Core i7-Based 27" iMac Now Shipping

[Eidorian]

Oh, I upgraded from a Q6600 to the i7 920. You're right, it was an amazingly fast processor. Overclocked it's still fairly competitive too. I simply wanted to rebuild to a mATX system, and I was looking at buying quite a few new components to do it, so went to the i7 920 (almost went with a i7 860, but I'm semi-tempted to eventually to replace the 920 with a Gulftown depending on how the prices are).

And yeah, given what I just recently spent out on the mATX system, I can't justify the cost of the U2410s right now, lol. Someday though...

I just upgraded from a full ATX P45 and Q6600 to my Micro ATX Gigabyte P55 and Core i5 750. I'm a little lacking in the funds area but I do love how much faster this machine is now.

The cooler procesors and lack of the northbridge really made P55 shine in my eyes for Micro ATX compared to the Core i7 920/X58. That and my processor was only $158.

I don't expect Gulftown's prices to be anywhere near affordable. I have some hopes for AMD to claim some of its share back with the 6-core Thuban derivation at around +$250. They really need something to sell at high margins. Gulftown looks to be a server or Extreme product. Expect $999 for the processor unless you look at lower clocked Xeon parts.

And the G2410 is a very nice monitor, TN panel or not. A friend has two of them, and in-person they're very sharp.

I'll have to take a look at one in person then. Sadly it's 1080p. I want 1920 x 1200!

I do like CNet's review of it though.

A 5830 would be very useful right now. I've heard that it could be introduced around January. Not sure of the validity of that though.

I personally think AMD dropped the ball with the 5770, not so much with its performance, but simply where they're targeting it to. You can pick up a 4890 for the cost of the 5770, and the 4890 outperforms it. Granted, you'd be giving up DX11 and Eyefinity, but I've seen where people have tested the 5770 with Eyefinity, and anything above 1680x1050 tends to push it too hard it seems.

AMD is the only crowd out with DirectX 11. Newer Catalyst drivers should shore up the performance side of the 5770 but it still feels like a ho-hum product. Once prices start to drop it should have a chance to shine. It's a little depressing to see it have to face off against the HD 4890.

A 5830 style product should fit in like the 4830 did. You just can't pick up a 5850 card and people want a little more power than what the 5770 provides.

While I have no doubt that part of the reason for the low availability so far has been due to TSMC's horrible yields, currently one of the major rumors going about is that part of the availability issue is due to binned dies being allocated instead for Hemlock. It'll be interesting to see if Hemlock is indeed part of the cause.

I'm seeing a bit Hemlock news lately and the 5850 is still sold out. I suspect the yield rumors are just rumors and the parts are just going for 5950/5970 cards.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Man, are you in for a treat..! From G4 to i7 in one giant leap...congratulations and enjoy the best desktop on Earth!

You think that's a "giant leap"?! I'm looking at getting a top-spec 27" i7 iMac to replace my 11 year old 266MHz beige G3 PowerMac and 19" screen.

 

[LagunaSol]

Not quite. PCs with USB ports pre-dated the original iMac. What Apple did, that was "revolutionary" for the time, was that they dropped support for all legacy ports. They only supported USB (and ultimately Firewire also).

I didn't say Apple was the first, only that it was Apple that gave it a huge shove by dropping all the old stuff. The USB-only iMac generated a lot of chatter about USB at the time.

Now if only the PC makers would drop the ridiculous screw-in VGA and DVI connectors, thereby forcing display and projector makers to do the same...

 

[LagunaSol]

You think that's a "giant leap"?! I'm looking at getting a top-spec 27" i7 iMac to replace my 11 year old 266MHz beige G3 PowerMac and 19" screen.

Wow, you're in for a Buck Rogers-style awakening.

 

[Eidorian]

Now if only the PC makers would drop the ridiculous screw-in VGA and DVI connectors, thereby forcing display and projector makers to do the same...

Most of the VGA connectors I see on notebooks now don't need to be screwed in. Display Port or HDMI usually shows up alongside it. Full blown DVI is huge though compared to HDMI or DP.

The common denominator for projectors still seems to be VGA though. I do remember an issue with the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro and a certain brand of projectors. I think it was Panasonic.

 

[AidenShaw]

The USB-only iMac generated a lot of chatter about USB at the time.

Among Apple folks, yes. On the PC side, the USB chatter was anticipation of native USB support in Windows 98 - so that we could get rid of the various USB driver kludges for Windows 95 that sometimes mostly worked, and finally use those USB ports that had been in new PCs for the last year or two.

Now if only the PC makers would drop the ridiculous screw-in VGA and DVI connectors, thereby forcing display and projector makers to do the same...

Particularly for laptops, the VGA ports are needed for projectors in conference rooms - since many companies are reluctant to upgrade very expensive projectors just because a few laptops don't have standard ports.

(Our campus was built in 2001, and sports what were state-of-the-art $10K to $20K projectors - all VGA. Replacing would entail not only the cost of buying new projectors and tossing perfectly functional ones, but also the labor and expense of running new cables through the ceiling, wall and floor conduits from the projector to the conference table. Then, unless the projector handled both VGA and DVI - we'd need to replace many of the laptops. $$$)

I feel sorry for the external presentors with Apples who forget to bring their VGA dongles - usually they'll have to give us their .PPTs on a thumb drive, and we'll provide a Dell or Lenovo for them to use.)

On the other hand, those "ridiculous screw-in" connectors don't come unplugged if you move your computer or disturb the cables. I can't understand not having a latching video connector on a desktop.

 

[brisbaneguy29]

For anyone that has i7's that are shipping, can you tell me if you have the stock 4gb base, or if you got any CTO options like more RAM or larger HD. Ordered an i5, and i7 and a MacBook on the 28th Oct, but still no signs of it shipping. Wonder if it is because i got some options, not base models.

 

[cmob]

If this is still the thread regarding iMac shipping...

The 27" Quad Core 2.66GHZ i5 I ordered from ClubMac October 25 will ship in 5-7 days (Nov. 16-18), according to the phone conversation i just had with the nice lady in customer service.

whoops, wrong thread. And now to post in the i5 thread.

 

[dkd0nuts]

only thing holding me back is the 4850. if i'm gonna spend $2000+ on a machine i want it to have a legit graphics card. to be honest the only game i want to play is starcraft 2 not sure how well it'll play with such high resolution and a mediocre graphic card

when if at all do you guys think apple will offer a BTO for a better graphics card like they did with the 24'' imac?

 

[pavger]

For anyone that has i7's that are shipping, can you tell me if you have the stock 4gb base, or if you got any CTO options like more RAM or larger HD. Ordered an i5, and i7 and a MacBook on the 28th Oct, but still no signs of it shipping. Wonder if it is because i got some options, not base models.

I ordered an i7 with 8 GB of RAM and it I got an email saying it will be here (Oregon) on the 16th

 

[Bafflefish]

I just upgraded from a full ATX P45 and Q6600 to my Micro ATX Gigabyte P55 and Core i5 750. I'm a little lacking in the funds area but I do love how much faster this machine is now.

The cooler procesors and lack of the northbridge really made P55 shine in my eyes for Micro ATX compared to the Core i7 920/X58. That and my processor was only $158.

Aren't mATX systems awesome? It's fun to pack so much computing ability in such small form factors (yeah, I know the iMac does this also, but it's not quite to the same performance extremes). And the P55 is the "northbridge" (albeit, no where near as complex as the likes of the X58 or traditional northbridges). I do like how the P55 only consumes something like 4-5W for use. So nice for power efficient/low thermal output systems.

I don't expect Gulftown's prices to be anywhere near affordable. I have some hopes for AMD to claim some of its share back with the 6-core Thuban derivation at around +$250. They really need something to sell at high margins. Gulftown looks to be a server or Extreme product. Expect $999 for the processor unless you look at lower clocked Xeon parts.

Oh yeah, I think Gulftown will debut at ridiculous prices also. I'm hoping though that after it's been available for some time, that good deals will eventually be seen on whatever the lowest-spec'd version will be.

And I hope AMD can get more competitively back into the game. The i5 750 performs better than AMD's top Phenom II X4. AMD needs to get back to having an enthusiast option.

I'll have to take a look at one in person then. Sadly it's 1080p. I want 1920 x 1200!

I do like CNet's review of it though.

Yeah, you'd definitely want to check it out in person first. It's nice, but i agree, it's hard to go with a 1920x resolution and not have it be 1920x1200.

AMD is the only crowd out with DirectX 11. Newer Catalyst drivers should shore up the performance side of the 5770 but it still feels like a ho-hum product. Once prices start to drop it should have a chance to shine. It's a little depressing to see it have to face off against the HD 4890.

Oh, it's definitely ho-hum at the moment. It's top selling points are just DX11 and Eyefinity support. Something such as 5830 would likely push down the 5770's cost (which needs to happen, as I think it's priced too high currently).

Unfortunately, even though AMD is the only current GPU company offering a DX11 card, the low-to-non existent availability means they can't take advantage of it currently. nVidia supposedly is pushing hard to have GT300 out by early Q1 across all markets. I doubt it'll happen, but if they do, AMD's advantage will likely disappear fairly quickly.

A 5830 style product should fit in like the 4830 did. You just can't pick up a 5850 card and people want a little more power than what the 5770 provides.

I'm seeing a bit Hemlock news lately and the 5850 is still sold out. I suspect the yield rumors are just rumors and the parts are just going for 5950/5970 cards.

Supposedly Hemlock is debuting soon (and if the rumors are true, soon means within the next two weeks or so). It'll be interesting to see. Personally I think AMD should have held off on them until nVidia potentially would do the rumored paper launch of GT300 in December.

And I think the availability problem is likely a combination of both yield problems and Hemlock. TSMC admitted that their yeilds of 40 nm products are considerably down, so I think the yield issues are very much prevalent. It's just that AMD is prepping Hemlock to be released soon, so they're using up dies that could be used for the 5850/5870 single gpu cards, for Hemlock cards instead.

What's really scary though is that if TSMC's yields don't improve fairly soon, once nVidia does release GT300, we're going to see very low availability across the 40nm GPU market and very high prices.

 

[Bafflefish]

I didn't say Apple was the first, only that it was Apple that gave it a huge shove by dropping all the old stuff. The USB-only iMac generated a lot of chatter about USB at the time.

Now if only the PC makers would drop the ridiculous screw-in VGA and DVI connectors, thereby forcing display and projector makers to do the same...

I think the main benefit that Apple brought was bringing attention to it. Otherwise, the majority of peripheral manufacturers at the time were PC-only, and so to them they didn't care much what Apple did port-wise, since they weren't developing products for Apple anyway.

The change to USB was something that a lot of companies were looking for, as it meant that instead of providing drivers and support for multiple connectors, you only had to support one.

It helped too that you pretty quickly saw systems start to ship with 4, and then 6, and then 8 connectors, with some connectors mounted in the front.

I guess you could also say though that Apple's big contribution was driving manufacturers away from FireWire and towards USB in even greater numbers, lol

 

[Bafflefish]

only thing holding me back is the 4850. if i'm gonna spend $2000+ on a machine i want it to have a legit graphics card. to be honest the only game i want to play is starcraft 2 not sure how well it'll play with such high resolution and a mediocre graphic card

when if at all do you guys think apple will offer a BTO for a better graphics card like they did with the 24'' imac?

I would say once you see a mobile version of the 58** series. Names for the mobile versions are already present in AMD's GPU, so it's definitely on the horizon.

And I wish I could tell you that a mobile 4850 could drive the 27" iMac for Starcraft II, but given a lot of the effects and detailed textures that Blizzard is putting in, it may be a very big stretch for it to run well. If it was a 1GB card the chances would be a lot better, but at 512MB it's fairly gimped.

 

[Eidorian]

Aren't mATX systems awesome? It's fun to pack so much computing ability in such small form factors (yeah, I know the iMac does this also, but it's not quite to the same performance extremes). And the P55 is the "northbridge" (albeit, no where near as complex as the likes of the X58 or traditional northbridges). I do like how the P55 only consumes something like 4-5W for use. So nice for power efficient/low thermal output systems.

P55 is effectively just a Southbridge. There's no need for it to eat power for the memory controller or PCI-Express lanes since they're on-die for Lynnfield.

Now Mini-ITX is the new Micro ATX.

Oh yeah, I think Gulftown will debut at ridiculous prices also. I'm hoping though that after it's been available for some time, that good deals will eventually be seen on whatever the lowest-spec'd version will be.

And I hope AMD can get more competitively back into the game. The i5 750 performs better than AMD's top Phenom II X4. AMD needs to get back to having an enthusiast option.

The latest C3 stepping of the Phenom II X4 965 is an improvement over the older one but AMD desperately needs something they can sell to the consumer base at high margins. Athlon II offers a tiny die but it has to fight off Phenom II products. AMD does sell a solid platform though with the Athlon II X2 + 785G and the Phenom II products higher up on 790X/FX/GX. Thuban for next year in Black Edition looks like an enthusiast's dream compared to the loan you'll need to take for Gulftown.

Sadly only the chipsets look interesting for 2010. Bulldozer is coming in 2011 but it does look like it might be compatible with current AM3 (AM3R2) boards.

The Llano shot they have there is a 32nm Althon II X4 with a 480 steam GPU/APU core slapped onto the die. The stream processors can play for floating point power or can hop over to pseudo-IGP on the fly. Now that's an interesting product for the mainstream.

Yeah, you'd definitely want to check it out in person first. It's nice, but i agree, it's hard to go with a 1920x resolution and not have it be 1920x1200.

I want the 1200 pixel height so I can finally run Homeworld at 1600 x 1200 even if it is stretched.

Oh, it's definitely ho-hum at the moment. It's top selling points are just DX11 and Eyefinity support. Something such as 5830 would likely push down the 5770's cost (which needs to happen, as I think it's priced too high currently).

Unfortunately, even though AMD is the only current GPU company offering a DX11 card, the low-to-non existent availability means they can't take advantage of it currently. nVidia supposedly is pushing hard to have GT300 out by early Q1 across all markets. I doubt it'll happen, but if they do, AMD's advantage will likely disappear fairly quickly.

Well here's to hoping for a HD 5830 product to sate the $100, lack of stock gap between the 5770 and 5850. Besides ION and the scant OEM parts they manage on desktops what the hell is nVidia selling now? They're backed out of the retail market with the GT200. Stocks of that are going to reach zero soon since they've pretty much EOL'd the line.

Supposedly Hemlock is debuting soon (and if the rumors are true, soon means within the next two weeks or so). It'll be interesting to see. Personally I think AMD should have held off on them until nVidia potentially would do the rumored paper launch of GT300 in December.

And I think the availability problem is likely a combination of both yield problems and Hemlock. TSMC admitted that their yeilds of 40 nm products are considerably down, so I think the yield issues are very much prevalent. It's just that AMD is prepping Hemlock to be released soon, so they're using up dies that could be used for the 5850/5870 single gpu cards, for Hemlock cards instead.

What's really scary though is that if TSMC's yields don't improve fairly soon, once nVidia does release GT300, we're going to see very low availability across the 40nm GPU market and very high prices.

AMD/ATI appears to be rushing out Hemlock as soon as they can to take on whatever threat GT300 can muster.

nVidia can't seem to figure out what marketing and market position it's trying to make with the GT300 though. ATI has already taken the gamer share and mobility after the nVidia 8M fiasco.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

You think that's a "giant leap"?! I'm looking at getting a top-spec 27" i7 iMac to replace my 11 year old 266MHz beige G3 PowerMac and 19" screen.

Wow, you're in for a Buck Rogers-style awakening.

I forgot to say it is still running Mac OS 9.2 too. I do use new iMacs at clients' offices though.

 

[Bafflefish]

P55 is effectively just a Southbridge. There's no need for it to eat power for the memory controller or PCI-Express lanes since they're on-die for Lynnfield.

Now Mini-ITX is the new Micro ATX.

Yeah, I thought it was funny too when people started labeling mITX as the new mATX. I've seen some decent systems built around mITX, but it sacrifices too much currently to achieve the small form factor.

The latest C3 stepping of the Phenom II X4 965 is an improvement over the older one but AMD desperately needs something they can sell to the consumer base at high margins. Athlon II offers a tiny die but it has to fight off Phenom II products. AMD does sell a solid platform though with the Athlon II X2 + 785G and the Phenom II products higher up on 790X/FX/GX. Thuban for next year in Black Edition looks like an enthusiast's dream compared to the loan you'll need to take for Gulftown.

Oh, AMD is definitely a contender in the low-cost CPU market, but as you mentioned, they need a high-margin product, such as during the days of the Athlon 64's dominance over the Pentium IV.

Sadly only the chipsets look interesting for 2010. Bulldozer is coming in 2011 but it does look like it might be compatible with current AM3 (AM3R2) boards.

Sadly I'm not putting too much faith in Bulldozer being a truly competitive product (at least, in terms of the enthusiast market).

The Llano shot they have there is a 32nm Althon II X4 with a 480 steam GPU/APU core slapped onto the die. The stream processors can play for floating point power or can hop over to pseudo-IGP on the fly. Now that's an interesting product for the mainstream.

Oh definitely, and it also makes me excited to see what future small-size laptops and even netbooks will be capable of (with the integration of the GPU on the die of the CPU). That's one of the reasons why Intel's Larrabee is so interesting to me, in terms of both the discrete GPU potentials as well as Intel's plans for CPU/GPU integration.

I want the 1200 pixel height so I can finally run Homeworld at 1600 x 1200 even if it is stretched.

Ah yes, good ol' Homeworld. Sadly, the game I'm enjoying the most: Day of Defeat: Source. One of my all-time favorite games (the original Day of Defeat was also).

Well here's to hoping for a HD 5830 product to sate the $100, lack of stock gap between the 5770 and 5850. Besides ION and the scant OEM parts they manage on desktops what the hell is nVidia selling now? They're backed out of the retail market with the GT200. Stocks of that are going to reach zero soon since they've pretty much EOL'd the line.

I honestly think part of nVidia's decision was based on them truly believing that the GT300 would be ready for an end-of-the-year release, and thus thinking that the existing stocks of the GT200 could last till then.

Unfortunately, at best it seems like they'll pull off a paper launch of GT300 by the end of the year, and so we probably won't even see GT300-based products until sometime in Q1, and even then in low quantities. It's turning into a giant fiasco for nVidia. A lot of people are comparing it to the situation that surrounded the GeForce FX development/release.

[AMD/ATI appears to be rushing out Hemlock as soon as they can to take on whatever threat GT300 can muster.

nVidia can't seem to figure out what marketing and market position it's trying to make with the GT300 though. ATI has already taken the gamer share and mobility after the nVidia 8M fiasco.

Yeah, although I find it puzzling that AMD isn't seemingly holding off longer on releasing Hemlock. I could see it launching this year, but there's no reason it couldn't wait until mid-to-late December, especially since the single GPU 5850s/5870s are selling out constantly.

I think nVidia over-reached with GT300, at least from how it seems so far. I think it's a commendable idea to combine their GPGPU and standard GPU product lines, but they should have planned it for the succeeding generation, and used GT300 as a stop-gap measure until they could. As it stands, they'll be releasing a product that spans several markets, and if it doesn't take off in the GPU market (where the large abundance of their profit is still derived from), it could do irreparable damage. nVidia's pissed me off quite a bit lately, but I don't want to see them become irrelevant/defunct.

 

[Eidorian]

Yeah, I thought it was funny too when people started labeling mITX as the new mATX. I've seen some decent systems built around mITX, but it sacrifices too much currently to achieve the small form factor.

It depends on what you do. H57 leaves you with a small board and the option to have a discrete graphics solution. I'm waiting to see what SFF computers are going to pop up based on H57. The Clarksdale IGP isn't that bad for video playback and light gaming.

Lynnfield and P55 in the iMac is a winning combination for the processor and the platform. USB 3.0 isn't as dead as some people think and Light Peak is still out there in the future, probably.

Ah yes, good ol' Homeworld. Sadly, the game I'm enjoying the most: Day of Defeat: Source. One of my all-time favorite games (the original Day of Defeat was also).

DoD brings back some find memories for me as well.

I honestly think part of nVidia's decision was based on them truly believing that the GT300 would be ready for an end-of-the-year release, and thus thinking that the existing stocks of the GT200 could last till then.

Unfortunately, at best it seems like they'll pull off a paper launch of GT300 by the end of the year, and so we probably won't even see GT300-based products until sometime in Q1, and even then in low quantities. It's turning into a giant fiasco for nVidia. A lot of people are comparing it to the situation that surrounded the GeForce FX development/release.

Yeah, although I find it puzzling that AMD isn't seemingly holding off longer on releasing Hemlock. I could see it launching this year, but there's no reason it couldn't wait until mid-to-late December, especially since the single GPU 5850s/5870s are selling out constantly.

I think nVidia over-reached with GT300, at least from how it seems so far. I think it's a commendable idea to combine their GPGPU and standard GPU product lines, but they should have planned it for the succeeding generation, and used GT300 as a stop-gap measure until they could. As it stands, they'll be releasing a product that spans several markets, and if it doesn't take off in the GPU market (where the large abundance of their profit is still derived from), it could do irreparable damage. nVidia's pissed me off quite a bit lately, but I don't want to see them become irrelevant/defunct.

It's just a long waiting game now from nVidia. The press releases and quotes they've been dropping lately really casts doubt on their ability to deliver on GT300.

ATI needs to get out some 5850 units and milk every dollar they can for now. It's somewhat like the 6 months before Lynnfield that Phenom II enjoyed against Core 2 Duo/Quad.

nVidia feels comical at best and Charlie over at SemiAccurate is having a field day but ATI can't take advantage of it with actual product.

 

[dkd0nuts]

I would say once you see a mobile version of the 58** series. Names for the mobile versions are already present in AMD's GPU, so it's definitely on the horizon.

And I wish I could tell you that a mobile 4850 could drive the 27" iMac for Starcraft II, but given a lot of the effects and detailed textures that Blizzard is putting in, it may be a very big stretch for it to run well. If it was a 1GB card the chances would be a lot better, but at 512MB it's fairly gimped.

does apple ever update just the BTO option (in this case for the graphic card) without updating the entire imac line? i can't remember if they did that for the 24 inch iMacs. i'm still torn on whether i should buy the i7 iMac or just wait, i really want it but i worked hard for my $2k the computers gotta last me a while and play SC2 lol

 

[GL2]

I ordered my i7 iMac on Oct 26 and just got confirmation that it shipped Nov. 12. Delivery is supposed to be Nov. 17. Mine is BTO: i7, 8GB, 2TB and Apple Remote.

 

[Bafflefish]

It depends on what you do. H57 leaves you with a small board and the option to have a discrete graphics solution. I'm waiting to see what SFF computers are going to pop up based on H57. The Clarksdale IGP isn't that bad for video playback and light gaming.

Very true.

Lynnfield and P55 in the iMac is a winning combination for the processor and the platform. USB 3.0 isn't as dead as some people think and Light Peak is still out there in the future, probably.

Oh, I was very much happy to see Apple offering a Lynnfield-based iMac. Now if only they'd provide better GPU upgrade options .

DoD brings back some find memories for me as well.

Sadly not a lot of people play it anymore, but I happened to find a server that features stock maps and tends to be fairly consistently played by a large group. There used to be a Something Awful "Goonsquad" server that was fairly popular, but it hasn't been around for awhile

It's just a long waiting game now from nVidia. The press releases and quotes they've been dropping lately really casts doubt on their ability to deliver on GT300.

Yeah, I'm definitely concerned for what's ultimately going to happen with GT300. The amusing thing is, the nVidia fanboys constantly talk about how once GT300 does come out, it'll be so much faster than the Radeon 5870. The only problem with that argument is that while nVidia continues to work on GT300 to get it released, AMD continues to work on R800 revisions (as well as their next-generation GPU), so nVidia will release GT300 only to then see AMD release a revised R800 that either competes on-par performance wise, or provides slightly lower performance but at a much lower cost (such as with the 48** series).

ATI needs to get out some 5850 units and milk every dollar they can for now. It's somewhat like the 6 months before Lynnfield that Phenom II enjoyed against Core 2 Duo/Quad.

Fully agree. The problem though is that even the 5870s are selling out constantly, so I think AMD would rather allocate dies for 5870s than put greater production towards the 5850 (since, from my understanding of it, most of the 5850s so far have simply been binned 5870s).

nVidia feels comical at best and Charlie over at SemiAccurate is having a field day but ATI can't take advantage of it with actual product.

The CEO of nVidia reminds me of what you'd get if you combined Steve Balmer with Steve Jobs: a persuasive CEO that seems to be able to get fans and investors to buy into everything he's doing (the Jobs comparison), while also acting completely crazy and going off the hinge during company/shareholder meetings (the Balmer aspect), lol.

And good ol' Charlie. Some of his stuff is good, but you have to be careful, since he's definitely very much anti-nVidia, lol (just as FUD is often anti-AMD/ATI).

 

[Bafflefish]

does apple ever update just the BTO option (in this case for the graphic card) without updating the entire imac line? i can't remember if they did that for the 24 inch iMacs. i'm still torn on whether i should buy the i7 iMac or just wait, i really want it but i worked hard for my $2k the computers gotta last me a while and play SC2 lol

Honestly, I can recall a few occasions where we saw Apple expand the BTO options for Macs, including GPUs, but I think that's generally been the Mac Pro (and PowerMac before it), since that's nothing more than offering another discrete product that can be easily installed.

I don't really see Apple doing a stealth update of the BTO options for the iMac, simply because anything such as a new, more powerful GPU option would be worthy of a refresh cycle and advertisement of new features (where as, for systems like the Mac Pro, it's usually more based around full architectural changes and occasionally speed bumps, compared to simply offering an additional GPU or such).

Of course Blizzard just delayed the SC II beta, so it's release is likely now back to Q3 2010 (at the earliest). Something tells me we'll see another iMac refresh before SC II comes out

 

[jimmyjoemccrow]

Day of Defeat. Greatest game OF ALL TIME!!!11onw

Dunno why you look for the stock maps, there are many customs which are almost as good graphically and superior in gameplay. The trick is finding one that doesn't have a crappy download speed.

Call of Duty World at War tried and failed at being a competent World War 2 FPS. There is no balance at all to the guns, once you unlock the Stg there is no reason to use anything else. Load up on Betties which will kill for you after you die, use martyrdom which will drop a grenade even when you die to make up for the fact that you weren't fast enough when you were alive.

Pity then that DoD's graphics look a bit plain in comparison and I miss the ironsights in CoD that you actually use instead of firing from the hip all the time.

 

[pantaloneypony]

27" Quad i5 just arrived

I don't know how to run benchmarks but if there is any free software that does any that people want to know about point me in the direction and I'd be happy to run them. In the meantime, upgrading from 24" white dual core 2 ghz and can say anecdotally: it's blazing.

 

[Drag'nGT]

I don't know how to run benchmarks but if there is any free software that does any that people want to know about point me in the direction and I'd be happy to run them. In the meantime, upgrading from 24" white dual core 2 ghz and can say anecdotally: it's blazing.

xbench.com

 

[pantaloneypony]

27" iMac (i5) Xbench benchmarks

xbench.com

Results 202.34
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6.2 (10C2234)
Physical RAM 8192 MB
Model iMac11,1
Drive Type ST31000528ASQ
CPU Test 213.29
GCD Loop 324.58 17.11 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 186.70 4.44 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 125.42 4.14 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 426.76 74.31 Mops/sec
Thread Test 508.67
Computation 522.83 10.59 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 495.27 21.31 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 398.74
System 455.40
Allocate 544.70 2.00 Malloc/sec
Fill 348.25 16932.58 MB/sec
Copy 531.83 10984.74 MB/sec
Stream 354.62
Copy 340.88 7040.75 MB/sec
Scale 330.75 6833.20 MB/sec
Add 378.25 8057.58 MB/sec
Triad 373.28 7985.35 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 266.74
Line 237.71 15.83 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 313.65 93.64 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 258.12 21.04 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 255.99 6.46 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 280.17 17.53 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 209.43
Spinning Squares 209.43 265.67 frames/sec
User Interface Test 349.65
Elements 349.65 1.60 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test 71.18
Sequential 194.10
Uncached Write 232.79 142.93 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 197.22 111.59 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 137.71 40.30 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 251.29 126.30 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 43.58
Uncached Write 13.38 1.42 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 314.54 100.70 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 114.41 0.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 195.64 36.30 MB/sec [256K blocks]