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G5 iMac Specs?

where is the innovation?

arent macs supposed to be cutting edge and revolutionary? ive seen so many monitors with a computer stuck to the back that it is boring now. aside from the sony mentioned in the article i can also think of a similar computer that gateway makes.

but. . . if they come out with the said 17" imac. . . wouldnt that imply there should be a similar 17" monitor? that could be cool, a 17" monitor styled like the new monitors (and hopefully priced a little better)
 
Finally, hardware rumors again!

But i sure hope they're not right in this case. I really like this concept:

image not linkable
 
The New imac.

G5 1.6-1.8ghz
Geforce 4mx to Geforce FX5200
256-512mb ram
$1300-$2200.

A TWENTY TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR computer that comes with a geforce FX5200?
....

Hahahahhaahhaahahahahahahhaahahhahahhaahahahha.

Apple can't possbly be that delirious. ESPECIALLY in a machine that can't be upgraded. Point in hand, the current ibook comes with a radeon 9200, which pretty much whoops a 5200FX hands down.

If apple does something that stupid, ... sheesh.

At $2200? What the hell is wrong with them?

No that can't possibly be.

What would make sense would be:

G5 1.6ghz [Awesome]
Radeon 9600
512mb ram
80gb hard drive
$799 (No monitor)

G5 1.8ghz [better]
Radeon X600
512mb ram
120gb hard drive
$999

G5 2.0ghz [Best]
Radeon X800
512mb ram
120gb hard drive
$1399

G5 2.2ghz [Ultimate]
Radeon X800
512mb ram
160gb hard drive
$1599

All models include 16x superdrive, USB2, firewire, regular keyboard/mice, etc. Then make an apple gaming package that can be sold with the 2 upper end models, free when purchased with a cinema display and available for $300 more otherwise.

Such a bundle could include:
5.1 optical speakers (klipsch or logitech)
Logitech MX700 mouse
Doom3 and maybe 2 other popular games

At $1299 for a 20" cinema display, this would make the bottom end just under $2700, but with klipsch 5.1 speakers and doom3, not to mention a kickass mouse.. hey THAT outruns alienware's offerings!

Show me a $2700 alienware machine that comes with a 20" monitor 😉

Basically, the gaming bundle could just be sold in a seperate box, and apple could have promotions everywhere for said bundle. Damn that'd make a killing.
 
Hmmm... less than thrilled

I was wowwed by the original iMac and the colored follow-ups.

I was wowwed by the G4 iMac. In fact, I bought one and love it.

I'm sort of hoping that the info from ThinkSecret is either incomplete or slightly incorrect because I'm feeling a distinct lack of "wow" at what I'm reading. I agree with other comments that the video card seems a little dated and that it's probably time for Apple to bail out of the all-in-one concept. Also, an increase in price?

I dunno... maybe a real demonstration will change my opinion but at the moment, I'm not feeling it. 🙁
 
bring it on!

the edu imac seems cool. I don't think the lack of the optical drive would be a problem. I don't really remember when using cds or dvds at school. though I did my school a couple of years ago and we had sucky PCs that we weren't allowed to use for anything creative -- unless exel, word & ie are creative. oh yeah I actually remember using NOTE PAD once!!! WOOOT!

anyway, this news brings the artist rendition to my mind.. I think it was at think secret or something....last winter maybe? it looked so sweet! I think it will be a bit different though. apple somehow always manages to surprise us ----- which is nice.
 
I might as well toss on my idea was simply an example of what they could do. For $2200 apple would have a bitch to sell a 20" imac setup.

For $500 more, they add in $300 worth of hardware and suddenly it's right up alienware's alley, especially if they keep the tower seperate from the monitor.

Heck they could even do different types of bundles! Bundling cameras, inexpensive (but custom badged) CRT monitors, or something like that, would grab a LOT of attention, especially when people think they're getting something for nothing (in my case, the gaming bundle).

And such a thing would NEVER bite into powermac sales (provided they might bump their video card stats up). These imacs would be single processor, if anything ONLY have an agp slot, and lack of FW800 or dual DVI outputs.. For $1999, the dual 1.8ghz would still look nice alongside the Single 2.2ghz imac @ $1599.

If anything, to get the ultra low end crowd I'd take the emac, beef it up a little and make it available in both (totally unexpandable) cube and current emac form. A headless G4 emac could sell for as little as $599 and still bring in a profit.
 
It's seems quite good except for the only 256MB of RAM. Also it seems like it is going to replace the iMac and the eMac. Finally the end of the CRTs?
 
Not again...

These specs are really bad. Really.

Really.

Bad.

I sold my Powerbook as I'm coming to live in the US for a year (where I'd pay about £600, or $1000 less than I would do here). As a computer scientist, the PowerMac made the most sense. I could Photoshop and Maya at the same time and such.

Until Apple priced me out with the ridiculous display pricing decision to simply demolish the 17" and keep the now entry-level 20" at the same price.

So I dropped my expectations down to a top-level iMac. And, if true (and to be honest, judging Apple's past record on graphics cards and such, I'm inclined to believe these specs), Apple has once again got the pricing completely wrong. The graphics card is terrible. Terrible. 256MBs of RAM? Terrible. 1.8 Ghz rather than 2? Terrible. BUILT-IN SPEAKERS?! Jeez.

This is not a high-end iMac. It's a mid-range iMac with more room to go so Apple can trumpet a second edition with the specs this one should have had.

It's a real screw job. 😡

Chris

EDIT: The top range has 160GB not 80. That's one off the checklist anyway 😉
 
geez... a lot of complaining here, ALWAYS, yet we all come back. chill out and consider the following:

1) you're buying an apple, not a pc (doesn't matter what make, a pc is a pc.) you can't compare a low cost dell to a low cost mac- there will never be a price competitive macintosh; that would be like asking for a bmw that has a price competitive with a ford. it's not going to happen.

2) not a significant upgrade from the "current" imac line? are you joking? first, going from the g4 to the g5 alone is enough of an upgrade. then clock speed; current imac king is 1.25 and bottom of the new lineup is 1.6- that's almost a 30% processor speed increase while the 1.8 would be just under 50%!!! what did you expect? next, consider the rumored hd details; while the "current" models use ultra-ata/100, the new mid/high end models are said to use serial ata- that's another huge upgrade. lastly, the line moves to slot-loading from tray opticals. i just spent $4k on a power mac/display and i don't have a slot loading superdrive.

3) video card. i just don't get this one. the mac is not a gaming platform- how is this not obvious? hint: all of the latest/greatest games never even make it to the mac, or are released several months (or even years) after the pc version hits. save a few bucks and by a dell for this. i think whatever card they throw in the imac will be suitable for 99% of consumer mac users.

then again, i could be wrong.
 
Well, aside from all the criticism regarding the graphics, ram, etc., I'm bothered by theis statement in the Thinksecret article: "The new unit will not have a display with adjustable neck as found on the current iMacs..." I hope this doesn't mean that the viewing angle is not adjustable. THAT would be a huge step backwards.

I'm sure that it'll look sleek and all, but the reported design seems utterly uninspired. Ther are 5 other manufacturers that use essentially the same design (Sony, Gateway, etc.). So apple is resorting to rehashing old ideas?
 
taco said:
2) not a significant upgrade from the "current" imac line? are you joking? first, going from the g4 to the g5 alone is enough of an upgrade. then clock speed; current imac king is 1.25 and bottom the new lineup is 1.6- that's almost a 30% processor speed increase while the 1.8 would be just under 50%!!!
Click to expand...
The fact that the old iMac is SO slow doesn't help make the new one faster. Yes the G5 is a big step, but clock speeds aren't all that.
 
I don't believe that. Obviously the hefty price tag is due to the 20"-Display. But do you really want to couple your super-Display with a crappy GPU and a ridiculous 80 GB harddrive. No deal for me.

Steve Jobs is a too good strategist to not put the emphasis on market-share at the moment. After the high-end market is "taken back" with the PowerMac G5 and the new Pro-Apps its time to strengten the base.

I believe Apple will sell a non-CRT (TFT or no monitor) iMac for less than $1299.
 
Lewisham said:
I sold my Powerbook as I'm coming to live in the US for a year (where I'd pay about £600, or $1000 less than I would do here). As a computer scientist, the PowerMac made the most sense. I could Photoshop and Maya at the same time and such.

Until Apple priced me out with the ridiculous display pricing decision to simply demolish the 17" and keep the now entry-level 20" at the same price.
Click to expand...
Dude, just get a cheap Samsung LCD to match the PowerMac. No need to drop down to an iMac simply to get a matching display. BTW, what does Maya have to do with computer science?
 
So many negative votes because educators ASKED for a no-optical OPTION and Apple gave it to them? So don't buy the edu model, it's not meant for you 🙂

Sounds like the right system to me--nothing like the Sony though. (A headless low-end Mac would be great, but it wouldn't be called an iMac.)

And no, this is NOT the death of the eMac.... the eMac is $500 cheaper and that gives it a long life!

As for 1.8 GHz being "terrible" compared to 2.0... I think people may be caught up on the sound of the numbers or something. It's only 10%. A 1.8 Ghz G5 is no slouch for consumer computing.

I'm betting Apple has done all-in-ones right yet again.
 
taco said:
3) video card. i just don't get this one. the mac is not a gaming platform- how is this not obvious?
Click to expand...

I'll buy the rest and use it to console me at night 🙂 But this point is a bit off. It's not that the Mac is or isn't a gaming platform. It is, however, supposed to be a creative development platform.

Example 1: The iMac provides the hardware that allows bedroom Blender modellers or whatever the leg up they need to provide demos and such, so they can get a job where they have Maya and a PowerMac to do the job properly.

It's the first example I can think of. The graphics cards are so cheap anyway, it just feels that Apple is penny-pinching. And when you're penny-pinching on the bits of the specs you are publishing, what's missing on the bits that you aren't? Reminds me of an old PC vendor trick. Don't tell them how much RAM it has, then they can't complain it's 64MBs 😉

Chris
 
Whotheheck said:
One point about the video card: according to the specs for the recently released Motion, some of the new iMacs will not meet the minimum reqs. Wouldn't it suck if you just bought a shiny new computer only to find out there is software already out there that requires something more powerful than what you just bought? 😕
Click to expand...

How irrelevant! People who complain suck. 🙂
 
Time to switch back???!!!

These specs are simply pathetic!!

I love the OS since switching 3 years ago. The hardware is still in slow motion and getting further behind G5 or not. Nothing, I repeat nothing uses the 64 power so the G5 is irrelevant to real world use. What we need from apple is better graphics cards, more RAM and a much much cheaper price.

I have been waiting over 12 months for the G5 imac to come out. Now that it almost has..........I will either have to wait another 12 months or switch back to PC (Yes, I feel nauseous...but reality is reality).

The dual processor towers are way overpriced for their P4 3Ghz performance....because that is all they do!!! A P4 box with minumum RAM, HD and Graphics, NO bluetooth, NO wireless, No screen.....AU$4,500!!! Get real APPLE....

In my opinion the top iMac at these prices MUST have:

2Ghz G5
9600XT 128MB (minimum)
160GB HD
512MB DDR 400 (pairs are need for G5 no? so we get 2 X 128MB crap?)
Bluetooth
Airport Extreme
USB 2
Firewire 800
Excellent speakers
Optical audio

All high-end consumer machines must be able to play ALL modern games at resonable rates, must have wireless included and 512MB RAM at minimum.

Apple will lose me unless I get these specs.

Crying in my beer.....
 
Wuddel said:
But do you really want to couple your super-Display with a crappy GPU and a ridiculous 80 GB harddrive.
Click to expand...

I think a LOT of people have little use for a top-end GPU, and no need for more than 40 GB HD. But they'd love a better screen. In fact, that covers all three iMac owners in my family.

I don't think Apple putting cost into an amazing display vs. "bragging-rights" specs is accidental at all.

The iMac is not meant to be all things to all people.
 
wPod said:
arent macs supposed to be cutting edge and revolutionary? ive seen so many monitors with a computer stuck to the back that it is boring now. aside from the sony mentioned in the article i can also think of a similar computer that gateway makes.

but. . . if they come out with the said 17" imac. . . wouldnt that imply there should be a similar 17" monitor? that could be cool, a 17" monitor styled like the new monitors (and hopefully priced a little better)
Click to expand...

The iMac was never meant to be revolutionary spec-wise. It's a computer for the masses; the catalyst for the overthrow of M$.

(And by the way, will people PLEASE stop complaining about games? Macs will get games, okay? Increased market share is coming soon. Also, M$ is in deep trouble as a company. If their software license sales slow down, they are ****ed. Period. It is a good time to be a mac user.)
 
taco said:
3) video card. i just don't get this one. the mac is not a gaming platform- how is this not obvious? hint: all of the latest/greatest games never even make it to the mac, or are released several months (or even years) after the pc version hits. save a few bucks and by a dell for this. i think whatever card they throw in the imac will be suitable for 99% of consumer mac users.
Click to expand...

A graphics card handles graphics. Period. It is not used soley for games. With Tiger's Core Video using even more of a graphics card's capabilities, these new iMacs are pretty damn bad. Spend $2200 for an MX5200 Ultra? Craptacular!
 
Chaszmyr said:
I can't see how they could possibly have no optical drive. MAYBE they mean no optical burner? but even the low-end eMac includes a combo drive
Click to expand...
In a netboot environment, no optical drive is needed (or desired).
 
The education line would also be very good in large businesses that never order any CD drives for computers for general use. They want to control what goes into the computer and they do not want employes loading up their software.

Don't like the graphics card? Look at the options under BTOs.



While I have to see the floating display go I am excited to see some initial specs. I'm one of those that are going to go for the top of the line under a BTO. Memory will come from 3rd parties, but otherwise I will max it out. Been waiting too long to replace an old 450 Dull and I'm not going with the bottom of the range - it has to last me too long.
 
The no optical drive option is a great move. The vast majority of schools businesses do not want them in their systems.

These will be used in managed enviroments where if it ain't approved and on the network, they don't want it being used.
 
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