Intel's Coffee Lake Chips Bring Significant Speed Boosts to 2019 iMacs

[Voyageur]

Good luck with your 21.5” iMac!

Thank you! I am still waiting for the start of sales of computers in my country and expect prices for custom models.. High probability that I will stay on it until the next generation.

But when would you ever be moving data over Thunderbolt to or from external storage while gaming?

I meant that I will not be able to simultaneously connect more than two external devices. eGPU will always occupy one port. But there remains a block of external drives, an additional monitor and other devices, like a multifunctional hub, or something like that. Of course, I could disable eGPU when it is not needed, but it does not seem convenient to me.

(Oddly, however, many of the Radeon VII’s OpenCL compute scores are not much better in macOS 10.14.5 Beta than those of the Radeon Pro Vega 48. I’m guessing this is more a matter of driver tuning than anything else, bearing in mind that this is the first beta build of macOS 10.14.5.)

I just had it in mind. However, if the work goes on, this is good news and sooner or later it will work correctly.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I meant that I will not be able to simultaneously connect more than two external devices. eGPU will always occupy one port. But there remains a block of external drives, an additional monitor and other devices, like a multifunctional hub, or something like that. Of course, I could disable eGPU when it is not needed, but it does not seem convenient to me.

Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained. You should be able to daisy-chain your external drives and a hub off of one of the two Thunderbolt ports, leaving the other dedicated to the eGPU, so that you don’t have to connect and disconnect devices.

 

[mcnallym]

Good for you, you are very very very special. Maybe you also look down and laugh at people that have a smaller house then you; cheaper car than you or less limbs than you. What a wonderful person you are.

It's easy to forget the average joe would just pick up a base model and then they'd get stuck with a 5400RPM drive and be wondering why their new $1300 computer is sow slow compared to a $600 PC that ships with a SSD. Solid State Drives are cheap; Apple should not be shipping computers with 5400RPM spinning drive, it's criminal.

I think you misunderstood the post.

If you actually reread it then his comment is aimed at people saying that that the i9 will throttle, won’t sustain it’s clock speed, will sound like a jet engine as the fans try and cool the cpu down. This before they actually try one out. Instead as is flavour of the month there is a rather vocal bunch that simply seem to be here to pour negativity on anything apple do. The poster has one in front of them and is finding the machine to be suitable for there needs.

Perhaps before jumping on the bandwagon people would be better off waiting for actual results in of testing etc. Is what the poster is saying and is looking forward to laughing when his experience shows up from other people that have machines in front of them.

So far what people that actually have bought/tested actual machines ( as opposed to simply assuming with their own jaded idea’s ) is that in fact the machine is not sounding like a jet engine taking off, and seems to be quite decent machine and showing the posters experience not to be unique or special.

Personally I also find it quite amusing now that the results/tests are starting to come in from people that actually have machines in front of them, that showing the new iMacs are in fact capable machines and running cool and quiet.

No they won’t do 24/7 rendering or other workstation class work, however they are not intended too, that is what the iMac Pro is for, what the new Mac Pro due out later this year is for. (Both sadly out of my price range)

I haven’t read anything from the poster that laughs at people less fortunate then themselves, just laughing at people displaying the typical jaded and biased presumptions before the machines actually tested especially when those people clearly have no intention of ever buying one either. Is interesting that was warned by another poster to put on the flame retardant clothing, and indeed seems to be in need of them.

Apple has a fairly good returns policy allowing anyone that bought a machine to return it if people find that the machine not what they need or even simply decide that cannot live with the fat bezels and chin that people seem obsessed about. So if a person finds that what they bought unsuitable can return it.

I am looking at an i9/8gb/vega/512gb ssd and looking at over 3k. Is why waiting to see the results come in before purchasing as it is a big amount of money. I was concerned how well would run and what the noise level would be due to the 2017 machines at the high end, so far what seeing from people that own/have machines for testing looking encouraging for me.

FWIW then the poster made no comments about hdd which seems to be your particular axe to grind based on your posts.

Even the great one himself used to say that apple not making products for everyone. Instead they would make products that do certain things well. Either apple products meet a persons needs or they do not. They meet my needs so I buy them, if they don’t meet my needs then I don’t.

 

[LordVic]

Have you looked up the scores for the 8-core iMac Pro? It's about the same and that's without a redesigned thermal system. I'll take this for a lot less money, lol. Is there a score difference between macOS and Windows versions of the app? Because at the end of the day here's the deal: I'm not going to build or buy a Windows PC. It's just not going to happen ever. I'm over that phase of my life. So I'm only comparing this to other Macs and from that perspective I think it's pretty great. It's among the fastest Macs you can buy for the lowest amount of money. That makes it pretty incredible IMO. If Macs are so slow then IDK why most video professionals use them?

I'm not doing much with video production anyway that would tax the processor for a long time—mostly shorter bursts with a lot of multitasking. I just wanted something that would run fast when editing and sometimes stitching together 42MP RAW panoramas, handle a lot of design work, development work, and last me for 6-8 years without spending iMac Pro kind of money or feeling too slow towards the end of it's life. Something I can upgrade the RAM on and has the ability to take eGPUs if I want to get one down the road. Something I can use in Bootcamp to do moderate gaming (tested Apex Legends on close to maxed settings for 1440p resolution and it looked great hovering around 60fps which is as fast as the iMac display goes).

It checks all the boxes and was within my budget so I got it. I'm sure the Mac Pro will blow away the iMac and iMac Pro this summer but it's probably outside of my budget and I'm hesitant to buy a majorly redesigned product that is that expensive right out of the gate, especially since I really needed to upgrade last year and have been waiting. They'll probably just announce it in the summer and then I'd be waiting until late in 2019 like they did with the iMac Pro and then I'd want to wait another six months to make sure it's not garbage so maybe another year out from now.

Hey, i've got nothing against the iMac. Just looking at stats numbers cause I was curious about overall performance.

Yes, the Throttling of the highest end chips is a known thing. No, it doesn't necessarily impact all users or use cases. And yes, even a throttling i9 may feel more performant than a non throttling i5 from 4-5 years ago.

A lot of people continue to use mac's for their workflows because of the software, and not necessarily the hardware. They prefer MacOS and the toolset apple provides. Nothing wrong with that. However, these producers who use Apple's software are limited to Apple computers only, so just like you, they'll stay content with using the fastest that Apple can provide, even if it's not the fastest available out there for those tools.

Again, don't mistake my search of numbers as me trying to convince you that you made a bad purchase. if the computer fits your needs and uses than you shoul be happy with your purchase.

 

[macduke]

Hey, i've got nothing against the iMac. Just looking at stats numbers cause I was curious about overall performance.

Yes, the Throttling of the highest end chips is a known thing. No, it doesn't necessarily impact all users or use cases. And yes, even a throttling i9 may feel more performant than a non throttling i5 from 4-5 years ago.

A lot of people continue to use mac's for their workflows because of the software, and not necessarily the hardware. They prefer MacOS and the toolset apple provides. Nothing wrong with that. However, these producers who use Apple's software are limited to Apple computers only, so just like you, they'll stay content with using the fastest that Apple can provide, even if it's not the fastest available out there for those tools.

Again, don't mistake my search of numbers as me trying to convince you that you made a bad purchase. if the computer fits your needs and uses than you shoul be happy with your purchase.

Sorry if I came across as combatant I was just trying to explain why I bought it in spite of higher PC numbers. But I still wonder if the cross-platform numbers are screwy because that seems like a big difference—especially since the iMac Pro has a proper cooling system and some beefy chips.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

Doing so would invite even more comparisons and derision from the PCMR. I venture onto many of the PC gamer oriented sites and it just reads like monkeys flinging their crap at each other. Intel vs. AMD, AMD vs. NVIDIA, iOS vs. Android, Gigabyte vs. Asus and on and on. The raging flame wars over meaningless minutiae is emotionally and mentally exhausting if you spend to much time there.

Your hilarious description of the PC Master Race is so very apt! Rereading it just now made me laugh again.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Bravo on a well-written and well-argued post. (I think this may be the first time I've managed to read a whole post this long on MacRumors, not because my attention span is short, but because most long posts simply ramble. Not this one; so again, well done.)

Mind you, I’m not persuaded that Apple couldn’t successfully differentiate a tower, or that they never will, but you certainly make a very plausible argument for why over the last several years they have not chosen to do so.

My first Mac OS X computer was that same Dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 (June 2004). Not only was it as elegant on the inside as out, opening it up to to add expansion cards, RAM, or drives was simplicity itself, and, of course, it ran Mac OS X, which no Intel PC could do. I would love another Mac tower like that, into which I could drop a proper desktop gaming GPU.

(The only thing I didn’t like about that Power Mac G5 was how noisy its fans became once you had two 7200 rpm hard drives and a Radeon X800 XT in it.)

It will be interesting to see what form Apple’s next Mac Pro takes. In the meantime, I’ve just ordered an Early 2019 27-inch iMac with Core i9 and Radeon Pro Vega 48, and based on the CPU and GPU benchmarks I’m starting to see on the Web for this configuration (yes, even under heavy and sustained load), I expect I’ll be quite pleased with it.

(And although I can’t drop in a proper desktop gaming GPU, with Thunderbolt 3 I now have the option of adding one via an eGPU.)

I try to make my longer posts worth the read, so I appreciate the compliment. Thank you!

I cannot argue with you that Apple could make a tower and successfully market and sell it...indeed, they seem to be pretty good at selling just about anything they set their minds to putting on the market.

I would contend, not argue, but contend that at the Apple, Inc of today, there is simply no one left in the higher levels of management with the will to seriously propose that Apple create a tower "Mac". Looking at how long it took Apple to come back around to the thought of a "modular" Mac Pro verus the *still* on sale 2013 Mac Pro, givs me the best indicator of how headstrong the tide is against a regular, expandable "Mac".

As a fun aside, I just searched for the original TechCrunch article, found it and looked at the date - April 4th, 2017. Yikes! It has been almost two years since Apple admitted to the mistakes they made with the 2013 Mac Pro. The three years it took them to admit the mistakes, plus the two years since that admission means that those engineers from 2006 (when the first Mac Pro was launched) have either departed or moved on to other engineering groups inside Apple. Looking back, the last time any serious engineering was done on the classic Mac Pro was the 2009 redesign that gave us the removable processor tray, as the 2010 and 2012 models were simply refinements and updates to that work. So it was 8 years out from the the 2017 admission and nearly 10 years from the release of the 2009 4,1 Mac Pro. I believe Apple lost some serious hardware talent when they discontinued the Xserve, Xserve RAID and cMP models, but that is simply my opinion, not based in any verifiable facts.

I am keen to see what Apple has come up with for the new Mac Pro, but I think there is still going to be a lot of disappointment once it is unveiled. At least for those who simply want an updated classic Mac Pro, as this will not be it. Also, those wanting Apple to mend its relationship with NVIDIA may also be similarly disappointed as I can see Apple sticking with just AMD and maybe even tapping Intel before they make nice with NVIDIA at this point.

2019 is shaping up to be a very interesting year indeed. I hope you are happy with your Core i9 iMac. I think it is a solid update...I was just hoping Intel would have filled out their CPU portfolio and AMD would have released Navi by now, so that Apple would have been able to put 9th Gen in all models of the 27", and fit the iMac with RX 3060, 3070, 3080 (or whatever AMD calls them) GPUs instead of being forced to go with the RX 500X GPUs, which are already a year old. The Vega 48 is a welcome addition as is the Vega 20 on the 21.5", but they are not cheap upgrades.

I assume you mean NVIDIA when you say "proper desktop gaming GPU"?

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I assume you mean NVIDIA when you say "proper desktop gaming GPU"?

I’ve no firm notions of who makes proper desktop gaming GPUs these days, whether NVIDIA only or AMD also — or even possibly AMD only! Since I’ve been waiting to get a Thunderbolt 3 iMac for proper eGPU support, I’ve not bothered to keep up on the desktop gaming GPU scene.

I was struck by a comment that I saw a year or two ago from a MacRumors reader who said that after getting his eGPU, he realized that eGPUs were about macOS gaming! Now while I do maintain a Boot Camp partition for gaming, I much prefer to game in macOS if the performance and graphics are acceptable.

(I think Dragon Age: Origins, Shadow of Mordor, and War in the North were the only cross-platform games that I ever tried in macOS and then gave up on to play in Windows instead. Dragon Age: Origins, if I recall correctly, was a Cider-wrapped port, not a hand-tuned port by one of the dedicated Mac game porting houses, and I seem to recall that while its performance in macOS was good, not all of the graphical effects from the Windows version carried over. War in the North and Shadow of Mordor, which Feral Interactive ported, looked just like the Windows versions, but their performance was hampered by Apple’s aging and neglected OpenGL implementation.)

(Now Feral is using Metal for their newer games, so that’s no longer an issue. They just updated 2012’s Batman: Arkham City with Metal and 64-bit support. I first played Arkham City on my 2010 iMac with Radeon HD 5670 at 1080p in macOS, and I was content; I never felt the need to boot into Windows in order to gain more performance. On my 2015 iMac with Radeon R9 M395X, its performance in macOS was noticeably smoother even at 1440p. But after Feral updated the game to use Metal instead of OpenGL, wow!)

If I add an eGPU enclosure to this new iMac I’ve ordered, I’ll drop in a high-end desktop GPU. Of course, I’ll have to do some research before deciding which one. From everything I’ve read, a top-of-the-line NVIDIA GPU is going to give me better performance in most Windows games. But given Apple’s support for AMD, it seems entirely possible that an AMD GPU like their new Radeon VII is going to give better performance in macOS games than any NVIDIA GPU, and then I could look forward to playing newer “AAA” games in macOS with very few compromises, and that would be a real pleasure!

 

[Luis Ortega]

One thing is certain, however: Apple will not be licensing macOS for use on other hardware. They tried that in the 90s and quickly discovered it was a disaster.

Lol...The only 'disaster' was that they couldn't make so much profit.

 

[Voyageur]

2019 is shaping up to be a very interesting year indeed. I hope you are happy with your Core i9 iMac. I think it is a solid update...I was just hoping Intel would have filled out their CPU portfolio and AMD would have released Navi by now, so that Apple would have been able to put 9th Gen in all models of the 27", and fit the iMac with RX 3060, 3070, 3080 (or whatever AMD calls them) GPUs instead of being forced to go with the RX 500X GPUs, which are already a year old. The Vega 48 is a welcome addition as is the Vega 20 on the 21.5", but they are not cheap upgrades.

Three upcoming graphics cards of the new Navi generation are positioned as a mid-price solution for games and they all use the GGDR memory. The head model of the graphics card will be at the level of the GTX 1070 and for me it sounds not good. I personally would not want such graphic cards in the future iMac, especially since this is already a comparative level of Vega 48, which is already between 1060 and 1070. If these cards are installed, the iMac will again stay at a bad level graphics for its resolution display.

 

[chucker23n1]

Lol...The only 'disaster' was that they couldn't make so much profit.

Which is quite a disaster. If the end result of third-party Mac hardware is that the first-party OS is no longer a sustainable business, then everyone loses.

 

[partsofspeech]

IMHO, go for the 8 core if you need the power, otherwise the 3.0Ghz. The 3.1Ghz is entirely pointless and the 3,7Ghz hexacore is only 200 bucks cheaper than the octacore core -which even outperforms the hexacore in single thread benchmarks despite lower clock.
View attachment 829124

Great informatic graph. It helps me putting my purchase planning in $ perspective. Thanks! Do you have a graph to make choice between 500GB SSD and 3TB fusion easier?

 

[Luis Ortega]

Which is quite a disaster. If the end result of third-party Mac hardware is that the first-party OS is no longer a sustainable business, then everyone loses.

Greed is not a sustainable business model.
And Windows is proof that you're wrong.

 

[jdiamond]

Lol, my 4770k i7 hackintosh with a nVidia 1080ti got these scores on compute:

OpenCL = 215873
Metal = 227638
CUDA = 245960

Seems like you need to get out more. Yes us hackintosh guys with nVidia cards can run CUDA; which as you can see is faster than OpenCL and Metal, but then again I would expect that from nVidia.

Looks like my pathetic 4th gen i7 Hackintosh's nVidia 1080i is even beating iMac Pros (Vega64) on compute when I went to search, had to go to page 30 something just to find a Mac. Windows systems score even higher.

For what it is worth, my system is all air cooled.

Good points, although it sounds like your system is a desktop tower. iMacs (like the Mac Mini) are basically laptop parts - they're just stuck to the back of a monitor. Of course, once you're tethered to one place, it's not so different having a classic tower or an all in one. And while you'd never expect an all-in-one to rival the performance of a custom tower rig, the way Apple USED to make such things marketable was the 80% rule: Macs were never as fast as the fastest PC you could build, but by using cutting edge chipsets - ones that weren't even released to OEMs yet - they were designed to be as fast as 80% of PCs - that was enough to keep most people happy. If Apple is no longer doing this, then they're going to mar their reputation.
[doublepost=1554214131][/doublepost]

Greed is not a sustainable business model.
And Windows is proof that you're wrong.

Windows never charged OEMs more than $100/license. Some got favorable deals as low as $10/license. For that to support Apple, Apple would need a far larger computer market share. Also keep in mind that Microsoft was diversified - in most years, their Windows division actually posted significant losses, and most of their profits came from selling Microsoft Office for prices that dwarfed Windows. I remember in the 90s paying between $600 and $2,000 for the Enterprise editions of MS Office - that was for one person. That's about the profit Apple makes when selling their own hardware. We never paid for Windows.

What history has shown over and over is that if Apple let 3rd parties make hardware then Apple's own hardware business would mostly die. Notice Microsoft has never had a very large hardware business - their greatest successes recently were a few million tablets sold at a loss, with their main successful hardware business being the XBOX.

So I do NOT believe that with Apple's current business model they could survive with 3rd party hardware. Unless they just paid for all the losses with iPhone sales. So then the question is what's the advantage to Apple to converting Apple computers into 3rd party computers? I for one am a lot more happy with the tech support I get at Apple then at Sony or Dell.

NOTE: This is not meant to imply that Apple's current computer designs don't have major, major failings. This is WHY Apple's hardware business would die - because 3rd parties could make far better hardware than Apple's current designs. I feel this is more because Apple has severe internal cultural problems than because Apple's engineers aren't capable.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I’ve no firm notions of who makes proper desktop gaming GPUs these days, whether NVIDIA only or AMD also — or even possibly AMD only! Since I’ve been waiting to get a Thunderbolt 3 iMac for proper eGPU support, I’ve not bothered to keep up on the desktop gaming GPU scene.

I was struck by a comment that I saw a year or two ago from a MacRumors reader who said that after getting his eGPU, he realized that eGPUs were about macOS gaming! Now while I do maintain a Boot Camp partition for gaming, I much prefer to game in macOS if the performance and graphics are acceptable.

(I think Dragon Age: Origins, Shadow of Mordor, and War in the North were the only cross-platform games that I ever tried in macOS and then gave up on to play in Windows instead. Dragon Age: Origins, if I recall correctly, was a Cider-wrapped port, not a hand-tuned port by one of the dedicated Mac game porting houses, and I seem to recall that while its performance in macOS was good, not all of the graphical effects from the Windows version carried over. War in the North and Shadow of Mordor, which Feral Interactive ported, looked just like the Windows versions, but their performance was hampered by Apple’s aging and neglected OpenGL implementation.)

(Now Feral is using Metal for their newer games, so that’s no longer an issue. They just updated 2012’s Batman: Arkham City with Metal and 64-bit support. I first played Arkham City on my 2010 iMac with Radeon HD 5670 at 1080p in macOS, and I was content; I never felt the need to boot into Windows in order to gain more performance. On my 2015 iMac with Radeon R9 M395X, its performance in macOS was noticeably smoother even at 1440p. But after Feral updated the game to use Metal instead of OpenGL, wow!)

If I add an eGPU enclosure to this new iMac I’ve ordered, I’ll drop in a high-end desktop GPU. Of course, I’ll have to do some research before deciding which one. From everything I’ve read, a top-of-the-line NVIDIA GPU is going to give me better performance in most Windows games. But given Apple’s support for AMD, it seems entirely possible that an AMD GPU like their new Radeon VII is going to give better performance in macOS games than any NVIDIA GPU, and then I could look forward to playing newer “AAA” games in macOS with very few compromises, and that would be a real pleasure!

I asked because there are many posters on this forum that use the term "proper desktop gaming GPU" instead of just saying NVIDIA.

 

[jerwin]

Lol...The only 'disaster' was that they couldn't make so much profit.

From the New York Times, Oct 15 1998

Company Reports; Apple's First Annual Profit since 1995

Who's gouging whom?

 

[Zdigital2015]

Three upcoming graphics cards of the new Navi generation are positioned as a mid-price solution for games and they all use the GGDR memory. The head model of the graphics card will be at the level of the GTX 1070 and for me it sounds not good. I personally would not want such graphic cards in the future iMac, especially since this is already a comparative level of Vega 48, which is already between 1060 and 1070. If these cards are installed, the iMac will again stay at a bad level graphics for its resolution display.

Unfortunately, as of this date, any speculation as to how much performance we will see with 7nm Navi 10 is just that - speculation. Right now, we know that AMD will announce 7nm Navi 10 at Computex - https://www.tweaktown.com/news/65433/amd-confirms-unveil-next-gen-navi-gpus-27/index.html - and there is speculation about 7nm Navi 20 performance - https://wccftech.com/amd-navi-20-radeon-rx-graphics-card-ray-tracing-gcn-architecture-rumor/ - but right now that is all we have to go on, rumors and speculation.

My theory (assumption) was that Apple would most likely wait until Navi 10 was announced and Intel finished fleshing out their CL-R portfolio with the the i5-9500, i5 9600 and i7-9700, as the 2017 iMac used the i5-7500 and i5-7600 in the $1799 and $1999 pricing tiers for the iMac. I also thought that Apple might also offer a second BTO option with the Core i7-9700K at $300-$350, but they stuck with their typical N+1 BTO CPU on the $2299 model.

My theory was predicate on the notion that Apple did not want to have yet another generation of Polaris in the iMac (Pro 500X) and that the Vega was being held back for use in just the iMac Pro and that Navi 10 would be that next logical leap for Apple before committing to an update of the iMac. I was wrong on both counts. Apple went with 500X and a Vega 48 magically appeared.

I had also pondered whether Apple would use 8th Gen CPUs in at least part of the 27" iMac lineup if Intel failed to get its $#!7 together with regard to fleshing out the 9th Gen portfolio. I was partially right, Apple did. I had no idea Intel would give us KF versions of their CPUs, which I despise as this is simply Intel salvaging every CPU they produce to get something out the door while they continue to struggle with 14nm demand and convince us they will have 10nm ready for winter (count me dubious of that claim).

I am hopeful that the RX3060, 3070, 3080 (if that is what they are indeed called) will give a decent lift over the existing Polaris 10, 20 and 30 GPUs such that Apple follows up with an interim update of the iMac later this year, perhaps even giving the iMac a 10-core Comet Lake CPU.

How any of those GPUs stack up against the Vega 48 BTO remains to be seen. Conventional wisdom says they will be faster than the 500X, but I have been burned before, so I will wait and see.

 

[chucker23n1]

Greed is not a sustainable business model.

Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy or being acquired. This wasn’t going to work out.

And Windows is proof that you're wrong.

Wha?

So a business model used to work for Microsoft (it no longer does, by the way), and therefore, it automatically does for everyone else?

So, Be, Inc. and NeXT were just, what, too stupid? Too stubborn? Not good enough?

You seem to think all Apple had to do is lower licensing costs and everything else was going to work out.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I had no idea Intel would give us KF versions of their CPUs, which I despise as this is simply Intel salvaging every CPU they produce to get something out the door while they continue to struggle with 14nm demand and convince us they will have 10nm ready for winter (count me dubious of that claim).

But for iMacs with discrete GPUs, aren’t the KF CPUs preferable? Or is there some advantage to having an integrated GPU in addition to the discrete GPU that I’m missing?

I am hopeful that the RX3060, 3070, 3080 (if that is what they are indeed called) will give a decent lift over the existing Polaris 10, 20 and 30 GPUs such that Apple follows up with an interim update of the iMac later this year, perhaps even giving the iMac a 10-core Comet Lake CPU.

That would be lovely (at least for those who haven’t already bought an Early 2019 iMac!), but based on Apple’s last two update cycles, I’d be a little surprised if Apple updates the iMac again before Late 2020.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Greed is not a sustainable business model.
And Windows is proof that you're wrong.

People have been complaining about Apple’s prices for at least 35 years. Some of their products are expensive, but high-priced doesn’t mean overpriced.

Do you think Apple should cut their prices by 10%? That makes as much sense as you going into your boss’s office and telling him you’d be ok if he cut your pay by 10%.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

Great informatic graph. It helps me putting my purchase planning in $ perspective. Thanks! Do you have a graph to make choice between 500GB SSD and 3TB fusion easier?

You're welcome! Just put that quickly together in Paint.
When it comes to storage I would consider external storage. Depends on your needs of course.
I, personally, would choose a 256 or more likely 512GB SSD and dump large data on a separate (external) drive. With USB 3.1 the bottleneck will be the HDD, not the cable.
IMHO it's important to know that the fusion drive is basically a small SSD (don't know the size in the current iMacs) and a normal hard drive.
Naturally, the SSD will be used as write cache, thus always accelerating write operations.
On read operations things are different: OSX will place frequently used files on the SSD making them quickly accessible, however files on the HDD will still read only at hard drive speeds.
So, I would make that decision mostly depending on the intended usage.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Good points, although it sounds like your system is a desktop tower. iMacs (like the Mac Mini) are basically laptop parts - they're just stuck to the back of a monitor. Of course, once you're tethered to one place, it's not so different having a classic tower or an all in one. And while you'd never expect an all-in-one to rival the performance of a custom tower rig, the way Apple USED to make such things marketable was the 80% rule: Macs were never as fast as the fastest PC you could build, but by using cutting edge chipsets - ones that weren't even released to OEMs yet - they were designed to be as fast as 80% of PCs - that was enough to keep most people happy. If Apple is no longer doing this, then they're going to mar their reputation.
[doublepost=1554214131][/doublepost]

Windows never charged OEMs more than $100/license. Some got favorable deals as low as $10/license. For that to support Apple, Apple would need a far larger computer market share. Also keep in mind that Microsoft was diversified - in most years, their Windows division actually posted significant losses, and most of their profits came from selling Microsoft Office for prices that dwarfed Windows. I remember in the 90s paying between $600 and $2,000 for the Enterprise editions of MS Office - that was for one person. That's about the profit Apple makes when selling their own hardware. We never paid for Windows.

What history has shown over and over is that if Apple let 3rd parties make hardware then Apple's own hardware business would mostly die. Notice Microsoft has never had a very large hardware business - their greatest successes recently were a few million tablets sold at a loss, with their main successful hardware business being the XBOX.

So I do NOT believe that with Apple's current business model they could survive with 3rd party hardware. Unless they just paid for all the losses with iPhone sales. So then the question is what's the advantage to Apple to converting Apple computers into 3rd party computers? I for one am a lot more happy with the tech support I get at Apple then at Sony or Dell.

NOTE: This is not meant to imply that Apple's current computer designs don't have major, major failings. This is WHY Apple's hardware business would die - because 3rd parties could make far better hardware than Apple's current designs. I feel this is more because Apple has severe internal cultural problems than because Apple's engineers aren't capable.

None of the 2017 or 2019 21.5” or 27” iMacs uses laptops components with the exception of the 2.5” HDD used in the 21.5”. They use desktop CPUs (excluding the non-Retina 21.5”), desktop CPUs, Intel PCH, 3.5” HDD and/or an NVMe storage blade which is no different than the m.2 blade used in Windows PCs and laptops. The Radeon Pro GPUs are not mobile GPUs either as some previous iMacs used, but a desktop GPU underclocked to improve heat dissipation and consume less energy. I do not consider SO-DIMMs to be laptop parts anymore as the choice between a DIMM or SO-DIMM is strictly one of form factor.

The Mac mini was once entirely built off of laptop parts, but the 2018 Mac mini uses a server-class PCH (Intel CM246), a Desktop CPU (not socketed, but still a desktop part), NVMe storage, etc.

I would disagree that Apple’s hardware have major, major failings. There are issues to be remedied for sure.

I would also disagree and say that third party OEMs would make a complete disaster hardware-wise, given access to macOS in a matter similar to Windows. More nondescript black towers w/RGB lighting and 2” thick laptops with 3 hour battery life are not better or more interesting than what Apple gives us right now, despite the caveats.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

When it comes to storage I would consider external storage. Depends on your needs of course.

If one plans to use Boot Camp, one should bear in mind that as supported by Apple, the Boot Camp partition must reside on the internal drive.

IMHO it's important to know that the fusion drive is basically a small SSD (don't know the size in the current iMacs) and a normal hard drive.

In the 2019 iMacs, the 1 TB Fusion Drive uses a 32 GB SSD; the 2 and 3 TB Fusion Drives use a 128 GB SSD.

Naturally, the SSD will be used as write cache, thus always accelerating write operations.
On read operations things are different: OSX will place frequently used files on the SSD making them quickly accessible, however files on the HDD will still read only at hard drive speeds.

I’ve been using a 3 TB Fusion Drive for the past three and a half years and have been very happy with it. I had no hesitation in configuring my new 2019 iMac with another 3 TB Fusion Drive.

I would not recommend the 1 TB Fusion Drive, on account of its much smaller SSD.

 

[partsofspeech]

Apple had made a rational business decision to keep a disk mechanically spinning. Rational by management benchmark but not smart for Apple story.
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If one plans to use Boot Camp, one shoudl bear in mind that as supported by Apple, the Boot Camp partition must reside on the internal drive.


In the 2019 iMacs, the 1 TB Fusion Drive uses a 32 GB SSD; the 2 and 3 TB Fusion Drives use a 128 GB SSD.


I’ve been using a 3 TB Fusion Drive for the past three and a half years and have been very happy with it. I had no hesitation in configuring my new 2019 iMac with another 3 TB Fusion Drive.

I would not recommend the 1 TB Fusion Drive, on account of its much smaller SSD.

Thanks for sharing your usage experience. Other than for playing games, are there other applications Windows are better than MacOS or even necessary in iMac?

 

[Colonel Blimp]

Other than for playing games, are there other applications Windows are better than MacOS or even necessary in iMac?

I would imagine there must be some Windows applications that are better than their macOS counterparts (nothing leaps out at me, but then I don’t pay much attention to Windows apps), just as there are macOS applications that are better than anything available on Windows. It’s a wide world, after all.