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Fall iMac CPU and GPU
- Thread starter Serban
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If there is a refresh, Broadwell. Broadwell high-end CPUs still haven't come out. That's the reason only 13" MacBook Pro has been refreshed and 15" (which has a quad-core CPU) still hasn't. Only low-powered Skylake will be out this year, so that means if there is an iMac refresh this year, it's going to be Broadwell.
Hopefully they'll use the NVIDIA GTX 980M instead.
But the way I see it, I doubt it. Apple's pushing into the professional market, not the gaming market. When it comes to OpenCL rendering (like FCP X for instance), AMD cards almost always trash their NVIDIA counterparts.
That's more tricky to answer. AMD still haven't come out with the 300 series of GPUs. We don't know if there'll be a mobile refresh this year. At least I haven't heard anything, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.
A lot of people here expect Apple to go with Nvidia 9xx series of cards. While the 9xx mobile cards are indeed great it is unlikely Apple has a one year/one card deal with AMD. I'm leaning towards the idea that the next iMac Retina will have an AMD card. I could be wrong, of course. If it's not AMD, then it will probably be a Broadwell CPU with an Nvidia 980M card. While everyone here thinks that would be a good idea, I don't think it will hapen. It would look bad for AMD (having the same generation Nvidia cards presented as an upgrade) and it's just not how Apple works. First of all, they probably have some longer-term deal with AMD. Second, Apple likes their incremental hardware upgrades to have "numerical advantage". So, the 600 series gets replaced with the 700 series for AMD based for Nvidia. And the 200 series will be replaced by the 300 series for AMD, instead by a totally different card. They change companies only for 'bigger' refreshes (like, the new thin iMac design in 2012 and the retina model in 2014).
My bet is one of these three several options:
1. Broadwell CPU and R9 M390X card that AMD manages to get out in time
2. A small Broadwell refresh (similar to the small CPU refresh of the 2014 MacBook Pro) with the same GPU options and perhaps 16Gb RAM as standard
3. No Retina iMac refresh this year.
For me, all three seem logical, so pick your favorite
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Oh yeah. I was talking about 27" models.
My best guess is (and it's just a guess) - they introduce the 21" Broadwell-based retina 4K iMac and tell us how awesome it is. Maybe it even has the USB-C port. Then they just mention how they upgraded the 5K iMac Retina with the Broadwell cpu and maybe add 16Gb RAM as standard and the USB-C as well. No change in GPU until next year.
They do 2 years Nvidia and 2 yars AMD, AMD is now talking about R9 300 even for the mobile so it's going to be likely a M390X + M395X option (or the corresponding names).
If you want nvidia (like me) you have to wait Oct 2016.
Peace
If you want nvidia (like me) you have to wait Oct 2016.
Peace
Oh sure - if AMD R9 390/395X is out by the time they announce it, then yeah, probably a GPU upgrade as well. I don't think they'll wait for AMD though, so it's up to them, not Apple. For Nvidia - yeah, if they switch again, ti probably won't be this year. And who know what they'll chose in 2016.
I'm not aware of 4k screens in 21.5", but there definitely are 24" screens sporting 4k. And LG recently introduced a 25" panel with 2560x1440.
So chances are that an iMac refresh could bring (back) another form factor.
Sooner or later, someone will introduce a 4K panel at 21.5".
It makes sense for Apple to go 4K on the 21.5", because 1920x1080 becomes 3840x2160 when pixel-doubled in both directions.
I'm not sure about that. 4k on 24" is already questioned by some people due to its tiny pixel pitch. Outside of OSX it's still difficult to deal with proper scaling from the OS side. Thus it would be a panel exclusively made for Apple, as market demand as a stand-alone monitor would probably be rather low. Exclusivity is expensive though - and Apple likes its margins.
Unlike iOS, this is much less important for OSX. 4k on 21.5" is not only a challenge production-wise. It also requires significant oomph from the GPU and seems to offer little benefit, while driving cost and eating into Apple's margins.
Technology simply is not there yet for 4k to go mainstream.
If any, I'd rather expect Apple to push suppliers for a 2560x1440 panel in the 21-23" frame. This would be a significant improvement already. Otherwise they may just stay with FullHD in the small iMac, as that format is still mainstream and thus fits perfectly into their bread-and-butter machine (sufficient and inexpensive).
The same thing could have been said about the 5K iMac. Why not just use a 27" 4K panel instead?
A 4K panel on the Retina iMac would have had to either run at 1920x1080 HiDPI making everything bigger or native 3840x2160 making everything smaller. Pixel doubling is important since it increases clarity 4x without changing the perceived size of elements on the screen. This is the basis behind Retina displays, no matter OS X or iOS.
They may introduce the 21.5" Retina 4K as a slightly more expensive model at first, but drop the price down in subsequent updates.
It seems that with Maxwell architecture, Nvidia has finally catched and sometimes surpassed AMD in OpenCL performance. See and compare results at:
http://gfxbench.com/result.jsp
AMD is about to release the x390 with HBM RAM, 9x faster then GDDR5.
It came to late for the release of the Retina Imac.
I really wonder if they will add it as soon as by the end of the year.
I would go insane if i bought a retina last year and its specs would fade away to the stone age within a year.
It came to late for the release of the Retina Imac.
I really wonder if they will add it as soon as by the end of the year.
I would go insane if i bought a retina last year and its specs would fade away to the stone age within a year.
Oh, quite sure they will go 4K, no doubt about it. There are technical reasons for that.
Apple increases resolution by doubling the horizontal and vertical resolutions - in other words, by quadrupling the pixels for each point.
This is the reason why 27" iMac went 5K and they went through all that trouble to do it with a custom TCON (People keep saying they went 5K so that you could edit 4K videos and have space for tools. Actually, that is not the reason - although they may use it for marketing. The reason is they had to go 4x the non-retina 27" resolution). It is also a reason why hidpi actually, you know, works on a Mac while scaling on a Windows PC is horrible. It is also the reason why non-retina apps still work well on retina screens.
There is practically no doubt that a retina 21" iMac will have exactly double the horizontal and vertical resolution. 1920x1080 x2 = 3840x2160 = 4K display. iMac 21" will be 4K. Whether they will call it iMac with a 4K Retina Display (most likely) or just Retina iMac 21" - that remains to be seen.
As for 24" 4K monitors, sure, they are great, but you can definitely appreciate the higher dpi of a Retina iMac. In fact, I would like to see 21" 4K monitors out there, but no one seems to be making them (at least I didn't see any). I guess it's hard to justify the higher price for a 21" monitor. Still, I actually prefer the high dpi to the size of the screen.
Welcome to computing my friend, this year's new tech in the bin next year.
If the GPU refresh is to keep with AMD with the x3xxx series, then hopefully they'll have sorted out the heat issues so that they can actually work properly.
Thats the problem of early adopters.. There are always 2 ways:
A) You want to have the newest tech but then you re always a sort of a beta tester.
B) You skip the first generation and have a reliable product
But there will be always sth newer, better, faster.. how long should one wait?
Maybe because i put the X in front, instead of at the back.
Can i post those links here? Note its all about desktop parts...
on HBM: http://wccftech.com/amd-r9-390x-nvidia-pascal-hbm-stacked-vram-pictured/
Pinch of salt benches: http://videocardz.com/55146/amd-radeon-r9-390x-possible-specifications-and-performance-leaked
Shipping manifest: http://wccftech.com/amd-fiji-xt-r9-390x-shipping/