Previously Reliable Leaker CoinX Suggests New iMac and Mac Mini Models Are Coming Soon

[Mago]

I'm getting definite Amiga vs Atari ST holy war vibes from this (look that up kids!). For the record I was definitely on the Amiga side of things back in the day so I recognise patterns here and it's not a particularly edifying situation I'm interested to get involved in - I'm with Matthew Broderick on that.

As I'll clarify again, I'll be happy to build an AMD PC this year if I needed to build one, I may even stick with an AMD GPU as well because it might be useful for an eGPU on one of my Macs in due course.

The only thing I can really try and conclude this with is: Do you really think Intel are going to let Apple go direct to AMD without putting their best deal on the table? And do you think the average consumer is going to care overly about a bunch of benchmarks?

I'm moreless known at Mac pro sub forum, I don't try to harass you (FYI the Amiga was the first computer I was really engaged too), it's just I don't share your bias, I'm not 100% pro AMD I used to be Intel fan (and still believe they can recover and rebuild the PC industry, Intel is victim of it's own hyper-succes), I'd be a Mac pro day 1 adopter but it doesn't fit well my workflow (finite element analytics, and now dl/ml, crypto coins, I do sometimes hw design and prototyping) so I really need a powerful workstation, but most framework in my workflow simple can't run on macOS anymore (since Catalina or not beyond Catalina) I need CUDA or SyCL and accelerated fp64 gpgpu computation, no hope on CUDA but I believe later ASAP Metal should enable fp64 and hopefully bfoat16 and someone port sycl then maybe I could work again natively from macOS.

Meanwhile I code from an iMac or MBP or tcMP and run/debug at a remote (under my desk) GPU Server, diy built on an mitx Server motherboard with an embedded epyc 8c CPU and two rtx Titan on an pcie bifurcation/splitter, and I'm doing that very good, all the nVidia stuff run natively at the Server, and my Mac is more like a big luxury display, also I do extensive use of nomachine remote desktop so I can run apps with its GUI proyected at my station and almost feels native as I often use a dedicated 10g connection (really overkill but sometimes I need to move multiple TB of Data).

So I really enjoy AMD Zen, it's powerful, economical (not cheap), I'm aware how good AMD played it's cards against Intel, but AMD still far behind nVidia about GPU s, but nVidia GPU kingdom has its days numbered due specialized computational accelerators like TPU NPU and fpga along hyper core count accelerators based on risc v sooner or later will dethroned nVidia, but at least by the next 3 yr nVidia it's safe, can't say the same about Intel, too many errors an slow reaction, thanks God they just hired the Best asic engineer today, Jim Keller, I have big hopes on him, also Intel has some interesting concepts as architecture successor for von neuman .

I need to say you I'm sorry if you felt harrased, not my intention just to support my POV.

As yet I'm convinced last Mac to debut a new Intel CPU will be the upcoming MBP14 and MBP16, Apple moving then everything to Ryzen Threadripper starting with iMac and Mac mini, followed later by the iMac Pro, and next year all AMD MBP, there's a chance for an ARM based alt-macbook RT-like but isn't as clear to me, similar is a gaming desktop mac Rumored for WWDC, I believe it bill be just an beefier iMac, people dream with an not so pro Mac pro starting at 2000$ and capable to host a mpx GPU and at least another pcie peripheral upto 4 pcie slots, but I don't know if this will arrive neither powered by Ryzen 3950x and AMD RX5900 GPU with 32gb hbm2e RAM, neither if this will look like a small cube.

Maybe this month we have more cues, Apple had triple down about product leaks.

Edited: auto corrects artifacts and wording.

 

[myrtlebee]

After looking at the title of the this thread, and the subject of the tweet, which only mentions iMac and Mac mini, I felt that talking about laptops was off topic. There are so many other threads dedicated to them - many of which I follow. I don’t think that’s strange. If you do, I can live with that.

I specifically tried to word my post as nicely as I could. I didn’t want to offend you.

Don’t worry about policing what I say, please.

 

[CWallace]

I'd like to see the 2020 21.5" 4K iMac models start with the 1TB Fusion Drive and the 27" 5K models start with the 2TB Fusion Drive (and the 3.7GHz model starting with a 512GB SSD) for the current 2019 model pricing. The HDD-only model would then be the 1080p 2.3GHz model (which should see a price drop to $999, while we're at it).

 

[PickUrPoison]

<snip>
The iMac Pro could move to 2200, and presumably, a Cooper Lake variant would be the 2300. Depending on when that ships, they might skip the 2200 altogether.

From what I’ve seen of the roadmap leaks, the Cooper Lake Xeons (supposedly coming out this year in the Intel’s improve 10nm+ process) are the -SP parts, not the W series. The 2200 were barely released so I don’t think Intel will have a follow up until next year, though sooner would be good too. But the iMac Pro is now over two years old so I think the next version will be the 2200 series. Announced at the rumored March event?🤞

I guess? But there were 65W S-series before, and Apple opted against those in favor of the B.

If they can simply use the S, why was there no Coffee Lake Refresh Mac mini?

It’s confusing, but the B suffix parts are actually S-series parts, just in a BGA package (which must be soldered) instead of the FCLGA (socketed) package. The i3-8100B, i5-8500B and i7-8700B parts are equivalent to the desktop, non-B versions of those chips in every other way.

Intel classifies the “B” parts as mobile, presumably because they’re in a solder-only BGA package. But as 65W S-series parts, they could just as easily be considered desktop parts, like the non-B versions. (Apple calls them “desktop class”, which is accurate.)

As Apple is the main customer for the S-series suffix B parts, and since the Mac mini had just been introduced recently, I think Intel didn’t make ninth gen B parts because Apple didn’t want to buy any. Coffee Lake-R wasn’t much different from the 8th gen chips Apple was using, but now at 18 months since release and with a decent performance increase, I think we’ll see Comet Lake B suffix parts, assuming Apple wants to refresh the mini this year. According to rumors the parts are due next month, so maybe shipping this summer?

 

[CWallace]

From what I’ve seen of the roadmap leaks, the Cooper Lake Xeons (supposedly coming out this year in the Intel’s improve 10nm+ process) are the -SP parts, not the W series.

Agreed. Server-level Xeon Scaleable is where Intel is making their money so that will be their focus over workstation parts.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Where is this coming from? The post from the other user you quoted is not implying anything like that. So why bring Tim etc. into it?
Anyway, just like Pros complained about Mac Pro until it got addressed (even though Tim was building trilion value) then this is something similar. Apple is all about feedback and if people don't provide it then Apple does what they want. In the past, many products were altered because people/media etc. complained and this could/should be one of the cases.
Including Tim and how he raised stock price is actually fairly irrelevant to the post and you are just shifting the argument to something completely different.

the iMac designed is old, flawed and needs rework. In fact, even the iMac Pro showed us that the internal can be reworked to be much better so iMac should get slimmer bezels -> bigger screen, better thermals like iMac Pro (keep the ram door though). Or you are telling me that you expect this design with compromises to be kept for another 8 years?
This is not the case of changing for the sake of it, this is actually a case where the product needs to improve and its been long over due.

You missed OP’s post #288 where he was calling for Tim Cook to be fired due to the large iMac bezels. (When you jump into the middle of an existing conversation, you may not understand the context.)

Previously Reliable Leaker CoinX Suggests New iMac and Mac Mini Models Are Coming Soon

Yes, Steve Jobs had this great iMac design when he was alive and 10+ years later Tim Cook is still selling the same old iMac design with the thickest bezels comparing to any all-in-one or monitor on the market. Let's start a movement to request Tim Cook out of Apple so that the design team...

forums.macrumors.com

In any case, there’s nothing wrong with the current bezels. Just wanting smaller bezels has nothing to do with need. Apple is well aware of the bezel size and the fact that it’s a seven year old design. They also know a few complain about the looks, but they apparently don’t see a need to redesign it yet, even though you feel different.

Changing the design is expensive. Apple rarely (never?) redesigns for the sake of visuals, they do so when it’s necessary to accomplish technical goals that wouldn’t be possible with the existing design. When iMac is redesigned, I assume the bezels will get smaller, but bezel width isn’t going to drive a redesign.

The Mac mini design is even older than iMac 2010 vs. 2012. I’m sure some are tired of the mini’s design, but I don’t think Apple much cares about that either.
[automerge]1583621822[/automerge]

The bezels on the iMac are the thickest ones out there in comparison to any all-in-one out there. Having a trillion or a million or a bankrupt company doesn't make any relations to that. In fact that just shows how greedy Tim is since no other all-in-one uses 10 years of same old design with these thick bezels.

The design isn’t ten years old, it’s seven. But so what? 🤷‍♂️

 

[sublunar]

So I really enjoy AMD Zen, it's powerful, economical (not cheap), I'm aware how good AMD played it's cards against Intel, but AMD still far behind nVidia about GPU s, but nVidia GPU kingdom has its days numbered due specialized computational accelerators like TPU NPU and fpga along hyper core count accelerators based on risc v dinner or later will dethrone nVidia, but at least the next 3 ye nVidia it's safe, can't say the same about Intel, too many errors an slow reaction, thanks God they just hired the Best asic engineer today, Jim Keller, I have big hopes on him, also Intel has some interesting concepts as architecture successor for von neuman .

If need to say you I'm sorry if you felt harrased, not my intention just to support my POV.

As yet I'm convinced last Mac to debut a new Intel CPU will be the upcoming MBP14 and MBP16, Apple moving then everything to Ryzen Threadripper starting with iMac and Mac mini, followed later by the iMac Pro, and next year all AMD MBP, there's a chance for an ARM based alt-macbook pro but isn't as clear to me, similar is a gaming desktop mac Rumored for WWDC, I believe it bill be just an beefier iMac, people dream with an not so pro Mac pro starting at 2000$ and capable to host a mpx GPU and at least another pcie peripheral upto 4 pcie slots, but I don't know if this will arrive neither powered by Ryzen 3950x and AMD RX5900 GPU with 32gb hbm2e RAM, neither if this will look like a small cube.

Maybe thus month we have more cues, Apple triple down about product leaks.

Glad we can agree to have differing viewpoints, I'm just interested in Apple's position on this as it's them who will decide the future of the Mac on their criteria, not us.

At the moment, Nvidia is far ahead of AMD on compute and TDP. For a long time Nvidia was the card of choice for Adobe due to CUDA. It's still the GPU of choice for PC gamers but Apple have no interest in that field (that we know of). And Apple have their reasons for not even allowing Nvidia to compete for GPU.

Jim Keller going to Intel is interesting, but we might not see his hand on stuff for a few years. It's my assumption that he's behind the project that brought us Ryzen - and he started 5 years years before the original launch of the Ryzen. On that timescale we might not see the first Keller influenced Intel stuff until 2023, and that might even be on a 10nm process by then.

I already addressed a purely theoretical view over an iMac being powered by a custom APU combination designed by AMD - inspired by the PS5/Xbox Series X - which might lead to a gaming rumour leaking out. I would suppose that the aim would be to leverage the AMD compute for certain applications rather than majoring on the the CPU cores. But it doesn't make sense in a 5k gaming rig - let alone a 4k one, and anything non-retina would be a bit of a step-down.

It should be normal practice for Apple to be sampling forthcoming AMD GPUs so just adding in a particularly powerful one shouldn't be anything new.

And general purpose CPU cores have to be better than GPU for compute - a big reason why the 2013 Mac Pro bit the dust after the 'thermal corner' admission by Apple.

We'll soon know if Apple intend to continue using GPUs that are 'good enough' without being space heaters in their next Macs. The Mac Pro certainly give some clues but there should be some high end AMD kit on offer by the time an iMac Pro refresh comes around - if it's on the cards - later this year.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Seriously, is no one reading my posts today?
I said specifically to keep the old model with HDD for those that need it. I used other products as an example as that is precisely what Apple did in the past many times.
So why are you assuming something else.
The solution is simple - kill HDD on new products (just like they did with everything else) and move forward. Keep the current entry level to satisfy those that are ok with it. Everyone wins.

I read your post just fine, even though your bottom-quoting requires scrolling to the end of your posts to figure what you’re talking about, then scrolling back up to read your reply 🙄

I’m not assuming anything. Since you’ve forgotten your position on HDD in iMac, I’ll remind you:

All other products are SSDs so iMac should be too. In fact, it would also make the technology cheaper sooner
Regardless, no hdd please.

 

[chucker23n1]

From what I’ve seen of the roadmap leaks, the Cooper Lake Xeons (supposedly coming out this year in the Intel’s improve 10nm+ process) are the -SP parts, not the W series. The 2200 were barely released so I don’t think Intel will have a follow up until next year, though sooner would be good too. But the iMac Pro is now over two years old so I think the next version will be the 2200 series. Announced at the rumored March event?🤞

Ah yes. Xeon-W seems to be on a two-year cycle, if even that.

What's weird is that Apple, in 2019, let the iMac Pro get cannibalized both from the low end and the high end. First, the eight-core Coffee Lake iMac became an almost universally better (aside from cooling) computer, despite costing $2,300(!) less. Then, the Mac Pro stole the high end. And they could've upgraded the iMac Pro alongside it, resolving both issues. But they didn't.

It’s confusing, but the B suffix parts are actually S-series parts, just in a BGA package (which must be soldered) instead of the FCLGA (socketed) package. The i3-8100B, i5-8500B and i7-8700B parts are equivalent to the desktop, non-B versions of those chips in every other way.

Intel classifies the “B” parts as mobile, presumably because they’re in a solder-only BGA package. But as 65W S-series parts, they could just as easily be considered desktop parts, like the non-B versions. (Apple calls them “desktop class”, which is accurate.)

Yeah, my confusion stems from the "mobile" branding. I originally thought they were indeed repackaged S-series, but then someone here said, no, they're upgraded H-series. Shrug.

As Apple is the main customer for the S-series suffix B parts, and since the Mac mini had just been introduced recently, I think Intel didn’t make ninth gen B parts because Apple didn’t want to buy any.

Yup.

Coffee Lake-R wasn’t much different from the 8th gen chips Apple was using, but now at 18 months since release and with a decent performance increase, I think we’ll see Comet Lake B suffix parts, assuming Apple wants to refresh the mini this year. According to rumors the parts are due next month, so maybe shipping this summer?

Sure. Coffee Lake-R would've only been interesting for a high-end 8-core option.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Ah yes. Xeon-W seems to be on a two-year cycle, if even that.

What's weird is that Apple, in 2019, let the iMac Pro get cannibalized both from the low end and the high end. First, the eight-core Coffee Lake iMac became an almost universally better (aside from cooling) computer, despite costing $2,300(!) less. Then, the Mac Pro stole the high end. And they could've upgraded the iMac Pro alongside it, resolving both issues. But they didn't.



Yeah, my confusion stems from the "mobile" branding. I originally thought they were indeed repackaged S-series, but then someone here said, no, they're upgraded H-series. Shrug.



Yup.



Sure. Coffee Lake-R would've only been interesting for a high-end 8-core option.

Yeah that’s true, the Coffee Lake- Refresh would have given Mac mini 8-cores, I forgot about that. It would have been a nice mid-model bump and I can only guess that maybe they didn’t want to steal demand from the upcoming Comet Lake update, where we should see both 8- and 10-core upgrades.

re: the cannibalization, the W-2200 series were announced last quarter but I haven’t seen that they’re shipping yet, maybe they are by now? But I think it suits Apple just fine to have the Mac Pro have the spotlight to itself for awhile, and give it some space to be the latest and greatest. I expect iMac Pro to be introduced at WWDC (if there is one)/June, if not earlier.

You’re definitely right about high end iMac encroaching on Mac Pro. That’s actually been happening since the 5K and quad-cores came out. Unless you have suitable workloads, iMac Pro doesn’t really make sense. There’s a lot of value offered by the regular iMac lineup. Better cooling would make it even better.

 

[smulji]

Yeah that’s true, the Coffee Lake- Refresh would have given Mac mini 8-cores, I forgot about that. It would have been a nice mid-model bump and I can only guess that maybe they didn’t want to steal demand from the upcoming Comet Lake update, where we should see both 8- and 10-core upgrades.

re: the cannibalization, the W-2200 series were announced last quarter but I haven’t seen that they’re shipping yet, maybe they are by now? But I think it suits Apple just fine to have the Mac Pro have the spotlight to itself for awhile, and give it some space to be the latest and greatest. I expect iMac Pro to be introduced at WWDC (if there is one)/June, if not earlier.
You’re definitely right about high end iMac encroaching on Mac Pro.

You mean high-end iMac encroaching on iMac Pro?

 

[sublunar]

Ah yes. Xeon-W seems to be on a two-year cycle, if even that.

What's weird is that Apple, in 2019, let the iMac Pro get cannibalized both from the low end and the high end. First, the eight-core Coffee Lake iMac became an almost universally better (aside from cooling) computer, despite costing $2,300(!) less. Then, the Mac Pro stole the high end. And they could've upgraded the iMac Pro alongside it, resolving both issues. But they didn't.

Releasing an iMac Pro months apart from a Comet Lake S refresh would give the Pro crowd a more expansive computer to go at for sure. Perhaps Apple are waiting for a suitable GPU like a AMD 5600 Pro?

I have theorised that a 27" iMac Pro with a lower entry level SKU could replace the 27" iMac altogether as long as the 21.5" has a suitably high end option to replace the previous low end 27" SKU.

And a new screen size (and form factor) would allow Apple to choose a new generation of CPU to go into the successor to the 21.5" - for example, using MacBook Pro 16" parts and connecting to a 4k panel of a 24-25" size.

The Mini could also get H CPUs without a loss in benchmarks (due to the extra threads) with the same reasoning.

This would eliminate the S series desktop CPUs from the iMac and allow Apple to use more of the H range CPUs with a GPU.

 

[CWallace]

What's weird is that Apple, in 2019, let the iMac Pro get cannibalized both from the low end and the high end. First, the eight-core Coffee Lake iMac became an almost universally better (aside from cooling) computer, despite costing $2,300(!) less. Then, the Mac Pro stole the high end. And they could've upgraded the iMac Pro alongside it, resolving both issues. But they didn't.

New CPUs were not available until late last year (at the earliest) and while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 64 was announced last June, it does not appear to offer much of an improvement over the existing Vega 64X.

Lack of a CPU or GPU upgrade path last summer is likely why Apple decided to drop storage prices as that was about the only thing they had to spur interest.

 

[chucker23n1]

re: the cannibalization, the W-2200 series were announced last quarter but I haven’t seen that they’re shipping yet, maybe they are by now?

Who knows.

It's hard enough to follow Intel announced products; adding the dimension of "it's announced, but not actually shipping" or (Ice Lake) "it's announced, sure, but some parts are shipping, others aren't, and none will ever ship in volume" is frigging exhausting.

But I think it suits Apple just fine to have the Mac Pro have the spotlight to itself for awhile, and give it some space to be the latest and greatest.

Oh yeah, sure.

You’re definitely right about high end iMac encroaching on Mac Pro. That’s actually been happening since the 5K and quad-cores came out. Unless you have suitable workloads, iMac Pro doesn’t really make sense. There’s a lot of value offered by the regular iMac lineup. Better cooling would make it even better.

Right.
[automerge]1583643439[/automerge]

The Mini could also get H CPUs without a loss in benchmarks (due to the extra threads) with the same reasoning.

I'm not sure that fits the positioning, though. It does come with a 10 GigE option now, after all.

"With up to 6-core processors and faster 2666MHz memory, Mac mini is ideal for batching out massive Xcode builds or rendering and encoding video."

"Up to six CPU cores and superfast I/O make Mac mini the perfect Xcode companion to build your apps at top speed while running automated tests in the background."

Pitching it this way, then leaving performance the same a year and a half later, would be strange.

 

[arvinsim]

I wonder how the performance and thermals of the Mac Mini can be improved by either making the case bigger or moving to an external power supply.

 

[GnOm]

If a redesigned iMac is being released, I'll have to wait for at least the second series/refresh.

 

[PickUrPoison]

You mean high-end iMac encroaching on iMac Pro?

Actually I meant Pro Macs, not Mac Pro. So my comment should have read:

“You’re definitely right about high end iMac encroaching on Pro Macs. That’s actually been happening since the 5K and quad-cores came out.”

There’s an area of overlap where high-end iMac overlaps lower end iMac Pro and Mac Pro for a certain percentage of pro users. Comet Lake 8- and 10-core Mac mini, and 10-core iMac, will expand that overlap zone. That’s what I was trying to say 🙂

 

[hellokittymeow]

Please get rid of the the abominable thick bezels and chin. Apple, the iMac is way past due for a redesign internally and externally. I refuse to purchase one until it is redesigned!

 

[GalileoSeven]

Hopefully traditional hard drives and the "fusion" hybrids disappear with this refresh. With SSD ubiquity at this point, there's no reason to keep those fossils around (esp. with Apple having abandoned all pretenses of the mini being a 'low price' machine)

 

[CWallace]

Hopefully traditional hard drives and the "fusion" hybrids disappear with this refresh. With SSD ubiquity at this point, there's no reason to keep those fossils around (esp. with Apple having abandoned all pretenses of the mini being a 'low price' machine)

While I agree that the HDD-only option should be limited to the non-4K 21.5" model, I expect the reason the 4K and 5K iMac line still has - and should still offer - Fusion Drives is because as the most-popular Mac desktop line, they sell a fair bit to consumers who need large local storage for photographs and such and they would balk at paying SSD-only pricing for 1 or 2 TB of storage (even if Apple significantly reduced the prices). And offering only SSD storage (at say 256GB or even 512GB) and forcing them to a NAS or external HDD if they need more capacity adds complexity and price compared to having it all internal.

And for those consumers, the 128GB SSD may very well be enough to hold their most-often-accessed data (so yes, I am calling for the 1TB model to go back to a 128GB SSD like it used to have).

 

[Voyageur]

While I agree that the HDD-only option should be limited to the non-4K 21.5" model, I expect the reason the 4K and 5K iMac line still has - and should still offer - Fusion Drives is because as the most-popular Mac desktop line, they sell a fair bit to consumers who need large local storage for photographs and such and they would balk at paying SSD-only pricing for 1 or 2 TB of storage (even if Apple significantly reduced the prices). And offering only SSD storage (at say 256GB or even 512GB) and forcing them to a NAS or external HDD if they need more capacity adds complexity and price compared to having it all internal.

And for those consumers, the 128GB SSD may very well be enough to hold their most-often-accessed data (so yes, I am calling for the 1TB model to go back to a 128GB SSD like it used to have).

At the moment, I use this 21.5 (2017) in the basic configuration with Fusion Drive for almost a year. This is a temporary measure, before that there were 27 (2013) completely on SSD. This entry level is just awful. Fusion is very unstable and often causes the browser, other applications and the computer itself to freeze. This is all due to poor memory and data swap on an extremely slow disk. Adobe Lightroom does not work very well.

The reason for the popularity in price is objective, but something needs to be done.

 

[CWallace]

At the moment, I use this 21.5 (2017) in the basic configuration with Fusion Drive for almost a year. This is a temporary measure, before that there were 27 (2013) completely on SSD. This entry level is just awful. Fusion is very unstable and often causes the browser, other applications and the computer itself to freeze. This is all due to poor memory and data swap on an extremely slow disk. Adobe Lightroom does not work very well.

If I was editing photos, I would be SSD only (for the record, my last few iMacs have all been 1TB SSD models).

If I was just looking at them, I think Fusion would work (especially Fusion with a 128GB SSD and not the 24GB/32GB models the 1TB configurations have).

 

[arvinsim]

External HDD are so cheap nowadays. There is no excuse to not use SSD.

 

[sublunar]

I'm not sure that fits the positioning, though. It does come with a 10 GigE option now, after all.

"With up to 6-core processors and faster 2666MHz memory, Mac mini is ideal for batching out massive Xcode builds or rendering and encoding video."

"Up to six CPU cores and superfast I/O make Mac mini the perfect Xcode companion to build your apps at top speed while running automated tests in the background."

Pitching it this way, then leaving performance the same a year and a half later, would be strange.

Obviously the logical upgrade for Coffee Lake Mac mini is to go to Comet Lake S and call it a day.

Let's then look at the Comet Lake S CPUs that would logically be used in a 2020 Mac mini:

The i3-10100 - 3.6GHz base clock, 4 cores, 8 threads - Return of multithreading

The i5-10500 - 3.1GHz base clock, 6 cores, 12 threads - so a marginal base clock boost and return of multithreading

The i7-10700 - 2.9GHz base clock, 8 cores, 16 threads - base clock reduction but increase of 2 cores and multithreading.

Officially these have a 65w TDP so would be a simple plug-in replacement. The i7 becomes a really obvious up-sell in the 2020 model.

The 10Gb Ethernet option always suggested to me that Apple were chasing professional users who weren't overly interested in iGPU (except they realise they need to have one) and dGPU adds expense, potentially heat, and would lead to loss of 2 of the Thunderbolt 3 ports. This is a product that would prefer more threads in a Mac mini going forward for professional use. If hobbyists could afford it too (and many do) then great.

The downside for Comet Lake S CPUs is twofold:
a. We don't know if Intel will produce the BGA versions that Apple seem to want for the Mini as well.
b. Higher end versions may have higher TDP which may force a redesign of the cooling if used in an iMac - but most people accept this is the point where Apple do a redesign of the iMac.


If Apple are majoring on multicore process speeds for video rendering and Xcode builds then Comet Lake, with its extra threads, ought to be interesting to them.

It's all fairly dependent on Apple getting a BGA version of the Comet Lake CPU, which I guess Intel will only be too happy to provide if it gets the deal.


But let's look at fact that the majority of iMac SKUs don't need the integrated GPU, especially after the T2 CPU takes Quicksync off the table for the iMac.

I was wondering more about Apple potentially getting a deal for F series Comet Lake S CPUs, a marginal possibility admittedly.

Here's my speculation about how Apple could proceed, given that we know their pro products use Xeon that don't have iGPU, iMacs will generally come with a dGPU and the T2 CPU also makes Quicksync redundant.

What if Apple's iMac 2020 order from Intel amounts to discounts big enough to bring the Xeon into high end iMac 27" territory if they bring the base spec down a bit (16Gb RAM and 512Gb SSD for example)?

What if the lower end CPUs in the 21.5" ended up being BGA mount versions of F series Comet Lake S processors that have the iGPU disabled because they failed testing? F series CPUs appear to be commonplace since Coffee Lake Refresh.

Apple may already be purchasing second grade Xeons for the 2017 iMac Pro to fit the heat profile required, so why couldn't Intel offer a really nice discount on parts that don't need iGPU in the iMac?

While I agree that the HDD-only option should be limited to the non-4K 21.5" model, I expect the reason the 4K and 5K iMac line still has - and should still offer - Fusion Drives is because as the most-popular Mac desktop line, they sell a fair bit to consumers who need large local storage for photographs and such and they would balk at paying SSD-only pricing for 1 or 2 TB of storage (even if Apple significantly reduced the prices). And offering only SSD storage (at say 256GB or even 512GB) and forcing them to a NAS or external HDD if they need more capacity adds complexity and price compared to having it all internal.

And for those consumers, the 128GB SSD may very well be enough to hold their most-often-accessed data (so yes, I am calling for the 1TB model to go back to a 128GB SSD like it used to have).

On the one hand, Apple want to move to the T2 CPU, but on the other hand, they may well want to offer the kind of volume storage that low end users want.

My solution? Fusion Max (yes, a meaningless marketing term! And a placeholder for something that sounds better)

But rather than go into the complication of fusing fast NVME to some sort of SATA SSD combination, just go straight to a Samsung 970EVO equivalent SSD which costs roughly half the price of the Samsung 970Pro at a cost of less 'pro' performance. I would have said SATA SSD previously but I'm confident that Apple could strike a deal for some decent performing NAND that compromises for additional volume.

I'd only offer the Fusion Max drive in a 21.5" iMac as a consumer option at low to moderate capacities (up to 1Tb) leaving proper full speed SSD for the highest end and, in my opinion, the 27" iMac would go 'Pro' to create the segmentation required.

The same could apply to the Mac mini - easily offering double the base capacity as Fusion Max drive with an up-sell to 2Tb of 'Pro' speed SSD.

While it's also high time for Phil Schiller to say the entire Mac range goes Retina - the waters here could be muddied if Apple go to a 4k 24-25" panel for the 'base' iMac. Possibly leaving the 21.5" HD Mac as a base model hangover.

 

[Mago]

Take this tip with an grain of salt but...

A possible ARM "macOS" to be a Mere evolution for iPadOS with "full laptop mode", having a very Desktop-Like Experience, mostly inspired by Windows RT and Samsung's DEX-mode, but Vastly improved, this will be the ARM-"mac", just the current iPad more mac-like more crossover-device.

Some Chinese Bloggers consider logical step to replace Intel with AMD, will enable Apple to break with Intel's iGPU/Xe GPU, sameway they dis with nVidia.

Meanwhile Jean-Louis Gassée consider ARM now almost ready to replace even a Xeon, but switching macOS to ARM, impractical worthless, and not an actual hurry.