Last Intel Mac?

[Ethosik]

People are saying that the latest 2020 iMac is the last one with Intel. If it will take 2 years to get the top of the line spec ones over to Apple Silicon, will we ever see the upcoming RDNA2 - Big Navi GPUs show up in these systems? Or is 5700XT the last one?

I am waiting for Big Navi to release to see if either the Mac Pro will get it or the iMacs will be updated again with the newer GPUs. If AMD really ups their game they might be a real competitor to NVIDIA now, just like what they did with Intel.

 

[CheesePuff]

Apple announced in June 2020 that they still have new Intel based products in their pipeline for up to 2 years, so many took that to mean that by May 2022 there will be no new Intel based Macs released and that it makes the most sense that the next revision of each Mac that is released in that time frame that still has an Intel CPU will be its last model. I believe this to be true too, and my guess is that since the 21.5" had no updates that the 27" model did this year (besides moving to SSD) that it will be replaced with a 24" Apple Silicon iMac within the next 6-8 months, and the 27" in mid to late 2021 will be Apple Silicon (and hopefully replaced with a 28" or 32" screen).

 

[mlykke]

It's fairly unlikely that you will see RDNA2 in the iMac. There might be a small chance of it appearing in an updated iMac Pro. But I wouldn't expect more updates to the iMac line in its current form. Apple is gonna push their own silicon hard and will most likely transition quite fast.
We'll most likely see the first laptops with AS this year, a 24" AS iMac within 6 months, a, hopefully, 30-32" AS iMac in 12-18 months. The last one will most likely be the Mac Pro which could be 1-2 years.

 

[TrevorR90]

They'll probably make it available for the Mac Pro line but for the iMac? Not so sure. Who knows what Apple does, its anyones guess. We need more leaks lol.

 

[Cookie18]

Apple announced in June 2020 that they still have new Intel based products in their pipeline for up to 2 years, so many took that to mean that by May 2022 there will be no new Intel based Macs released and that it makes the most sense that the next revision of each Mac that is released in that time frame that still has an Intel CPU will be its last model. I believe this to be true too, and my guess is that since the 21.5" had no updates that the 27" model did this year (besides moving to SSD) that it will be replaced with a 24" Apple Silicon iMac within the next 6-8 months, and the 27" in mid to late 2021 will be Apple Silicon (and hopefully replaced with a 28" or 32" screen).

Apple didn’t say they have Intel products in the pipeline for the next 2 years. They said they had more on the way this year. They fulfilled that obligation with the iMacs.

I think we might still see a see Mac Pro but I wouldn’t bet on it. The iMac could likely be the last Intel Mac model.

 

[CheesePuff]

Apple didn’t say they have Intel products in the pipeline for the next 2 years. They said they had more on the way this year. They fulfilled that obligation with the iMacs.

I think we might still see a see Mac Pro but I wouldn’t bet on it. The iMac could likely be the last Intel Mac model.

You are right, they did not say this year though, they simply said they have more Intel based Macs in the pipeline, and they expect the transition to take 2 years.

 

[CWallace]

I believe the 2020 model will be the last iMac 5K with an Intel CPU and the next version will have Apple Silicon, likely in mid-to-late 2021.

I believe the iMac 4K is already End of Life and will be replaced with ~24" Apple Silicon model later this year or in early 2021.

I hold out hope Apple will update the iMac Pro with available Intel and AMD upgrade parts, but that hope diminishes every week we go without said update.

 

[Ethosik]

I believe the 2020 model will be the last iMac 5K with an Intel CPU and the next version will have Apple Silicon, likely in mid-to-late 2021.

I believe the iMac 4K is already End of Life and will be replaced with ~24" Apple Silicon model later this year or in early 2021.

I hold out hope Apple will update the iMac Pro with available Intel and AMD upgrade parts, but that hope diminishes every week we go without said update.

That is a bummer. Especially if we won't get any dGPUs in Apple Silicon Macs.

 

[nick9191]

Yes, I believe the 27" iMac is the last Intel Mac we'll ever see. I think there's a few considerations here:

1. Last time Apple said the transition from PPC to Intel would "be complete by the end of 2007" or 2.5 years from the point of announcement, in reality it was completed from one WWDC to the next, at least in terms of hardware. Apple have given themselves a slightly shorter window of time here, despite being well aware of the current pandemic. Their desire is to always under promise and over deliver.
2. Apple's Mac sales will be suffering because of this announcement, with the possible exception of the Mac Pro. There is no need to drag this out. Other than a small-ish percentage of the user base, greatly over represented on Macrumors, which either need bootcamp, are worried about software compatibility, or like Intel for some reason, everyone else (edit: in the enthusiast space) is holding out for Apple Silicon Macs. No one wants to purchase what is, at least as far as the Mac is concerned, an end of life architecture.
3. Just because the A12Z SoC from the DTK/iPad Pro isn't as fast as a 28 core Xeon Mac Pro, it doesn't mean that Apple haven't been preparing for this for the best part of a decade and don't have processors that can match any Intel Mac, including the Mac Pro, in the design stage.

I genuinely believe almost all products will be on Apple Silicon by springtime with the Mac Pro following at WWDC 2021. Global pandemics permitting.

 

[t0mat0]

Did Eddie Cue or someone else go on record or twitter to say we'd had th last few intel macs and that was it?