New 27-Inch iMac Supports Up to 64GB of RAM, OWC Offering Upgrade Kits

[Lancer]

I remember when I had a 64GB HDD in my Mac when I was a young lad!!

I can beet that, Mac Plus with an external SCSI 20Mb, yes MB and I think 1Mb of RAM expanded to a massive 2.5Mb!

Back to the iMac and I got 32Gb in my late 2012 when I first got it, actually installed it before booting for the first time! So that's almost 3 years ago so a step up to 64Gb is about time. Just a shame it costs so much to have the 64Gb!

 

[mode1charlie]

But why no increase in the maximum hard drive storage, which is still limited to 3TB?

 

[nickeditor]

My apologies if it has been said before but, why Apple use DDR3(L) 1867 MHz if the processors only support DDR3L 1600 MHz? If that memory is working at 1600 MHz, 1867 MHz sounds faster for the mainstream?

 

[nickeditor]

Where is the upgrade kits for the 21,5"? Oh! I forgot that is not accessible.

 

[yuhong]

The price is high because its new I remember when 16GB was that expensive. OWC was the only maker at the time of 8gb chips. prices will go down once the market increases.

Yea, the 8Gbit chips are expensive at this point, but Crucial is offering the 16GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs for less than this: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ct204864bf160b

 

[sudo1996]

It's never been easier, I literally plugged in my hard drive from my dead macbook into my pc (built with known compatible parts) and it booted up with clover right away!

The problem is OS updates. I need to be at most one version behind, sometimes even on the latest OS X, due to Xcode. I'm not convinced that that's reliable and easy to do on a Hackintosh.

 

[HenryDJP]

First of all... the "dark side" thing was a joke. Lighten up.

Maybe it's you that should lighten up. I never said your dark-side comment bothered me. Windows IS the dark-side.

I love my iPhone and iPad... that's why I'm here.

Ah yes, the ever-popular comeback when a Windows person gets called out on a Mac forum. Newsflash, this isn't an article about an iPhone or an iPad. Thanks...

If the Mac works for you, then fine. I honestly don't care what you use.

Obviously you do care otherwise you wouldn't have done such a selling job for Microsoft's OS and Windows-based hardware.

I simply gave him some perspective from another angle. Which, again, I'm allowed to do.

Who said you weren't allowed to? My question is why be here posting on a forum news article that supports a product you decided to no longer use? Of course you didn't have an answer for that. No worries, I'm on to better things now...

 

[felt.]

The problem is OS updates. I need to be at most one version behind, sometimes even on the latest OS X, due to Xcode. I'm not convinced that that's reliable and easy to do on a Hackintosh.

I upgrade directly from the app store and don't mess with any system kexts, the few that are required (to enable hdmi audio output for example) are kept neatly in the kext folder on your clover bootloader partition. To upgrade my pc from yosemite I just clicked the installer from the app store.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Newsflash, this isn't an article about an iPhone or an iPad.

Thanks...

Correct. But the COMMENT was about WINDOWS. So I talked about Windows.

You're welcome.

My question is why be here posting on a forum news article that supports a product you decided to no longer use?

Again... the comment I originally replied to mentioned Windows. And since I'm apparently the only Windows person here... I felt it was OK to share my experience.

Obviously you do care otherwise you wouldn't have done such a selling job for Microsoft's OS and Windows-based hardware.

Hey... the original comment was complaining about Apple hardware.

I wasn't selling Microsoft and Windows hardware. I was just telling what else is out there.

No worries, I'm on to better things now...

Well... I'm sorry I caused you to detour.

Hundreds of people read my comment... yet you're the ONLY person who "called out the Windows person"

WHY?

I don't know what kind of mission you're on, Henry.

Next time one poster replies to another poster... you don't have to jump in between them.

 

[brendu]

I remember when I had a Mac Plus with a MASSIVE 40MB external pizza box size HD

I had that same external drive in my Mac plus as a kid!

 

[sudo1996]

I upgrade directly from the app store and don't mess with any system kexts, the few that are required (to enable hdmi audio output for example) are kept neatly in the kext folder on your clover bootloader partition. To upgrade my pc from yosemite I just clicked the installer from the app store.

Yes, but is it always like that? There's an update per year, and if one fails to install, or if I have to waste too much time messing around with it, I can't do my work. So I'm kinda split. I want a beast computer, but it needs to be as reliable as possible, which means maybe I need another old Mac Pro.

 

[deburn]

That's why we have lightbolt and thundering, or was that thunderwire and firebolt........ or is it fireBALL?

Fireball XL5 was one of the corniest shows ever - great theme song though! Not sure why the Queen reference

 

[joshuarayer]

.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Only a very small percentage (like single digit or less) will ever upgrade their RAM or hard drive.

And right on time here comes the Excuse Brigade to tell us why it was a good move for Apple to raise prices, solder ram in, offer only crud for GPUs and glue the entire thing together so you can't upgrade a single thing. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm tired of hearing fanatical excuses every day on here as to why Apple is increasingly worse and worse and worse and worse and worse in terms off hardware choices. "They don't want to cannibalize" this or that. Cannibalize? Show me ONE SINGLE COMPUTER that isn't a TOTAL POS for the money and I'd buy it! The Mac Mini can't have a decent GPU ("They don't want to cannibalize the iMac"). Um, the iMac isn't headless. "Oh, they don't want to cannibalize the Mac Pro." Um, the Mac Pro has only a "PRO" video card and isn't meant for regular consumers! They offer a better Intel GPU at least in 2014! Oh yeah, except you can't get an i7 anymore, let alone a Quad-Core i7! And they made it near impossible to upgrade when the 2012 model was easily upgraded. "People don't need to upgrade it or won't upgrade it and enjoy eating horse crap for dinner too!"

Show me ONE Mac that has a good CPU and a good GPU for what is being offered and doesn't cost over $2000. When you can build a Windows PC for close to $1000 that has a 4K gaming level GPU, 16GB of ram, an i7 and a 480GB SSD in it, the Mac starts to look pretty thin indeed. I don't need it "thin". I need it to run programs!

 

[wizard]

I didn't know previous gen iMac had a hard limit of 32GB of Ram ... guess you do learn something every day.

It depends upon two things. One is the chip set used which needs to address more than 32 GB of RAM. Two is the motherboard manufacure (Apple in this case) correctly implementing the required electronics on the motherboard.

Some of the laptop chip sets only support 16 GB if you believe Intels documentation. It should. Be noted that 16 GB is a huge amount of RAM for a single user machine doing mainstream desktop work.

 

[uid15]

Fireball XL5 was one of the corniest shows ever - great theme song though! Not sure why the Queen reference

Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody" "... Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening MEEE"

 

[wizard]

Annnndddd there goes the last reason to buy a nMacpro...

And there goes yet another person that doesn't understand why people buy a Mac Pro.

 

[wlossw]

And there goes yet another person that doesn't understand why people buy a Mac Pro.

To run final cut... Why else?

 

[gatortpk]

Holy Crap! $599 for slower 2x16GB DDR3 RAM!? I'm glad I got DDR4 RAM for less than half that price!

I just built a Skylake PC (i7-6700K 4.8GHz OC) instead of getting another iMac, and got 2 x 16GB = 32GB RAM for $269.99 (I plan on adding another 2x16GB later, I know 4x8GB are cheaper). Of course they were DDR4 DIMMs, but I still found DDR4 SoDIMMs for $300-$400. Apparently DDR3 16GB SoDIMM modules are really expensive. My DDR4 is also 2666MHz instead of the 1867MHz DDR3 offered by OWC.

I am really surprised that Apple didn't use DDR4 RAM on their first Skylake systems, especially since the prices aren't that much more.

2x16GB DDR4 DIMMs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233865&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker, LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

 

[gatortpk]

And right on time here comes the Excuse Brigade to tell us why it was a good move for Apple to raise prices, solder ram in, offer only crud for GPUs and glue the entire thing together so you can't upgrade a single thing. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm tired of hearing fanatical excuses every day on here as to why Apple is increasingly worse and worse and worse and worse and worse in terms off hardware choices. "They don't want to cannibalize" this or that. Cannibalize? Show me ONE SINGLE COMPUTER that isn't a TOTAL POS for the money and I'd buy it! The Mac Mini can't have a decent GPU ("They don't want to cannibalize the iMac"). Um, the iMac isn't headless. "Oh, they don't want to cannibalize the Mac Pro." Um, the Mac Pro has only a "PRO" video card and isn't meant for regular consumers! They offer a better Intel GPU at least in 2014! Oh yeah, except you can't get an i7 anymore, let alone a Quad-Core i7! And they made it near impossible to upgrade when the 2012 model was easily upgraded. "People don't need to upgrade it or won't upgrade it and enjoy eating horse crap for dinner too!"

Show me ONE Mac that has a good CPU and a good GPU for what is being offered and doesn't cost over $2000. When you can build a Windows PC for close to $1000 that has a 4K gaming level GPU, 16GB of ram, an i7 and a 480GB SSD in it, the Mac starts to look pretty thin indeed. I don't need it "thin". I need it to run programs!

That is why I built my own Skylake core i7-6700K machine instead of buying a fifth iMac. (Perhaps now I can try OS X 10.11.1 on it? Since it now natively supports an LGA 1151 CPU?)

 

[Mago]

That is correct. I wasn't trying to insinuate that an iMac is a server, I was only using servers as an example of how 64GB isn't a whole bunch considering other possibilities. Most desktop PCs (of any brand) can't accommodate more than about 64GB, up to 128 in some cases, but in server land, it is simply amazing that the plunky x86 platform (in Xeon flavors) can push upwards of 1.5TB of RAM now (costs more than the server itself).

I own a new Mac pro, I use for 3D CAD, there are boolean operations among meshes or 3D objects that are SINGLE THREAD ONLY, no matter if you are usin AutoDesk 123D, OpenSCAD, Maya, SolidWorks (wincrap), those boolean operations used to merge or differentiate 3D objets (among other operations) are Single threaded by definition, so the best computer to done it quickly isnt the fastes Mac pro, but the iMac with i7@4ghz, the latest i7-6700K (hope to be the one on the new iMac) is about 60% fastest on single thread floating point than previous year i7-4790K which is about 30% faster in single thread than the fastest single thread on a Xeon.

I'm still considering an iMac, but the memory subject is an concerm, while 64GB are good for heavy designs, I'm not sure it worth the whole machine, maybe I could save a full hour on an iMac vs the nMac pro ( some operations takes 2 hour on a mac pro), but for other uses as other operations multi-threaded the Mac Pro is a monster.

while using 64GB on an iMac is interesting for few high end users as me, for most common heavy users 32GB are enough now and for a while.

 

[Mago]

Holy Crap! $599 for slower 2x16GB DDR3 RAM!? I'm glad I got DDR4 RAM for less than half that price!

OWC market is the rookie-dyer, the one that is not brave or informed enough to do a research by itself on the hardware is modding, and ussualy is the typical guy with big pockets and no time to read fine print or deep manuals.

Obviously as long you know what chipset is based an X86 system, all that you need is to find the best wuitable copatible parts, Memory Manufacturers use to have databases on this, so is not difficult to find the right part with much better quality from mainstream manufacturers than am sneak generic-part reseller as OWC.

Hopefully this mac arrived to the market well behind Skylake so ther are pleny memory options available (except that 16x4 modules, I'm not sure if these are an special order on an OWC pitfail).

About Apple and DDR4, DDR4 SO-DIMM just come to the market a two or three weeks ago, so the supply chain by the moment should be veru limited, maybe Apple opter for DDR3 Now and have the new iMacs ready for Xmas and later next year at WWDC (or earlier on a silent launch) "update" to DDR4 the whole desktop Mac Line from Mini's to Mac Pro.

 

[yuhong]

OWC market is the rookie-dyer, the one that is not brave or informed enough to do a research by itself on the hardware is modding, and ussualy is the typical guy with big pockets and no time to read fine print or deep manuals.

Obviously as long you know what chipset is based an X86 system, all that you need is to find the best wuitable copatible parts, Memory Manufacturers use to have databases on this, so is not difficult to find the right part with much better quality from mainstream manufacturers than am sneak generic-part reseller as OWC.

Hopefully this mac arrived to the market well behind Skylake so ther are pleny memory options available (except that 16x4 modules, I'm not sure if these are an special order on an OWC pitfail).

About Apple and DDR4, DDR4 SO-DIMM just come to the market a two or three weeks ago, so the supply chain by the moment should be veru limited, maybe Apple opter for DDR3 Now and have the new iMacs ready for Xmas and later next year at WWDC (or earlier on a silent launch) "update" to DDR4 the whole desktop Mac Line from Mini's to Mac Pro.

In this particular case, Crucial has cheaper 16GB DDR3 SO-DIMMs (2x16GB being ~$400), but they are still more expensive than the DDR4 ones.

 

[uid15]

OWC market is the rookie-dyer, the one that is not brave or informed enough to do a research by itself on the hardware is modding, and ussualy is the typical guy with big pockets and no time to read fine print or deep manuals.

Obviously as long you know what chipset is based an X86 system, all that you need is to find the best wuitable copatible parts, Memory Manufacturers use to have databases on this, so is not difficult to find the right part with much better quality from mainstream manufacturers than am sneak generic-part reseller as OWC.

Hopefully this mac arrived to the market well behind Skylake so ther are pleny memory options available (except that 16x4 modules, I'm not sure if these are an special order on an OWC pitfail).

About Apple and DDR4, DDR4 SO-DIMM just come to the market a two or three weeks ago, so the supply chain by the moment should be veru limited, maybe Apple opter for DDR3 Now and have the new iMacs ready for Xmas and later next year at WWDC (or earlier on a silent launch) "update" to DDR4 the whole desktop Mac Line from Mini's to Mac Pro.

Did you just say something in a foriegn tongue? Would you please say all that again so we can understand it CLEARLY? Thanks

 

[B4U]

Depends on what you're doing. I bought a 27" $3000+ iMac in late 2012. Have 32GB RAM. My biggest issue no question is GPU (video editing machine, mostly).

Surfing online, document editing, youtube viewing, watching news online, emailing.
The lag is present every time I open a new app...

I'm pretty sure it's an outdated GPU or (more probably) the lack of SSD.

According to Apple, it has ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory.
And there was no SSD options back then, thus it is a normal 7200RPM 1TB HDD.
With these in mind (plus the lack of Bluetooth 4.0), would it make sense just to get the new iMac instead of upgrading these components but at the cost of losing the optical drive while this machine is running perfectly fine except the bloody lag?