

 

[Bafflefish]

Also, with the MPro Octo you have twice as many slots to fill with that 16Gb so you can use much, much cheaper RAM than in the 4-core.

It's still ECC though with the MPro Octo, so still going to cost a pretty penny.

I can see the benefit for offering a Xeon-based, ECC system, but I really wish Apple would have at least have made the entry-model Mac Pro a Bloomfield i7 9**-series based system.

 

[Burai]

Benchmark prediction:

Safari feels snappier.