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I don't think that Intel HD 3000 could be considered an upgrade over the NVIDIA Geforce 320M.

Post like these show that you are actually oblivious to what happens in technical industry, despite your obvious attempts to sound competent.

HD 3000 was not an upgrade over the 320M, but the core i CPU architecture actually was a significant upgrade over the old core 2. The Airs and 13" don't have any room for a dedicated GPU so it had to be an integrated one. With C2D CPUs, Apple used the best available IPG for them - the Nvidia ones. The reason why Apple was forced to use HD 3000 with the core i CPUs is because Intel prohibited Nvidia from making new chipsets for their platform.

The rest of your post is factually wrong as well. If what you wrote were true, Apple wouldn't bother adding dedicated GPUs to the base 15" MBP (which historically used integrated graphics) or using fastest available mobile GPUs for the iMac.
 
Yes, that's the point. However, I am running the game in 1440x900. I should not be paying the penalty for the retina display when it should not be having an impact and with no advantages. It should not be doing its normal rescaling thing that it does in quartz in the UI.

This will come with time. Really it's up to the game developer to acknowledge and adapt to the existence of Retina displays.
 
WRT thermal issues: I wouldn't worry.

I don't doubt the retina MacBook is loud, but look at the teardown. Its heatsinks and fans are tiny.

If Apple stuffed retina MacBook guts behind an iMac screen, the difference in footprint would be so big that the heatsinks could *literally* be 20+ times bigger, and the fans could be much bigger too.

Plus, iMacs will inherently be better cooled than laptops because of convection, so that will help.

BTW -- personally I welcome a potential change to a 2.5" drive. They are much quieter. 3.5" drives get to be pretty noticeable (if not loud) after just a couple years. 2.5" drives less so. User-replaceable would be absolutely ideal, then I could get rid of the hard drive entirely and put in an SSD, and flip on an external USB drive when I needed extra storage for larger files.
 
Do you guys think it's possible the new iMacs will be like the Mac Book Pros: a kind of monolith of glued and soldered together parts?
 
I like minimal and the chins and bezels/edges don't look minimal. They look very 1999-ish to me. We should be beyond that by now with edge to edge pixels, no chin, etc. Minority Report style ;)


Unfortunately they've still got to fit the internal parts somewhere.
 
Well that's not really helpful. I've 4 Macs. Is it a crime to want a computer that looks nice, runs OS X and is fast too without thermal issues? I guess so according to the responses here.

you should only use 'have' as a contraction when it is being used as an auxiliary verb, not a verb.
 
Form follows function

WRT thermal issues: I wouldn't worry.

. . .

Plus, iMacs will inherently be better cooled than laptops because of convection, so that will help.

. . .

The wish to do without the chin necessarily implies a wish to do without replaceable RAM, and it implies a cooling system relying totally on fans and heat sinks. My last “gum drop” iMac was cooled by convection alone: no fan. In addition to making room for modular RAM the chin is an air intake for convection cooling. The heat of the components above is the engine driving the convection, accelerating the air as it moves upward. My present early 2006 iMac feels just warm at the air discharge (top rear). The fact that the newer iMacs have aluminum backs means that its thermal conductivity also plays its part in this symphony of design.
 
Wow, somebody REALLY likes jagged edges and blurry text.

Yes, because 1920x1080 shows a lot of jagged edges and blurry text and there's no AA in OS X graphic drivers.

You're one of those that accept any BS comming from Apple and tries to find any excuse for their commercial fallacies.
Huge display resolution doesn't mean better QOL, it only means "huge display resolution", something that strongly appeals for the majority of people.

I can assure you that 4x AA in a 1920x1080 gives you way more performance than 1x AA in that stupid and retarded retina display of rMBP.

I can also assure you that most people prefer a 4x AA + 1920x1080 resolution game with WAY BETTER PERFORMANCE than a 1X AA + retina resolution game with bad performance.

When I talk about graphic quality, I'm talking about a game running in the highest graphic quality possible (except for AA, which is relatively unecessary depending on the resolution).

People saying that they "run Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2 flawlessly in their rMBP" are lying, running them in medium/low quality or just not on full screen resolution (retina resolution).

Guild Wars 2 is a strong CPU/GPU demanding game and that GT 650M will NEVER run it flawlessly in the highest graphics quality settings and a 2880x1800 resolution, specially during dynamic events with 20+ players or WxWxW with 100+ players.
 
Another vote with the theSeb here.

It's clear to me that Apple has chosen form over function a tad too much at times. I say that as someone who does love many of the design decisions Apple has made with their products, and I own a TON.

And while we don't know what the new iMac will bring, it's fair to worry that Apple will give us an ultra thin 'desktop' (that's really just a laptop sitting upright on a stand) with a non-upgradable hard drive (think rMBP) and plenty of heat inside.

I'll be delighted if what we get is a relatively cool running, powerful iMac with an easy to upgrade hard drive, that also happens to be thin. But I fear Apple will compromise the first 3 on that list to achieve the 4th.
 
It’s OK.

Indeed. I apologise profusely.

Posts for the correction of grammar seem not be the purpose of the Forums. But posts which are based on bad info put me off. The contraction ”that’s” is regularly used as the main verb in a clause. But “'have' as a contraction [only] when it is being used as an auxiliary verb, not a verb“ is a contradiction in terms. Have is not a verb. “Is” is an auxiliary verb.
 
Posts for the correction of grammar seem not be the purpose of the Forums. But posts which are based on bad info put me off. The contraction ”that’s” is regularly used as the main verb in a clause. But “'have' as a contraction [only] when it is being used as an auxiliary verb, not a verb“ is a contradiction in terms. Have is not a verb. “Is” is an auxiliary verb.

Whoever came up with all the grammar rules needed a good fight club face beating. Wow! That person had a ALOT of time on their hands.
 
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The wish to do without the chin necessarily implies a wish to do without replaceable RAM, and it implies a cooling system relying totally on fans and heat sinks. ...

This must be the 3rd such post I've read.

You guys know the computer bits aren't (just) in the chin, right?

The vast majority of the computer hardware in an iMac is behind the screen. The screen itself only takes up a small amount of volume towards the front of the computer. They could very easily design an iMac with RAM slots on the bottom that doesn't have a chin. The slots would just have to be behind the screen.
 
If your primary way to make things more beautiful is by making it thinner, then your aesthetic sucks. Just like saying thinner models are always prettier and sexier. Then you have all these anorexics, because of such narrow perception of beauty.

Just because I think thinner on the iMac will look nicer doesn't mean I apply it to everything. If you disagree with Apple design then you are obviously in the minority. Sorry.
 
Just because I think thinner on the iMac will look nicer doesn't mean I apply it to everything. If you disagree with Apple design then you are obviously in the minority. Sorry.

I don't "disagree with Apple design". I disagree with the relentless pursuit of thinness. I like thinness too, but within reason. If they can make it thinner without compromising performance, features, reliability, and durability, then I'm all for it. And even if that means I'm in the minority, I'd be proud of it, instead of being in the 'majority' who takes anything Apple (or any big corp) shove down their throats.

Note: I'm not saying iMac 2012 will have compromised performance etc because of being thinner, as we don't know that yet (although we can learn from history). I'm saying in general.
 
I don't "disagree with Apple design". I disagree with the relentless pursuit of thinness. I like thinness too, but within reason. If they can make it thinner without compromising performance, features, reliability, and durability, then I'm all for it

Apple always make compromises on features in new hardware, regardless of size. But thinness will likely improve reliability and durability if they remove the Superdrive and swap in 2.5" hard drives because it means (a) they can use a smaller power supply, which produces less heat, (b) less heat from the Superdrive itself, and (c) the same-sized metal enclosure will now be dissipating less heat, so heat-transfer will be more effective. And reliability and durability will be maximized if you choose a SSD-only variant, as it has no moving parts and generates far less heat than any hard drive.

Combine that with the average user's severely declining use of CDs and DVDs (not me and perhaps not you, but the average user) and a slimmer, Superdrive-free machine may well be result in a measurable improvement in longevity and reliability.

While I personally do continue to use my iMac's Superdrive, I'm actually looking forward to buying a new Superdriveless iMac and then getting a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray external drive from OWC for $98.
 
If you get a beautiful 27" screen with less reflective gloss, probably about 1tb of SSD, 680m GPU, USB 3, 32gb of ram.....all working cool and fine because of the size of it in width and height. If this doesn't give you a hard on then I think iMac never was your cup of tea in the first place.

Thank you for this post. It tipped the scale for me on whether I should get the new iMac 2012 or build a custom windows 8 box. While reading your description of the possible new iMac, I thought... "Wow what a weak computer for almost $3,000...if not more..." You are right, the iMac is not my cup of tea.

My impression of the rumored "thinner" 2012 iMac: lolz they're going in the wrong direction here.. completely agree with the OP of this thread. I think the AIO design is fail from the start... why put really hot computer components behind a screen instead of in a box designed to cool said components?
 
Apple always make compromises on features in new hardware, regardless of size. But thinness will likely improve reliability and durability if they remove the Superdrive and swap in 2.5" hard drives because it means (a) they can use a smaller power supply, which produces less heat, (b) less heat from the Superdrive itself, and (c) the same-sized metal enclosure will now be dissipating less heat, so heat-transfer will be more effective. And reliability and durability will be maximized if you choose a SSD-only variant, as it has no moving parts and generates far less heat than any hard drive.

Combine that with the average user's severely declining use of CDs and DVDs (not me and perhaps not you, but the average user) and a slimmer, Superdrive-free machine may well be result in a measurable improvement in longevity and reliability.

While I personally do continue to use my iMac's Superdrive, I'm actually looking forward to buying a new Superdriveless iMac and then getting a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray external drive from OWC for $98.

Not to be too nitpicky but 3.5" hard drives and optical drives use relatively little power compared to e.g. the CPU, GPU, and/or screen. Maybe 5-10 watts max here or there out of 100-200.

I would definitely love a 2.5" drive since they're quieter and they tend to be more robust, e.g., designed for more spin-up and spin-down cycles. Although ideally I'd like an iMac with an SSD-only configuration and use external USB drives for more storage, although I think that'll be unlikely.

External optical drives sound nice. You can get external DVD burners for $25-$30... no need to spend $98... although I guess you can if you want Blu-Ray. I don't see the point of Blu-Ray myself but each to their own.
 
People saying that they "run Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2 flawlessly in their rMBP" are lying, running them in medium/low quality or just not on full screen resolution (retina resolution).

Do I see it correctly that you are calling me a liar? I run GW2 with highest settings (save shadows) on 1920x1200 and I am happy with the performance. Now tell me please - why would I ever want to run it on native resolution when I only have a mid-range GPU which obviously can't manage that much work? That just doesn't make any sense to me.

P.S. Are, right, you are that 'know-everything-better-but can't-get-basic-facts-right' person I replied to earlier. Go learn something about computers, display and GPU technology first.
 
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