iFixit Tears Down New iMacs, Finds Soldered CPU on 21.5" Model

[coolspot18]

An external usb DVD burner is under $30

Yes, but I thought the premise of the iMac was 2 cords, one for power, one for the keyboard. Now I have one for the my DVD drive, 1 for my Thunderbolt array, couple more for this expansion device, and that device, now it's messier than a PC

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If a user actually considers the ability to swap CPUs is an important consideration when he or she buys a computer, why would they even choose an iMac? They should've bought a PC tower!

Size and design?

With Apple's design ingenuity, they could have accommodated some swappable parts. This was a business decision not to allow user serviceable components (at a minimum RAM and hard drives).

 

[newdeal]

Considering Apple's design wizardry, they should at least make the hard drives swappable. Perhaps place them near the bottom where they can be pulled out (i.e. like the RAM).

yeah but the ram is a chip in a socket, the hard drive is attached with a cable so there is too great a risk of someone pulling on it and damaging the cable or unplugging the other end. Once they convert the iMac to all flash storage in a couple of years perhaps they would make a chip that could be swapped out as it is plugging into a socket.

 

[lhammer610]

No headphone jack, no iMac or me

Non-swappable RAM and harddisks, cases that you can't open any more without working through glue, desktops without a second drive bay, without an optical drive, with their headphone jacks on the backside just to be thin on the other hand are plain stupid.

I feed the music playing from my iMac into an old stereo. Without the headphone jack output, I will no longer be able to do that, nor will anyone who purchased outboard computer speakers.

Call me old fashioned, but I also rip DVD's for use in my iPad. Without an optical drive, I cannot do that either.

I upgraded the RAM on my current iMac and would like to be able to replace the hard drive if it dies.

I do not want a thinner iMac.

My iMac is getting long in the tooth. I guess I will not replace it with another one.

 

[zecks420]

I may want to consider buying a new iMac soon. Not because I like these models but because the old ones with the optical drive might be leaving the refurb store soon as more of these nonsensically thin models are released. I don't care if I use the optical drive often, I want it there because its a desktop and I don't care if it is thin or light

I had the 2011 thicker iMac. The main reason you will want to change is thermal. The new 27" iMac NEVER gets hot. After hours of gaming its barely even warm on the back. The older models with the optical drive got hot as hell gaming. I have the thin model without Haswell and its never gets hot at all. The speakers were never highlighted but on the super thin model the speakers have amazing sound...

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I feed the music playing from my iMac into an old stereo. Without the headphone jack output, I will no longer be able to do that, nor will anyone who purchased outboard computer speakers.

Call me old fashioned, but I also rip DVD's for use in my iPad. Without an optical drive, I cannot do that either.

I upgraded the RAM on my current iMac and would like to be able to replace the hard drive if it dies.

I do not want a thinner iMac.

My iMac is getting long in the tooth. I guess I will not replace it with another one.

All that takes is a 25 dollar Bluetooth receiver on your stereo... found all day long on ebay or amazon. Get over it. Not to mention a external DVD-burner is like 40 bucks. Meanwhile progress moves forward

 

[shaolindave]

All that takes is a 25 dollar Bluetooth receiver on your stereo...

Hey since he needs to buy a Bluetooth receiver anyway, why include internal speakers at all? You can just buy external speakers on Amazon. Why include Bluetooth or Wifi antennas when dongles cost only $15 each? Maybe Apple should start selling iMacs with only one Thunderbolt port and no USB because you can buy hubs/adapters?

Or instead of spending $25 on a Bluetooth receiver he can use the $3 wires he already owns.

 

[MacMan988]

If I was Tim Cook, I'd put some crazy stuff in new iMacs and release them to the market see how they react when they do those tear down videos of it...

 

[lhammer610]

all the other positive features of these new iMacs far outweight their not having built-in optical drives.

Apple could have built the same iMac with "all the other positive features" with an optical drive. It would have been a little thicker and I don't care if it is thicker. Instead, I would have a thinner iMac with an external SuperDrive on my desktop which will just be stupid looking.

Instead, I will get a Mac Mini, or I will try to go Hackinstosh. Or worse, try to adapt to Windows 8. Arghhhhh.

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All that takes is a 25 dollar Bluetooth receiver on your stereo... found all day long on ebay or amazon. Get over it. Not to mention a external DVD-burner is like 40 bucks. Meanwhile progress moves forward

Bluetooth is yet another complication compared to a 4 ft cord to my amp. Bluetooth also is another level of audio compression which will further degrade my sound.

Why is an external DVD-burner along with its USB cord, plus power cord and wall wart progress vs. an internal DVD?

 

[dec.]

Why do they think that people who cannot even deal with using the filesystem would want to repair or upgrade a computer? The consumer has no business doing that!

Oh, OSX doesn't have a file system anymore?

 

[iGrip]

Oh, OSX doesn't have a file system anymore?

Why would you think that?

 

[second.exodous]

iFixit is still relevant?

Really? You don't think a site that gives such detailed repair instructions for electronic devices isn't relevant? Really?

I've used that site to find out how to fix a DS, 3DS, a HP notebook, a android phone, and just a few months ago had to use it to replace the HDD in my Parents iMac, the first white intel iMac. For those that don't want to fill landfills and destroy the environment in the process find this site very useful and very very relevant.

 

[AtomicGrog]

To me seems a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Putting aside those who are willing to commit heart surgery on their iMac (Having done it once on my 2012 27" to add an SSD I'm unlikely to do it again anytime soon) and looking at a more generic owner based I'm inclined to think the following about upgrades:

• CPU
  
  Very low probability of someone wanting to upgrade, the implication of it being soldered in have to be slim, 1% at best.
  
  I more probable scenario would be the ability to upgrade graphics but that doesn't seem to feature - is this because we already recognise and accept it's a no-go in an iMac?
  .
• Memory
  
  The most probable in my mind, and somewhat curtailed by the lack of externally accessible slots in the 21.5" machine.
  
  I believe that over the life of an average mac/imac there's going to be a modest percentage of owners who'd like to upgrade (25% wouldn't be far off imo...). I still think that that will hold even with a 8GB base and to rectify you'd need to buy the full 16GB up front!
  
  Developers and Vendors don't care about memory utilisation on the whole, sure they will look for memory leaks etc. but if a decent sized app/game uses multiple GB's of memory so be it.
  .
• HDD/SDD
  
  With 1TB as standard, unless you opt for faster (and smaller) i.e. SSD its really hard to imagine most users needing to add to that internally.
  .

To me it looks reasonably well balanced, by far the majority of buyers arent going to head home and complain because they couldn't add and internals the month after the purchase.. sure they might 5 years later but it's due for a refresh then anyway.

 

[The Deepness]

Apple could have built the same iMac with "all the other positive features" with an optical drive. It would have been a little thicker and I don't care if it is thicker. Instead, I would have a thinner iMac with an external SuperDrive on my desktop which will just be stupid looking. Instead, I will get a Mac Mini, or I will try to go Hackinstosh. Or worse, try to adapt to Windows 8. Arghhhhh. Why is an external DVD-burner along with its USB cord, plus power cord and wall wart progress vs. an internal DVD?

Sure, Apple could have included an optical drive in the iMac, but they didn't need to as most software can be delivered over the Internet or Wi-Fi. The SuperDrive perfectly matches the iMac's aesthetic and sits handsomely on the iMac's base. The USB cord (which also provides power to the drive) is only about 12" long and can't be seen at all when you plug it into the port on the back of the iMac. You couldn't ask for a less obtrusive design for an external drive. I think it looks great, but if you think it's "stupid looking," well… to each his own.

 

[lhammer610]

The SuperDrive perfectly matches the iMac's aesthetic and sits handsomely on the iMac's base.

I consider it to be clutter. To me clutter is not handsome. It is a cord when I did not have that one before.

Your are right, and I did not realize that it did not require a power cord.
It is $79. If I am going to get an external optical drive, it will be BD also. For less money. And will have a wall wort.

Maybe I will just epoxy it to the back of my iMac. And send a pic to Jon Ive.

This is shades of when Steve Jobs decreed that the iMac would not have a floppy drive.

I agree that I use an optical drive less, but I still use it. Dropping the it on an iMac for me is two or three years away. That is because many people do not have true high speed Internet (said the writer who has poky sattelite Internet at the moment) and cannot download large files.

Where are you Google Fios?

 

[joe-h2o]

Proper cooling such as big heatsinks, stout heatpipes, and active cooling (rather than passive, fanless cooling) keeps systems cool. Does a small heatsink cool a system better than a large one? Post that on any computer form and brace yourself for the results... hint: larger=better.

These new iMacs reek of "planned obsolescence" and in a time when people have less to spend, never mind frequent upgrades. And it's wasteful on the environment as well.

Oh, Al Gore has been on Apple's board since 2003 and Apple was often behind the times on green initiatives compared to Dell and even HP and I don't care for HP - he's either incapable of selling his tear jerking game to anyone else there or he's a fraud. Snopes and other outlets will reveal the truth, and for the record I am not a conservative (neo- or otherwise.)

I see you've never actually used one.

The new, thinner, iMacs have *much* improved cooling than the earlier generation ones, despite being "smaller" than the old ones.

"larger=better" is not always true. It depends on a number of factors like the TDP of the components you are cooling, the materials you make the heatsink and heat transfer components out of, the path for the airflow, and numerous other things.

The fact that you think that just because it is smaller than the previous generation that it is automatically worse is hilarious and inaccurate.

You should probably use one before making yourself look silly.

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Yes, but I thought the premise of the iMac was 2 cords, one for power, one for the keyboard. Now I have one for the my DVD drive, 1 for my Thunderbolt array, couple more for this expansion device, and that device, now it's messier than a PC

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Size and design?

With Apple's design ingenuity, they could have accommodated some swappable parts. This was a business decision not to allow user serviceable components (at a minimum RAM and hard drives).

The "business decision" was that Intel does not make CPUs with Iris Pro in anything other than a BGA package, so Apple absolutely had to solder them to the board since that's the only choice.

For all the other iMacs (mid 21" up and all the 27"), they still have socketed CPUs. This change is actually probably more annoying to Apple than it is to forum nerd ragers since it complicates their supply chain and assembly process since the 21" iMac now has two additional different logic board configurations and different heatsink interfaces, multiplying the number of spare parts they need to keep on hand. I'm sure they would have stuck with a socketed CPU if they could have, but they had no choice if they wanted Iris Pro.

 

[The Deepness]

I consider it to be clutter. To me clutter is not handsome. It is a cord when I did not have that one before.

Clutter? You should see all the other crap on my desk! The SuperDrive ain't clutter in my house. It's a slick little DVD drive, especially compared to the bulky external drives of old. ;-)

Your are right, and I did not realize that it did not require a power cord. It is $79. If I am going to get an external optical drive, it will be BD also. For less money. And will have a wall wort.

Well, we're just getting into different needs. I have no need for BD playback or encoding on my iMac. I have an OPPO BDP-103 in my home theater that more than satisfies my Blu-ray obsession, and I freely admit it's an obsession. ;-)

Maybe I will just epoxy it to the back of my iMac. And send a pic to Jon Ive..

Yeah, 'cause that'll look nice! Geez, I hope you're joking. If function is that much more important to you than form (which is perfectly reasonable), why even consider an iMac at all? Just build a hackintosh with whatever drives you want. As powerfully functional as the new iMac is, a major part of its appeal IS its innovative design. There's real artistry in the design and engineering of the iMac which, for me and others, factors heavily into its overall value and helps justify its price.

This is shades of when Steve Jobs decreed that the iMac would not have a floppy drive. I agree that I use an optical drive less, but I still use it. Dropping the it on an iMac for me is two or three years away.

Yes! I think Apple considers this leaving legacy formats behind and moving the industry forward. It's a valid argument that removing the optical drive from the iMac (a desktop computer) wasn't completely necessary or has come prematurely, but clearly Apple doesn't see it that way. I fully suspect that doing so doesn't negatively impact the majority of users based on most users' consumption habits. I'm sure Apple has volumes of research data to back that up.

 

[coolspot18]

yeah but the ram is a chip in a socket, the hard drive is attached with a cable so there is too great a risk of someone pulling on it and damaging the cable or unplugging the other end.

It's a SATA connector which is meant to be hot swappable. Apple only needs to mount the connector - like a those in a RAID array or your $20.00 hard drive dock ;-) In fact, most PC laptops have hot swappable hard drives for the past ... 20 years.

 

[newdeal]

It's a SATA connector which is meant to be hot swappable. Apple only needs to mount the connector - like a those in a RAID array or your $20.00 hard drive dock ;-) In fact, most PC laptops have hot swappable hard drives for the past ... 20 years.

Image

ah nice I didn't realise that I thought it would be the same as a macbook pro or a mac mini

 

[lhammer610]

Clutter? You should see all the other crap on my desk! The SuperDrive ain't clutter in my house. It's a slick little DVD drive, especially compared to the bulky external drives of old. ;-)

Mine gets pretty messy, too. I hide the external hard drive. But I cannot hide the optical drive.

If function is that much more important to you than form (which is perfectly reasonable), why even consider an iMac at all? Just build a hackintosh with whatever drives you want. As powerfully functional as the new iMac is, a major part of its appeal IS its innovative design. There's real artistry in the design and engineering of the iMac which, for me and others, factors heavily into its overall value and helps justify its price.

Regretfully, the hackintosh will likely be my next Mac. I don't want to do that because I feel it is immoral and is likely to have some bugs. I don't want to make my life more difficult. I have others more than willing to do that for me. Not Apple, too, please.

I think the iMac is beautiful. But, unfortunately, Apple has always emphasized form over function. I loved my desktop G3. I got a G5 tower, because that was my only option for what I wanted. I now have an iMac and was able to upgrade the RAM and play music from it to my stereo. With the new one, I cannot do either.

Apple has abandoned the prosumer. Now our only choices seem to be OSx86, Linux, BSD, or Windows. I expect that the true pro user feels the same way. It seems silly for Apple to throw away a portion of the market, when they have all those billions sitting around, collecting dust. Why can't they make a Mac for the rest of us?

 

[Cheffy Dave]

You can't on the 21.

thats stupid,I stand corrected! TY

 

[The Deepness]

Regretfully, the hackintosh will likely be my next Mac. I don't want to do that because I feel it is immoral and is likely to have some bugs. I don't want to make my life more difficult. I have others more than willing to do that for me. Not Apple, too, please.

I think the iMac is beautiful. But, unfortunately, Apple has always emphasized form over function. I loved my desktop G3. I got a G5 tower, because that was my only option for what I wanted. I now have an iMac and was able to upgrade the RAM and play music from it to my stereo. With the new one, I cannot do either.

Steve Jobs definitely emphasized form throughout the entire Apple product line and I think we're all the beneficiaries of his vision. I share your sentiment that augmenting a Mac would be somehow "wrong," and my needs, fortunately, don't tempt me to do so.

Why wouldn't you be able to play music from a new Mac to your stereo? Once it's imported into iTunes, you can stream it wherever you want. I do.

Apple has abandoned the prosumer. Now our only choices seem to be OSx86, Linux, BSD, or Windows. I expect that the true pro user feels the same way. It seems silly for Apple to throw away a portion of the market, when they have all those billions sitting around, collecting dust. Why can't they make a Mac for the rest of us?

I think the new Mac Pro will attend to the prosumer demo very well.

 

[lhammer610]

Steve Jobs definitely emphasized form throughout the entire Apple product line and I think we're all the beneficiaries of his vision.

I admire his software, but not the computer hardware.

Why wouldn't you be able to play music from a new Mac to your stereo? Once it's imported into iTunes, you can stream it wherever you want. I do.

And how will I get the sound out of an iMac to my stereo without the headphone output? Don't tell me to invest in a Bluetooth add on as Bluetooth compresses the music (again). It was so simple to just hook up a simple wire with a min-plug on one side and RCA on the other. But now simple has gone away.

I think the new Mac Pro will attend to the prosumer demo very well.

The prosumer is one that wants to pay consumer prices, or a little bit higher, and be able to do things like add RAM, insert extra drives, upgrade video, etc. the new Mac Pro is way outside of that price range at 2.5 times the base iMac.

The new Mac Pro has been met with howls by those pros who demand open hardware, like the current pro (which looks like my late lamented G5).

 

[The Deepness]

I admire his software, but not the computer hardware.

Fair enough. I've admired both over the years, with the hardware probably edging out over software slightly. I've found the hardware to be much better engineered and durable than anything on the PC side.

And how will I get the sound out of an iMac to my stereo without the headphone output? Don't tell me to invest in a Bluetooth add on as Bluetooth compresses the music (again). It was so simple to just hook up a simple wire with a min-plug on one side and RCA on the other. But now simple has gone away.

Over Wi-Fi with either an AppleTV (AirPlay) or an AirPort Express. Both cost just $99. Works great for me. Most of my music is Apple Lossless, and a growing portion of it is downloaded from HDTracks.com in ultra-high fidelity. Sounds phenomenal on my home theater through AppleTV (connected via HDMI).

The prosumer is one that wants to pay consumer prices, or a little bit higher, and be able to do things like add RAM, insert extra drives, upgrade video, etc. the new Mac Pro is way outside of that price range at 2.5 times the base iMac.

The new Mac Pro has been met with howls by those pros who demand open hardware, like the current pro (which looks like my late lamented G5).

I stand corrected, and you're right. Apple hasn't had a Mac that fit that category since the G5 days. And the new Mac Pro (hell, the old Mac Pro for that matter) are definitely out of that price range.

If you're wanting for those days to return though, I think you're wasting your energy. Apple is more about controlling the quality of the UX of their products than ever before. The new Mac Pro is clear evidence of that philosophy regarding their hardware and Apple's direction going forward.

And it makes sense. With the speed and quality of the video processors they're including with most of their models, particularly the high-end ones, and the speed of Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3 ports for users to connect whatever 3rd-party device(s) they desire, Apple sees no justifiable reason to open their hardware up for user modification which could potentially impact the UX in a negative way.

I'm not saying that stance is absolutely right. Clearly you and other prosumers (still) take issue with it. But Apple seems to have decided the prosumer demo, as you've corrected me to recognize, isn't a large enough target market to change their product design philosophy for.

Lament the loss of your G5 if you must, but it may be easier for you to move on by adjusting your workflow to better fit today's technology solutions. Can't stop progress, my friend.

 

[AidenShaw]

...

I think the new Mac Pro will attend to the prosumer demo very well.

At least the "prosumer with deep-pockets" demographic. Xeon, ECC and dual workstation-class graphics cards will never be cheap.

Of course, Apple could make the entry Mac Mini Pro a quad-core with a single GTX card for under $2000.

I can't wait for the actual system and various configs to be announced.

 

[thekev]

Actually, I'd never even try to upgrade the CPU on an iMac. I've repaired the HDD, mobo, and fans on an iMac and HATED IT. I'd rather tell someone to just buy a new system if their CPU ever went up, or they needed a clock speed upgrade.

I hate the lack of ability to repair them. I just meant that in the socket used there, your cpu options are somewhat limited. There is a range of performance, but I'm not sure the 21" models are designed to accommodate the full range of what is available in the 27" ones. Typically I see display problems with imacs more than anything else. You have undoubtedly seen the words finder "burnt in" or that purple vignette along the top. Even prior to this I would have told anyone buying one of these to treat it as a mostly sealed container. As for extending the usable life of a machine, at the moment I think ram upgrades are often the most cost effective approach. Prior to the late 2012 models these things still shipped with 4GB stock.

 

[lhammer610]

Over Wi-Fi with either an AppleTV (AirPlay) or an AirPort Express. Both cost just $99. Works great for me. Most of my music is Apple Lossless, and a growing portion of it is downloaded from HDTracks.com in ultra-high fidelity. Sounds phenomenal on my home theater through AppleTV (connected via HDMI).


Lament the loss of your G5 if you must, but it may be easier for you to move on by adjusting your workflow to better fit today's technology solutions. Can't stop progress, my friend.

So in order to get the music out of my new iMac to my stereo that sits 2 ft away, I need to invest in a $100 Apple TV!? Totally ludicrous.

This is not progress, to require a $100 purchase to replace a $2 cord. Yet I have to add cords to replace the missing opto drive.

Apple has decided to make products that do not meet the needs of a portion of their customers. That is their right. As someone who has used the Mac since 1989, I must look elsewhere.