Apple essentially just jacked up the price on the entry level i5 4K iMac by $250 Canadian. As if the 2017 model wasn’t eye-wateringly expensive enough.
This company is just unreal.
This company is just unreal.
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Nobody else find it comical entry-level 4K is now i3?
- Thread starter EightyTwenty
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You know i3/i5/i7/i9 are just marketing terms? The i3-8100 is actually a really strong chip.
It's the HDD that is the bottleneck.
It's the HDD that is the bottleneck.
You know that the i3-8100 is significantly slower than the i5-8500 (and i5-8400), right? That’s not a marketing term, that is simple reality.
In fact, the i3-8100 is actually *barely* any faster than the 2 year old i5-7400 found in the 2017 entry-level model it is replacing. The i5-8500 (or i5-8400) is the successor to the i5-7400 found in the 2017 entry-level 4K, not the i3-8100.
They replaced an i5 with an i3 and kept the price the same. They gimped the entry-level. The apples-to-apples entry-level i5 model got a $250 price hike. There’s no way around that.
If you want the 2019 equivalent of the 2017 entry-level 4K imac, you gotta pay an extra $250 Canadian. That is just a crazy level of greed.
The HDD is the same as the 2017 model, so that point is irrelevant.
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If Intel rebadged that i3 to be an i5 instead, would that have made you happy? This year's i3 is more powerful than last year's i5:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-7400+@+3.00GHz&id=2929
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-8100+@+3.60GHz&id=3103
I'm just going on your original thread title. You seem to be taking issue with the fact it's an i3. Again, i3/i5/i7 is just marketing jargon. Many people go for an "i7 laptop" not knowing that it's an older gen which is actually less powerful than a more modern i3/i5.
Sorry about the price hike, I can't comment on that. But the chip's fine. That's my point.
I understand the point you are attempting to make, but you are simply wrong.
As I already explained, the i3 is not a rebadged i5 - it’s an i3. Full stop. These are different chips. The i5 is significantly faster than the i3. This has nothing to do with marketing jargon. The i5 has 2 extra cores.
And as I said, this year’s i3 is barely faster than the i5-7400 from 2017. The difference is so minimal that there is hardly a point in the refresh... except to jack up the price on the true i5 entry-level.
[doublepost=1553084235][/doublepost]Let’s make this very simple. Let’s say you are someone who upgrades your machine every 2 years (for the sake of argument).
The 2019 refresh of the entry-level 4K went from what should have been a fantastic upgrade (due to the big jump in coffee lake performance) to a complete joke of an update that you shouldn’t even consider upgrading.
For the same price: you get a faster i3 (8100) than the older i5 (7400) plus faster dGPU
For the extra €200: you get an even faster i5 (8400/8500) with more cores plus a faster dGPU with more VRAM (4GB iso 2) plus a fusion drive iso HDD
What's there to compain about?
If you compare the Mac mini with the 4K iMac you will see exact parity with the default options and bto upgrades for CPU, RAM. It’s pretty obviously now that this would happen. I’d say when compared to Mac mini the iMac is actually ‘good’ value.
You're the one that's wrong: the new i3 is comparable to the old i5, with the normal 5-10% speed bump for the same price.
It's a 7.5% per-core increase and nearly 10% multi-core increase. I wouldn't say that's completely minimal as that's pretty consistent/exceeds prior performance jumps between BTO i5 & i7.
Again my only point is that it's a better processor than the previous gen. Your original argument seems to be it's comical the model has an i3 instead of an i5, but the i3 is better than the i5. Ultimately it doesn't matter.
Indeed, it's not 'comical'. Maybe 'confusing' (until you check and compare the specs)
The original post was clear: 1) The i3 is a lower class of chip, and not much of an upgrade over the i5-7400. 2) The price of the entry-level i5 4K has been jacked up by $250.
Seems some here don't want to acknowledge that the i3-8100 is not the successor to the i5-7400.
[doublepost=1553090069][/doublepost]
Nope. The i3-8100 is not the successor to the i5-7400. The successor to the i5-7400 is the i5-8400 (8500). This isn't up for debate, my friend.
i3-7100 -> i3-8100
i5-7400 -> i5-8400 (8500)
Intel makes this crystal clear. It's not complicated.
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Since the i3 now is a quad core...from the entry level, for those who needs absolutely silence even under full load...its better that we have the offer of i3 and not the i5 65W+555X under load is not dead silent
Lets not forget, we still have the same thermals inside
Lets not forget, we still have the same thermals inside
Thank you!
I was just about to look up introductory prices myself.
Maybe people will finally understand Apple stuck a cheaper and lower-performing class of chip in the computer while charging the same price. Have no clue why people are defending Apple, unless they are getting paid to do so.
If the i3 model were $100 lower than last year's model or came with an SSD as standard, the i3 complaint would be less justifiable. But IMHO, as things stand now it is very justifiable.
None of the cost savings from using the i3 instead of an i5 have been passed on to the consumer.
Fine. Offer that model for $1239 for those who want it while offering the i5-8400 at $1299 for those who want a proper refresh from the 2017 entry-level i5.
Or, as the poster above said, include the fusion drive standard in the entry-level i3 at $1299.
Apple is increasing prices across the board and this is not news. This is part of their policy of offering less for more and has been going on since the iPhone X.
Since this has probably been in the pipeline for some time, there was no turning back for the iPad (where they cut $250 worth of stuff and reduced the price by $150) and the Mac.
They might reconsider things for future products though given the immense backlash.
Since this has probably been in the pipeline for some time, there was no turning back for the iPad (where they cut $250 worth of stuff and reduced the price by $150) and the Mac.
They might reconsider things for future products though given the immense backlash.
The mid-level 4k iMac has an i5-8500, not a i5-8400
[doublepost=1553109599][/doublepost]
Apple upgraded their entry/mid/top-level 4k iMacs, each with faster processors & dGPUs, independent of confusing changes in Intel processor naming policy.
It's you who's complicating things.
Following your 'logic' the entry-level 2018 Mac Mini (same i3-8100) is a step back from the previous entry-level Mac Mini, as that was an i5.
I'm not debating with you, just telling you how it is.
PS: I'm not your friend.
The 5XX-X dGPUs is supposedly identical to the 5XX dGPUs? So that would be even less difference than the i3/i5 and something else to complain about.
As several others have tried to point out to you in this thread, you are wrong. Respectfully, it seems you are out of your depth on this topic. So I'll be kind and try to hammer it home to you one last time:
The. i3-8100. Is. Not. The. Successor. To. The. i5-7400.
And there have been no changes to Intel's processor naming policy. The i3 is still the i3 and the i5 is still the i5. Zero changes. This isn't difficult. Apple stuck a less powerful class of chip (which is also cheaper) into the entry-level 4K iMac and decided to charge the same. Typical Apple price gouging.
Lastly, the entry-level Mini wasn't updated for 4 years and switched from a 15 W mobile processor to a 65 W desktop processor. It is a ridiculous comparison and shows a lack of understanding of Intel's chips.
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I’m a bit confused. You cannot upgrade the new base 4K model to an i5. It’s i3 or i7. The only 4K model that now has an i5 is the $1499 model. The $1499 model from 2017 also had an i5.
So how can you say they raised the price of the entry level i5 model by $250? It’s not like there’s a $250 upgrade from the i3 to the i5. Rather, it’s longer possible to get the entry 4K model with an i5 at all.
Do you mean that the cheapest possible i5 model is $250 more than the cheapest possible i5 model in 2017? I guess that’s true, but it’s also misleading because the i5 option didn’t increase in price, it was just eliminated entirely from the low end model.
So how can you say they raised the price of the entry level i5 model by $250? It’s not like there’s a $250 upgrade from the i3 to the i5. Rather, it’s longer possible to get the entry 4K model with an i5 at all.
Do you mean that the cheapest possible i5 model is $250 more than the cheapest possible i5 model in 2017? I guess that’s true, but it’s also misleading because the i5 option didn’t increase in price, it was just eliminated entirely from the low end model.
To get an i5 4K iMac (the equivalent of last year's entry-level model), you need to pay $1,949 Canadian. You are gouged $250 more than last year (on what was already an obscene price of $1,699).
Apple does throw in a 24GB SSD worth maybe $7.50, so that's nice of them.
[doublepost=1553118586][/doublepost]
They replaced a $182 chip with a $119 chip in the entry-level model and pocketed the difference. The proper i5 successor could have been used for the same price of $182 and users would have seen drastic performance increases instead of the pathetic 8% bump. But then Apple wouldn't be able to gouge you and rip you off.
This "doesn't matter" only as long as gouging and being ripped off doesn't matter. Apple fans get a bad reputation sometimes, and coming from the PC world I can tell you this nonsense isn't blindly accepted. Every other computer company had no problem updating their i5 products to Coffee Lake. They don't replace the i5 models with an i3 and pocket the savings like cheap money-grubbers.
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Ok, I thought that was what you were saying. I think it’s more accurate to say that they eliminated the i5 from the low end 4K. In 2017, there were 4K models at $1300 and $1500 (USD). Each had an i5. In 2019, there are 4K models at $1300 at $1500, but the $1300 is i3 or i7 only.
So, yes, it costs more to get an i5, but it’s not because they raised the price of the i5 option, it’s because they eliminated that option from the low end.
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Yeah, and the i9-9900K at the high-end is faster than the Xeon W 10-core in the iMac Pro and $2000 cheaper, lol.