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New iMacs Released

I like the new design and the keyboard is hot.
But Honestly I don't think its worth the hassle to sell my current 24 and buy one of these.

To me there is not a significant change. Not like we’re used to seeing from Apple.
There is a lot of fanboyism in this one thread praising Apple for a couple of changes.


At least the new keyboard matches my current white iMac. I think I’ll be picking one of those up. But I don’t think I’ll spend the time and xtra $$ to upgrade my iMac to match my iPhone.
 
Gentile said:
I would appreciate any advice on my upcoming decision to buy the new imac from all the Mac gurus out there.

I am trying to decide between the low end and middle 20" imac?

I will be getting it upgraded with the 500 GB hard drive and have the education discount. The price is $1,283 for the low end and $1,489 for the middle 20".

Is the $206 difference worth getting a 2.4 GHz processor (versus 2 GHz) and the Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256 (versus Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory)?

Of course money is an important consideration, but also is value and longevity.

Thanks in advance.
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The biggest question is - of course - what will you be doing with it? If you plan on playing video games on it, the more expensive model with the 2600 PRO is clearly a better option.

But if you're not a gamer and don't plan on doing any hard core video or graphics editing, the cheaper model would probably be (much) more than adequate for your needs.
 
.Andy said:
They look absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea how apple pulls it off redesign after redesign. They always seem to up the bar. I can't wait to see one in person.

Now to find the cash and convince myself that I need one.......


edit: might just buy a keyboard to start :D.
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aswitcher said:
Get the new one. Much better industrial design. Stronger. Faster. Sleeker :)
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peejack said:
I think the design looks pretty cool, much nicer than the last ones. I might be getting one ;)
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davidmyers said:
I love the design, but I will hate it if they get shticky like the mb
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Seriously, I just don't see this as a "re-design".

Its the same design!

only it has metal and a smaller chin!

It's also thinner ooohhhh, that will help me tremendously :rolleyes:
I can see all the anorexic models jealous of this design....
 
how does the graphics card of the imac compare w/ the graphics card of the mbp?? which is better?
 
Humm... Im liking the 24inch, What is the performace like on those ati cards vs 8600GT in the macbook pro?
 
alexf said:
The biggest question is - of course - what will you be doing with it? If you plan on playing video games on it, the more expensive model with the 2600 PRO is clearly a better option.

But if you're not a gamer and don't plan on doing any hard core video or graphics editing, the cheaper model would probably be (much) more than adequate for your needs.
Click to expand...
No gamer will be happy with the 2600PRO. It's worse performing then the last gen X1600GT cards on the old iMacs.
 
BT Keyboard????

What the hell! No number pad on the BT keyboard! That's insane! I can see why they wouldn't put one on a laptop because of size, but there is no reason to leave out the number pad on a stand alone keyboard. On the other hand I like the iMacs, iLife and my new storage on .Mac.
 
Very interesting two different keyboards. They may (may) have made the right choices about how to differentiate these. I have kids. I need the wired one (smaller kids run off with things that are not nailed down). And they have fussy fingers. They need fullsize keys, real size arrows. I hated the various kb's over the years that didn't have full size arrows. So making two different styles like this might be ok. They've come close, at the very least, to perfection here. 99% there.
 
Eidorian said:
You might want to retract that statement.

The 7600GT is on par with the 8600GT. The only ATi card that compares with the 8600GT is the 2600XT.
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From the first site on the Google search you posted:

"The new ATI cards deliver more bang for the buck when viewed in this simplistic "dollars for FPS" model. This can be a bit misleading: The numbers are boosted by the fact that the HD 2600 cards are dramatically outperforming the 8600 cards in DX10 titles."

Since OSX does not use DX9 or DX10, it's a moot point.



"It requires no power plug. The HD 2600 Pro is a short card, about 6.5 inches long, with a really tiny fan on it. Both of these cards are power-efficient enough that we expect to see passively cooled versions from third-party vendors."

In and All-In-One environment, this card sounds like it's been tailored made for the iMac.



"The Radeon 2400 and 2600 cards include ATI's "UVD" video processor, which handles decoding of the VLC and CABAC/CAVLC bitstreams on the GPU, freeing up lots of CPU time."

Again this card sounds absolutely perfect for iLife '08.



My take on Apple's choice is that they are spot on. Apple is geared more for iLife creative needs and not gaming. Since this card doesn't require extra power or a cooling fan it seems like the perfect choice for the space limited iMac!



quotes taken from: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2151671,00.asp
 
I'll have to order without the BT Keyboard... No way in hell I'm waiting 3-5 weeks for shipping!!! It will cost more though. Order with the iMac, $30. Order seperately, $79. >_< :mad:
 
Eidorian said:
The old 7600GT is a better card for gaming performance.
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I believe Apple isn't too concerned about that. They are, however, concerned about whether or not the graphic card can decode VC-1 and H.264 and thereby off-loading the processor. Which, incidentally, the AMD Radeon X2600 Pro does a magnificent job at.
 
Is the high end 24" iMac going to be available at retail stores or just the low end one? I might just go pick one up today at the NYC store since they have them in stock, but just the base 24".
 
mdriftmeyer said:
It's a unified desktop for offices and businesses, students and others.

It's not a Cinema Display with the workstation built-in.

Wall mounting is for the Cinema displays.

Airflow would be crippled with a large planar surface in the back of the display killing all convective heat transfer.
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They could have popped off a detachable base, but yeah the heat is a real problem. When you go thin, you are taking a risk. Ask anyone with a laptop that's burned their balls off.
 
I LOVE the redesign, a bit unfortunate that they made the rear black, and the border too, but I like it anyway. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

(sidenote: I loved the old design too, and I'll miss the "clean white".)
 
alexf said:
The biggest question is - of course - what will you be doing with it? If you plan on playing video games on it, the more expensive model with the 2600 PRO is clearly a better option.

But if you're not a gamer and don't plan on doing any hard core video or graphics editing, the cheaper model would probably be (much) more than adequate for your needs.
Click to expand...

I will play the occasional game (Doom 3), but I am not a hard core gamer. I tend to lean towards the middle end because I keep these computers for a long time (4-5 years).

I did call the store and they said they have them in, but not on display. Plus they will give me $200 towards an ipod....
 
sunspot42 said:
What does the 800MHz bus of the iMac tell us about the machine? Is that a desktop bus speed these days, or are we talking laptop hardware here? (I admit I haven't been keeping a close eye on the PC market for the past year.)
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It is laptop hardware - 800MHz and the RAM speed of DDR2 800 is the fastest available for the laptop hardware that the iMac uses. Desktop bus speeds go up to 1GHz and 1.33GHz nowadays, though they're extremely expensive and only Core 2 Quads and Extremes (Desktop versions) can utilize such fast speeds. Also, the memory for the fastest speeds cost quite a bit.
 
Along the same lines regarding graphics performance...

How could you hook up an HD-DVD or Blueray player to this? Would it need to be by FW800 (if this exists)? What about 802.11n streaming? At this point, it's hard to see why the 24" model doesn't have an HDMI input, if it isn't going to have a next-gen optical drive for watching high-definition movies.
 
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