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Purchasing 27 inch iMac
- Thread starter Bearcats0877
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1) no one knows for sure. It wouldn't hurt waiting till fall if you can wait.
2) the base model is powerful enough for those tasks but the 1TB fusion HD has only 24gb of ssd drive so stay away from the base model and go for the faster m390 2TB fusion or ssd if you can afford it.
3) don't know about that.
1 - Who knows, but if there is one it's unlikely to be significant. Kaby Lake (if Apple move to it) is a minor update, and Apple's GPU policy is a train wreck. They're insistent on sticking with ATI laptop parts, which are horribly underpowered and going nowhere fast. NVidia are so far ahead of ATI now it's difficult to see how ATI will ever catch up.
2 - Get the bigger fusion drive for sure, or pure SSD.
3 - Yes it's quiet. The major source of noise from an iMac is from taxing the CPU, which very quickly increases the fan noise to highly annoying levels. Turns out sticking a desktop class CPU into a pointlessly thin enclosure with very few air vents was a stupid idea for cooling. Who knew!
In the exact same position,
How big are the odds they're gonna make a silent update? That'd be the best for me since I really want the Skylake, a better GPU would be cool too but I'm all for the processor since I'm a DAW user.
But let's say they actually Are making a New one ..how long would the current one be on the market/apple store?
Would the current one be deleted the same day and ppl only will be proposed the new one? Or does it gets "released" and then it will take a day or two/week for it to come up in the store? Can't remember how it works..
I mean if someone isn't a fan of the new stuff in it, how can you buy the "older" version?
Would be best if they just released the specs and letting people have time to buy the current one if they'd like ...
How big are the odds they're gonna make a silent update? That'd be the best for me since I really want the Skylake, a better GPU would be cool too but I'm all for the processor since I'm a DAW user.
But let's say they actually Are making a New one ..how long would the current one be on the market/apple store?
Would the current one be deleted the same day and ppl only will be proposed the new one? Or does it gets "released" and then it will take a day or two/week for it to come up in the store? Can't remember how it works..
I mean if someone isn't a fan of the new stuff in it, how can you buy the "older" version?
Would be best if they just released the specs and letting people have time to buy the current one if they'd like ...
Only Apple knows - food for thought. The 27" iMac is already on Skylake, so what could they upgrade that model too? I assume a dGPU upgrade and few other bells and whistles.
Yes, but upgrade to the SSD, you won't regret it.
Very quiet, but if you're going to get any Fusion drive upgrade to the 2TB. The 1TB only had 24GB of SSD storage, where as the 2TB has 128GB. You'll be better off with the 256GB SSD, if that size fits within your needs.
Haha, Kaby lake will have native USB3.1, TB3 and I think HDMI and display port can also move to new generation. It will also have native HEVC support. So waiting for next gen is future proofing the connectivity. What comes to the GPUs what you said couldn't be more wrong. Both nVidia and ATI are moving from 28nm process to 14nm process having skipped the last manufacturing process altogether. This is the single biggest jump in GPUs we have seen for long time (or even ever). This is basically a jump of two generations at once. Whether ATI is worse than nVidia is totally different topic... but since the old iMac is on ATI and the new one most likely will be too, it is going to be a very significant jump in processing power no matter what... even if the current model was nVidia the new gen ATI would beat it since the 28nm process is now like 4 years old at least (i'm not sure about the years and too lazy to check but it is old as hell in terms of computing). The processing power per watt gain is just going to be huge.
But what comes to the topic starter for his listed uses any computer from current generation, or even few generation back would be enough. Every computer even ten years old can do the basic office tasks and internet. Video playback is bit different if need to play HEVC... but even for that current generation with software decoder is more than enough.
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Kaby Lake
Not in 2016, so does Apple hold off updating its computer lines (iMac, MBP, etc) until Intel rolls out Kaby Lake?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10503/intel-begins-shipment-of-seventh-generation-core-kaby-lake
If the processors are not available in large amounts before the end of the year a silent GPU upgrade would be possible.. but I think they will rather announce new iMac with new CPU and GPU some time later this autumn, like october or november... that doesn't mean day after you can buy them instantly. And I'm betting they will refresh the whole line up, as in other computers too at once... not sure about Mac Pro though since the Gaby Lake doesn't come in Xeons until year later (but still they could upgrade Mac Pro too... or they might not)
That in no way indicates which Kabylake are being released,it's looking very likely that desktop processors in the Kabylake flavour suitable for iMacs all not be with us until early 2017.
Intel hasn't released all the chips of a new architecture together for years and the last few releases have been a drawn out nightmare, with the best chips with the better graphics coming six months after the core m and lesser ultra book mobile chips,and more bog standard desktop parts.
So you're saying Apple will announce Kaby lake iMacs in Oct/Nov but won't be available until 2017 Once Intel finally rolls out the chipsets needed for those machines. I don't think that's going to happen for a couple of reasons.
First, Apple misses the important holiday season, so what purpose is there to announce a new update in November only to say it won't be available until 2017.
Secondly, Intel has delayed their chipsets fairly consistently, and that announcement requires Intel to hit their marks. We don't know what those marks are (but I'm assuming intel has communicated them to their customers.
I think a dGPU upgrade with thunderbolt 3 is really the only logical explanation of what may very well happen. I have no idea, but kaby lake is not in cards for Apple - at least for 2016.
Thanks for the replies everyone! I ended up getting as follows:
4Ghz i7
500gb SSD
8gb Ram (User upgradeable)
m395X
Last question does this take DDR4 ram or only DDR3? thanks everyone!
4Ghz i7
500gb SSD
8gb Ram (User upgradeable)
m395X
Last question does this take DDR4 ram or only DDR3? thanks everyone!
That is so depressing.
I hoped I would get an updated iMac this fall...
But then again I might instead wait for Cannonlake which will be miles better than Kaby from what I read on the web.
Arghh..so many choices.
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i7 for basic tasks like browsing and email? I guess you should've told us that budget was not a concern to you. Since you can afford it though you bought the best machine possible.
The 27" iMac is already on Skylake. It was updated late last year. Its the second most up-to-date mac, after the 12" MacBook. Dunno why MacRumors have it up as "Don't Buy". Its the MacBook Pros, Mini and Mac Pro that are getting seriously dusty.
The big deal in any further update would be:
- possible better GPU
- possible switch to Thunderbolt 3/USB-C (which might well wait for Kaby Lake since then they could just drop all the ports in favour of 4xTB3/USB C)
I think the gpu Polaris update is more significant than the cpu Kaby at this time is that right?
Yes that's right, Polaris could make a real difference.
Unfortunately Apple dislike doing just a CPU or just a GPU update, if they are going to retool the manufacturing lines they like to do it all at once. Hey I get that from a business point of view it's the most sensible option.
I'm not saying that they would announce it october and then say that it is only available next year.. Just that announcing something doesn't mean it needs to be available the very next day there could be small delay. Fact of the matter is that if apple doesn't release anything they are going to have difficulties selling even the current models for christmas... since they are so far from being "current". My bet is still that those processor are gonna be out this year, if that happens of course it still doesn't mean guaranteed apple update cause it seems sometimes from consumer's point of view apple makes some strange decisions. Anyways the point is that Kabylake is small upgrade... first time something out of the normal tick-tock model.. so getting this chipset done shouldn't be as hard as it may have been earlier. Apple also seems to be often first in line to get the new goodies. So it would make lots of sense to try to push for late this year refresh
The issue is that we are not expecting to see Kaby lake until 2017, which my point.
Sure they could do a minor point update, with a GPU upgrade, which is what I said all along. Kaby lake in 2016 is a non-event.
That's a serious overkill for the tasks that you described. Seriously any machine on apple line up could do what you said you needed, but having fast computer is always nicer than having a slow one. I have the top line model (with exception of SSD and RAM maxed compared to yours) and I use it for 4K video editing, color correction and after effects etc
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And that could in worst case be a long wait cause what we learned from Broadwell fiasco is that moving to smaller manufacturing process at this point seems to be harder than before... we are closing in the limits of the silicon as a material
That's what I figured, just tried to future proof my machine as much as possible even though it is extremely overkill. And i agree with that Broadwell statement we just never know with apple when processor updates will happen.
yeah, I was more thinking of a silent update as a minor update before adding the kaby's to it and eventually the usb-c/tb3 thingys.
But they would certainly keep some of the "old" usb 3.0's or go only usb-c's on the new one, no that shouldn't be likely?
That's a hard one to call.
Apple do like to keep things simple and 4xTB3/USB-C would certainly be simple.
I would hope, but Apple does have a history of going all in on a technology and dropping the old tech much quicker then others. That means its conceivable to see only USB-C ports on the iMac.
Nice purchase. I went from a 24" 2007 iMac to the same as yours and I love it, no matter what I am using it for. Feel like I'm set for another 9-10 years. By the way are you U of Cincinnati grads? My niece plays for the women's soccer team there and just came back from a weekend there. Just curios.