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

[opinio]

I don't think apple will produce too many more macs that don't have a soldered CPU.

 

[The Deepness]

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.

My fault. I thought you meant your stereo in another room. I was projecting my setup onto your situation. Sorry. Yeah, my suggestion doesn't really make sense there. I know there are USB-to-mini plug cables though. Check Monoprice.com. They've got cables for just about every application.

 

[Digital Skunk]

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.

I agree about the repairability. The iMac also gets a speed bump with SSD, but as we all know you have to have some gusto to want to take off that hermetically sealed glass panel. A 27" is the only thing I'd bother opening up to upgrade the RAM and HDD, and in most cases it's still a headache with the level of paste, glue, and tape Apple uses to hold a $3000 machine together.(and the 24" before it).

 

[thekev]

I don't think apple will produce too many more macs that don't have a soldered CPU.

You have to examine what is offered in soldered vs socketed. BGA types are soldered as per specification. You won't see soldered mac pro chips at the moment because those chips only come in socketed types (not to mention the cost of the cpus).

I agree about the repairability. The iMac also gets a speed bump with SSD, but as we all know you have to have some gusto to want to take off that hermetically sealed glass panel. A 27" is the only thing I'd bother opening up to upgrade the RAM and HDD, and in most cases it's still a headache with the level of paste, glue, and tape Apple uses to hold a $3000 machine together.(and the 24" before it).

I didn't take note of a switch to ssds, but I didn't spend much time on the spec page. I noticed that the lowest 21" dropped to iris graphics. That wasn't terribly surprising, but I thought they would have dropped the price back to where it was prior to the last design revision. The 27" models supposedly have user serviceable ram, so they must have retained some kind of convenient access for it. I'm not personally affected either way. The imac just doesn't solve many problems for me in that there are better displays out there. For the required investment to spec out a 27", its value isn't well aligned for me. It can take enough ram. The gpu options relative to its configured price (can't stress that enough) aren't terribly impressive. The screen isn't really on par with what others do with similar panels. If you're in the price territory of the imac or Apple displays, you have some excellent display options outside of Apple.