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iMac G5 $1099 with GeForce 4 MX

You also wouldn't get one because Apple wouldn't sell you one :) They're not available to the public. Not even students/teachers.

I do think it's weird that Apple even BOTHERED to change the GPU. I guess they know what saves them money, but I'm surprised that it would be worth it.

As for paying the SAME price for a Treo phone with or w/o camera... jeez, it should cost a little less! :)
 
slowtreme said:
If they can Downgrade the video processor, then they can UPGRADE it too!!!
Click to expand...

Yes. THEY can. And they will... future iMac revisions will see upgraded specs. But the GPU's soldered in. They MAKE them with the GPU of their choosing, but you can't upgrade it yourself.

Basically it's like a laptop that way--all part of making it compact.
 
nagromme said:
But the GPU's soldered in. They MAKE them with the GPU of their choosing, but you can't upgrade it yourself.
Click to expand...

You have seen the GPU in the new iMac? Many notebooks now use a standard GPU module card, and it's not soldered on.

I saw the picture of the open back, but could not verify that the GPU was part of the mainboard.
 
I know it's soldered by report, but from seeing for myself. It would be cool if that weren't true, because third parties might make replacement boards even if Apple never would. But I really think we'd have heard loud and clear by now if the soldered-in part wasn't true. (And I'm sure the iMac doesn't have a standard size slot for retail GPU cards.)
 
nagromme said:
I know it's soldered by report, but from seeing for myself. It would be cool if that weren't true, because third parties might make replacement boards even if Apple never would. But I really think we'd have heard loud and clear by now if the soldered-in part wasn't true. (And I'm sure the iMac doesn't have a standard size slot for retail GPU cards.)
Click to expand...

I am quite certain that Apple could have found a way to intergrate a standard sized removable AGP card inside of the 2" thick G5 imac if they chose to. If you think about it the Xserves are only 1.73 Inches thick and yet they manage to fit Two full sized PCI-X cards inside not to mention Dual G5's and Multiple Drive bays.
 
Little Endian said:
I am quite certain that Apple could have found a way to intergrate a standard sized removable AGP card inside of the 2" thick G5 imac if they chose to. If you think about it the Xserves are only 1.73 Inches thick and yet they manage to fit Two full sized PCI-X cards inside not to mention Dual G5's and Multiple Drive bays.
Click to expand...
Yup! And only two feet front to back!
 
A few thoughts about this new "edu iMac G5"...

- Wasn't the eMac released because CRTs can take a lot more beating than an LCD?

- isn't making a new motherboard version (lower GPU/VRAM) *more* expensive? Shouldn't the lower cost of the GPU/VRAM be wiped by the expense of making a different motherboard?

- does this mean the death of the eMac? Or will we instead see a eMac G5 soon? (to still offer a lower-cost option)

- does this mean a *huge* petition to Apple (like, 100k signatures with pre-orders or something) could lead to a "gamer-class" iMac G5? Not with an X800/256MB (way too expensive, it's mad) but at least something twice as powerful as the FX5200 Ultra and with 128MB instead of 64MB? Something that could play Doom 3 and World of Wacraft adequately (~30 fps, medium/high quality settings at the native LCD resolution) Or could a petition simply pressure Apple to put something better in rev.B? Or at least in the 20" rev.B? Or a yet higher model than the current 20"? To have 4 iMac choices? I'd pay an extra 200$US to get a very good GPU with 128/256MB (my Radeon 9600XT 128MB was fine for Doom 3 and should be fine for World of Wacraft too - but I'd rather flush the PC completely. A PC Tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse = wasted space (and lots more wires) if the iMac G5 can do decent gaming too).

Off-topic:
Will we see a mini-PowerMac G5 soon? (my specs would be single processor, same bus speed as big PowerMac, only one AGP slot (with nice BTO options/upgrades), no PCI/X slots, room for only 1 or 2 serial ATA HDs, combo/superdrive options, maximum 2GB RAM like the iMac G5. They'd have to make it this way to keep selling the big PowerMac (lower max. RAM and max. HDs) but it'd be fine for "power-gamers" and "pro users") Depending on the price of such beasts I think they could sell thousands! Oh, and make them with the same alu cases as the big PowerMac but with iPod mini color options (again, to differentiate from the Pro PowerMac models).

I want a blue one! :D

Edit: just read the edu page again. The crippled model has:
- GeForce4 MX/32MB instead of a GeForce FX Ultra 64MB
- no optical drive
- 40GB less HD

And it's only 100$ lower? A combo drive *alone* must be worth at *least* 100$ (at Apple's cost). What gives?!
 
Umm, couldn't Apple just include a CD-ROM drive, DVD-ROM Drive, or CD-RW Drive? I mean, either of those 3 are soo cheap these days, and I don't understand why apple did that. Also, how would they be able to reinstall the OS?
 
Little Endian said:
I am quite certain that Apple could have found a way to intergrate a standard sized removable AGP card inside of the 2" thick G5 imac if they chose to. If you think about it the Xserves are only 1.73 Inches thick and yet they manage to fit Two full sized PCI-X cards inside not to mention Dual G5's and Multiple Drive bays.
Click to expand...
It would be pretty awkward and custom considering that the LCD doesn't use a normal DVI or VGA port. It's hardwire to the graphics chip. So what if you put a graphics card in there... unless either Apple made some crazy internal connector for their monitor or you were running an external monitor, it would be useless.
 
spaceballl said:
It would be pretty awkward and custom considering that the LCD doesn't use a normal DVI or VGA port. It's hardwire to the graphics chip. So what if you put a graphics card in there... unless either Apple made some crazy internal connector for their monitor or you were running an external monitor, it would be useless.
Click to expand...
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html

MXM: Mobile PCI Express Module Graphics Interface for Notebook PCs

That is all.
 
slowtreme said:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html

MXM: Mobile PCI Express Module Graphics Interface for Notebook PCs

That is all.
Click to expand...
That would be great to see Apple implement in future designs. For now though it looks like they decided to stick with the AGP bus (not slot). However, it has been noted in other forums that they list the logic board as user replacable. Someone suggested that a 3rd party could offer a replacement with a better processor and video card down the road.
 
Bear said:
The main problem I have with the education version of the iMac G5 is the amount of video ram. That's going to kill the speed of some applications.

However, for some schools and situations, not having an optical drive is a good thing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and what would be best is to have a mac lab with no opticals except for a couple or just one that the teacher uses...since you can use idvd, etc on macs and burn on another computer this would work great. It is not only cheap but serves to help prevent things from being installed or used on computers in schools that teachers don't want the kids doing.
 
slowtreme said:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html

MXM: Mobile PCI Express Module Graphics Interface for Notebook PCs

That is all.
Click to expand...
Wrong. MXM is a proprietary system which uses the PCI Express datapath. However, it isn't a PCI express slot. It is a proprietary nVidia connector for low power, notebook graphics which they may be licensing. Apple putting laptop graphics chips in the iMac is a completely different story. But your concept as you had thought of it still stands as wrong. MXM doesn't mean people can just slap in PCI express video cards.

That is all.
 
Abstract said:
Schools do quite well with less than that. Its always great to see a 64MB GPU working hard in a Highschool lab when they teach students how to use Filemaker Pro to make a crappy database. They screwed with the entire FileMaker Pro experience....
Click to expand...
Its sad but true. I've seen "perfectly good" computers that still have 8 megs of VRAM 300MHZ P2 and 64 Megs of ram... taking 2 mins just to log in... schools deal with pretty crappy hardware.

Though 999 for that iMac would be killer.
 
Sun Baked said:
Apple introduced the eMac because the LCD iMac couldn't compete pricewise with the old CRT iMac , and they still can't hit the price point the current eMac sits at.

Apple really doesn't want to keep low-margine products (look at all of them that they killed, CRTs/15" LCDs/etc.), yet that's where Dell is hammering Apple.

This new education iMac G5 is still too expensive, compared to the eMac and the Dells.
Click to expand...

Universities aren't buying 15" screens either (at least Carnegie Mellon wasn't), but I also remember someone telling me (this was in 2000, so its dated information) that the University got a better deal if they bought monitors with the computers. That sounded like a good idea, untill you have 19" CRT's in a lab that was already tight with 17" CRT's . . . .

ok that was off topic. nevermind
 
Just responding to some of the questions and rants about VRAM and RAM.

I believe apple will get away with putting crappy video cards and small amounts of memory in the iMacs because hopefully Tiger will be able to address and parse out 256mbs than Panther can. Core Image and Core Video will also take some stress off of the CPU and will make the GPU more efficient. 256mbs in tiger may be like 512-768 in Panther.

Just a guess.
 
spaceballl said:
Wrong. MXM is a proprietary system which uses the PCI Express datapath. However, it isn't a PCI express slot. It is a proprietary nVidia connector for low power, notebook graphics which they may be licensing. Apple putting laptop graphics chips in the iMac is a completely different story. But your concept as you had thought of it still stands as wrong. MXM doesn't mean people can just slap in PCI express video cards.

That is all.
Click to expand...
I never suggested that the G5 iMac could have been built to hold a full size AGP or PCE gfx card. But they could have used MXM or the other one (dell uses a similar connecter in notebooks) to allow upgradeable gfx in a small formfactor card.

The link was to for proof of availibility.
 
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