I'll wait until the 21.5's have Skylakes and see if Apple changes their tune. Between the 24GB SSD and the inability to get a dGPU to drive the 4K display, I'm not sure Apple still gives a woot about Mac's anymore. They have no competition so they just give a new feature and call it day.
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New iMac Fusion drive is only 24GB, down from 128GB
- Thread starter Razeus
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It's good enough to run xCode to allow developers to write for iOS and that's driving their real cash cow. Anything else is just lip service.
My Quad Core i7 2012 Mac mini is also great and still fetching good money second hand due to the last uninspiring update. Plus it's 1TB fusion drive has the full 128GB SSD.
Multiple reasons
- Someone doesn't want any external drives
- Sometimes sales on fusion option iMacs(base) from third party stores means you can save another $300 buy sticking with a fusion
Oh, I never heard of that word - I thought it was a typo - thanks for the clarification
True, but that display can last you half a lifetime. Would be the same if the iMac had target display mode, but... you know...
I think not having at least the 1TB Fusion as default is BS. You build this beautiful, fast machine and keep a 5400rpm drive as standard? That is BS.
yes fat jez is right it's just what we say up North here in the UK, when we are unsure of something.
The problem here is that they didn't inform about the new Fusion Drive clearly. It is not a downgrade because, in fact, it's priced lower and is meant to replace a HDD in a $1999-tier iMac 5K (which came with an ordinary HDD before, now has a 24Gb Fusion Drive). At the same time, the $2299 model now comes with a 2Gb, 128Gb Fusion Drive. In other words, they upgraded the drives at both price points, the only problem is that people are unaware of the SSD size in the 1Gb drive (they might choose it thinking they'll get a full FD). They don't even mention it when you choose to upgrade the drive. For example, I can see myself choosing a 1Tb FD over the 2Tb one because I use external storage for non-critical stuff only to come home and realise I have a smaller SSD.
The 24Gb Fusion Drive is still noticeably faster than a regular HDD as the entire OS X, built-in apps and a few most used 3rd party apps are on the SSD. If they clearly marketed it with a 24Gb and as an upgrade from the regular HDD, it would be fine. In fact, it would only motivate people to pay more for the full Fusion Drive - I think Apple would actually benefit from making the difference clear. Who knows what their reasoning is, but I know people won't see this as a HDD upgrade from the last year's model but as a FD downgrade (which came at a higher price).
BTW, I would actually like a 256Gb/1Tb/2Tb Fusion Drive. I think I might even prefer it to a 512Gb SSD.
The 24Gb Fusion Drive is still noticeably faster than a regular HDD as the entire OS X, built-in apps and a few most used 3rd party apps are on the SSD. If they clearly marketed it with a 24Gb and as an upgrade from the regular HDD, it would be fine. In fact, it would only motivate people to pay more for the full Fusion Drive - I think Apple would actually benefit from making the difference clear. Who knows what their reasoning is, but I know people won't see this as a HDD upgrade from the last year's model but as a FD downgrade (which came at a higher price).
BTW, I would actually like a 256Gb/1Tb/2Tb Fusion Drive. I think I might even prefer it to a 512Gb SSD.
You mean down south
my other half is from the Peak District, she hates me calling her a southerner @maflynn there are a huge number of dialects of English in the UK, some practically incomprehensible to anyone from outside the area they're spoken in.
Yeah. I assume that only a few very recent GPU MacBooks could actually drive the 5K display, which is a limiting factor... but Apple - c'mon. They custom built the 5K timing chip. They couldn't have included input? Also - they haven't updated the Thunderbolt display in YEARS - so it's not like they'd be cannibalizing sales!
The low SSD in fusion drives, the lack of target display, the lack of USB-C or TB3 really make this a 1/2-a$$ed update. Maybe the 2016 iMac will actually be a modern machine with all the bells and whistles for $2.5K+++
That would be perfect. My current 2013 MP only has 256GB SSD, all my photo/video data lives on a TB2 RAID5 setup.
The 24gb is a cynical view of what Apple thinks of the typical iMac user: A Facebook/Twitter/Instagram only user. The 24gb is just enough for the iMac to appear fast for basic uses, bootup time, and to look ok for regular use benchmarks. The moment you try to do anything that involves large files like video/high megapixel photo editing will quickly show the limitations of losing 105gb of cacheable SSD. I will routinely edit 20gb 4K video files and I regularly import over 30gb of RAW DSLR files in at time into my 2012 iMac and that will force the 1TB Fusion drive to constantly go to the glacial 5400rpm spinner. The beauty of the Fusion drive is while I'm working with the large files, the 128gb allows OS X to move them into the HDD while the machine is idling. This 'shields' the slow HDD from the user much better than the pathetic 24gb SSD will. I've felt this effect on working on Windows laptops that use 32gb SSD caches for their HDD as a pseudo fusion setup.
What has most of us riled up is that BOM for the iMac 27 has to be much lower than it was last year, the screens aren't getting more expensive, Intel is charging the same price for their Skylake chips, AMD is practically giving away the 3 year old 28nm GPU's, Apple is using cheaper DDR3 instead of DDR4, and SSD's are 50% of the price they were last year. The 256gb SSD should be the STOCK configuration.
Going to continue chugging along with iMac 2012 27 650M for a bit longer...
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All of the Mac owners I know (and there are a lot) fit the "typical" Mac user you described - Facebook/Twitter/etc., for which the base fusion drive would be more than enough for them. I don't think it is unreasonable to call editing 20gb 4K video files and importing 30gb of RAW DSLR files "power user" tasks, requiring an upgrade from the base fusion drive (and likely other specs). I think it is also safe to say that most people on these forums fit the "power user" category, which is skewing the disappointment.
But yes, I do strongly believe Apple should at least include the fusion drive on the very base model, having solely a spinning disk is unreasonable.
Ermm... Yes, and...? I'm not sure what point you're making and whether you're angry? But you're right, the typical iMac user is as you describe and the 24Gb Fusion Drive is fine for their use. For somebody like yourself move up to an internal or external SSD.
Which is exactly why Apple does everything you described. You open your mind to other possibilities; the power of your pocketbook will really hit home to Apple.