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Just got a new 27 Inch iMac, Feeling Worried About a Refresh!
- Thread starter Arcadia310
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I have a My Book Studio II - on Firewire 800 it flies, on USB2 I'm lucky to use 1/2 the potential bandwidth provided. I've yet to see a hard disk reach the theoretical 480mbps (60MBps) - the best I've seen was a large single file hitting around 25-30MBps.
Excuse me but all you said was 'Right.. exactly
' - hardly my fault that I had to read into your comment more than I would normally have to because you're too lazy to actually articulate a reply that wasn't childish.Read the what I stated originally - I was talking about an iMac refresh that would include an Ivy Bridge processor then I said in a later post that I wouldn't be surprised if Apple did a minor refresh keeping Sandy Bridge and maybe upgrading the GPU etc. Holy sh-tballs mate, how about reading the WHOLE discussion instead of honing in on ONE post.
Having had a look at the articles which talk about the architecture of Sandy Bridge and then compare it to the details know of Ivy Bridge then I think it is a question of 'depends' whether one considers Ivy Bridge Mac's a 'must have upgrade' vs. 'a nice upgrade my I'm happy with my Sandy Bridge for now'.
I haven't tested usb3 devices. Usb2 is spiky. You don't really get the advertised speed, even though modern 3.5" hard drives can surpass 100MB/s when mounted internally.
Most of the articles talk about laptop appropriate hardware. Ivy Bridge Xeons haven't really been mentioned, and they are unaffected by the changes with Intel's integrated graphics. I doubt they'll be out at the same time anyway.
Don't worry about the refresh.
I really like my 2010 iMac when it was a few months before it was refreshed. My only regret was not getting SSD 256 / 2 TB built to order iMac. I got a plain 1 TB Mac and I really wish my iMac had the speed that my Macbook Air delivers. I wish it didn't require Tony Stark's help to upgrade the hard drive to my specifications. If the Mini is updated to match at least my 2010 iMac graphic specs then I'll switch to a Mini with SSD in 2012.
I really like my 2010 iMac when it was a few months before it was refreshed. My only regret was not getting SSD 256 / 2 TB built to order iMac. I got a plain 1 TB Mac and I really wish my iMac had the speed that my Macbook Air delivers. I wish it didn't require Tony Stark's help to upgrade the hard drive to my specifications. If the Mini is updated to match at least my 2010 iMac graphic specs then I'll switch to a Mini with SSD in 2012.
When you say you're using FCP, are we talking 7 or X? If you're using FCP7 and it's working fine as is, then you'll be fine forever, since it's old and not going anywhere. If you're using FCP X and it's running well enough, you may still be fine, since it seems that program was designed to work on less-than-ultimate hardware.
Incidentally, I would say that if you're the type to upgrade a machine, you might consider a Mac Pro in the future. iMacs aren't known for being easy to service yourself and don't have a lot of room to grow into, if you know what I mean.
Excuse me but all you said was 'Right.. exactly
You are obviously too nieve to understand sarcasm, hence the
emoticon was used. Sad I had to even point this out, but not surprised.I'm either buying a refurb 2011 imac or waiting till the 2012 ivy bridge. I move a lot a large files around and want USB 3 which will be more common and cheaper than Thunderbolt. Ill buy a $2000 6 drive Promise Thunderbolt raid when it has 6x3TB drives, but now its price rose 25% to $2500 for 6x2TB, ouch.
I don't mind purchasing a refurb 2011 iMac and losing a few hundred $ to get the 2012, it's more the pain of selling it. I might hold off and upgrade my current mini with a SSD. I have a new to me 2011 MBA which I'm loving.
I bought the last G4 tower before the G5 came out with USB 2 so I got burned. While FireWire is better than USB 2, it usually costs a 25% premium for those external drives.
Additionally, I'm insulted by apple having a $1000+ iMac with a 500gb drive and a $2000+ iMac with a 1tb drive as standards. The $2200 i7 iMac should have 2tb as standard and 3tb as optional. If the time capsules come in those configurations, then a $2200 iMac should.
End of line
I don't mind purchasing a refurb 2011 iMac and losing a few hundred $ to get the 2012, it's more the pain of selling it. I might hold off and upgrade my current mini with a SSD. I have a new to me 2011 MBA which I'm loving.
I bought the last G4 tower before the G5 came out with USB 2 so I got burned. While FireWire is better than USB 2, it usually costs a 25% premium for those external drives.
Additionally, I'm insulted by apple having a $1000+ iMac with a 500gb drive and a $2000+ iMac with a 1tb drive as standards. The $2200 i7 iMac should have 2tb as standard and 3tb as optional. If the time capsules come in those configurations, then a $2200 iMac should.
End of line
One of the very reasons I waited another year (I have a early 2009 27 iMac i5) to upgrade. While thunderbolt is faster, it is also much more costly. I know I'll have clients and friends giving me external that are USB 3.0 much more (always) often then thunderbolt. It is a bit of future proofing for me.
Of course it flies over FW800. USB 2 is slow and hence why we all want USB 3. USB 3 is even faster than FW800 so your drive would "fly" even more. What don't you understand about this?
I am no longer sure what it is that you are arguing so let's go back to the basics. First of all, you'll hardly ever see anything performing at the theoretical limit. The typical speeds for an external drive connected via USB 2.0 are around 35-40 megabytes per second for sequential reads and writes.
The point, however, is that this same drive is being hampered by USB 2 and it is indeed flooding the connection fully since even a 2.5" 5400 is capable of far more than that. When I connect a G-Tech mini via USB 2.0 it achieves around 35-40 MBps and if I copy the same files across FW800 it will achieve 75-85 MBps.
Now, a decent 7200 RPM 3.5" drive is capable of even more throughput than FW800 provides. A Seagate 3.5" external connected via USB 3 can achieve 174 MB/s for sequential reads and 137 MB/s for sequential writes. That same drive would only achieve 35-40 MB/s when connected over USB 2. It would only achieve around 75-85 MB/s with FW800.
USB 3 allows the drive to operate at nearly its full native speeds. Thunderbolt allows the same thing , and more, but I find it obscene to pay £400 for a 1 TB drive.
This is the part of your post that is confusing to me. USB 3 is much faster than USB 2 or FW800 and it provides the bandwidth that portable external drives need to perform at full performance so I don't understand what "hype" you're referring to.
I got one a few months back. I needed it, so I'm happy with the purchase. The hardware isn't out of date...so it'll do the job for at least another 2 years. If you want the latest and greatest, I'd suggest you take a loss and sell your iMac when the new one comes out. :]
i've read your posts, and they were so inaccurate that my brain immediately blocked them out and now you wanted me to read them again, why?
apple and other oems already have ivy bridge, and every other oem will be releasing their computers around april 8 - 15, and the stores will get them too in that timeframe... and apple, when you consider what good will it do to their macbook air and macbook pro 13' will be buying them in bulk before other manufacturers and will be releasing them according to previous trends (and by that i mean product cycles which you can look up in buyers guide)
bottom line, next imac refresh will have 270-310 days between refreshes so do the math... the only problem is 28nm
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Interesting theory.
But according to Mac Buyers Guide and based on past trends, the iMac will be released in the next few months (273 days and counting now) rather than December 2012 (600+ days without a refresh? seriously?)
Looking at the trends over the past few years on the buyer's guide, I'd hope for a release in around March, maybe slightly earlier.
I'm hanging out for the next iMac update; my C2D MacBook is slowly falling apart.
I'm hanging out for the next iMac update; my C2D MacBook is slowly falling apart.
SSD and Memory
Put in a fast SSD like an Intel and max out the memory. 16GB is more than you need, but leaves headroom. Plug in an external storage if you need more. It will be plenty fast for you. Good enough to run FCP. No CPU or array of CPUs is fast rendering. At some point the software will catch up to the multiprocessor capabilities. You will have a nice machine for a long time. Be glad.
Put in a fast SSD like an Intel and max out the memory. 16GB is more than you need, but leaves headroom. Plug in an external storage if you need more. It will be plenty fast for you. Good enough to run FCP. No CPU or array of CPUs is fast rendering. At some point the software will catch up to the multiprocessor capabilities. You will have a nice machine for a long time. Be glad.
Tons of software can use 3-4 cores. It is the extra 5-12 + Virtual that seems to be the issue. The faster your clock speed the faster FCP will render. Cores, like you said, do not count so much but Compressor is a totally different story including the multithreaded codecs FCP uses and the 3rd party plugin's that are multicore aware. It is not so cut and dry. You don't want to hang out on a core 2 duo for too much longer, especially if you are on 10.7. I lost 25% power WITH a new SSDon my 2.8GHz Macbook Pro.
Ah, didn't realize. That makes a little more sense now, your post confused me a little.
Just curious from 0-100%, what do you think the chances are of the new iMac receiving desktop GPU's? Given that they drop the optical..
i would just be happy with what you have...all macs retain great value...so if you feel the need to have the latest when it comes out, you should be good with selling yours...and in the mean time you have a great computer now...win win.
I don't think that is what beosound3200 implied.
The question was about desktop GPUs in iMacs.
I agree. Unless there is a massive change in shape and size desktop GPUs are not an option for the iMac. It is already a tight fit in a fully loaded Mac Pro.