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Gonna need a lot better video cards than crappy laptop grade GPUs in desktop iMacs. Lion already lags, slap that 'retina' marketing term with the higher resolution technology behind it and youre bound to have a slower system.
 
Wasn't the last Mac event called Back to the Mac? & even that was software focused. WWDC2012 is going to be AWESOME. My dosh will be saved by then, and I'll be poised to order my first ever Mac. A one-way switch. Goodbye, Microsoft.
 
5120x2880? 3840x2400? Do LG/Samsung/whomever supplies iMac displays even have any of these in production!?
With all the high-res screens on the horizon, maybe 4K video will also see consumer adoption quicker than we all anticipated.

Apple might be able to do it - a big push to get manufacturers to make bigger better screens now would really set them up towards a 4k iTV in the next year or so.
 
Don't get me wrong, I think it would be awesome, but the power and GPU required to make these as good, if not better, in terms of performance to the current gen seems a little too unbelievable at this point in time (especially considering Apple's demand for high profit margins).
LOLWUT?

People, stop talking about "too low performance" for retina displays. In 1996, GPUs could push out desktops at 1600x1200 without sweating. And right now it's 2012, you know, hardware is slightly more performant.

It's a simple 2D picture rendering, after all, not gaming.
 
Gonna need a lot better video cards than crappy laptop grade GPUs in desktop iMacs. Lion already lags, slap that 'retina' marketing term with the higher resolution technology behind it and youre bound to have a slower system.

The video cards can drive those displays without breaking a sweat. 2008 MBP's have video cards that can drive two 1900*1200 displays without lagging.
 
Before I got my iPhone 4S, I thought the resolution on my 3GS was quite good already, so I was not all that excited about the retina. Now when I go back to 3GS, I am surprised that I was able to happily live with text so fuzzy. People get spoiled very easily.

Yep, and I'm sure that if we do get retina-class MBAs/MBPs/iMacs then the experience will be the same - everything is the same size, just a whole lot sharper.
 
I think the idea of it for general use is nice, but it's gonna really suck for games, the last gen type video cards Apple typically uses in their machines are gonna have a hard time rendering at those resolutions.

You cannot render games at those resolutions even with the best of the best video cards. You do realize that you don't need to render games at the monitors highest resolution right?
 
You cannot render games at those resolutions even with the best of the best video cards. You do realize that you don't need to render games at the monitors highest resolution right?

I'm sure he knows that, but he's probably like me, and feels that by far the best way to run games is at the native resolution of your monitor. Anything less looks far far worse, IMO.

I always look for a Mac that has a video card strong enough to run my games of choice at FULL resolution without a problem.

For the steam games I play (in bootcamp for best performance) that are a few years old, the current iMacs and macbook pros with dedicated GPU's do that just fine.
 
The Retina display of the iPad 3 renders nearly 66% of the Adobe RGB1998 color gamut, so it still sucks for professional use. A high resolution doesn't mean it is a good screen, just like digital cameras...

A lot of people would like an iMac with anti-reflective glass and 98@ AdobeRGB 1998.
 
You cannot render games at those resolutions even with the best of the best video cards. You do realize that you don't need to render games at the monitors highest resolution right?

Retina display is most valuable for text, which looks incredibly good. It is second most valuable for static graphics, like the UI of applications, and photo editing. In a fast moving video game, or in an action movie, you won't notice it at all. So you are absolutely right; all the use cases where high resolution benefits most are not time critical.

But if you have one X display, and one 2X display, you can get slightly better graphics at sightly higher speed on the 2X display by not using anti-aliasing on the 2X display. (Anti-aliasing on an X display does all the calculations at 2X resolution, then combines four pixels at 2X resolution into one pixel at X resolution. On a 2X display you could do the same and get an identical image. Or you could drop the pointless step of combining pixels and get a slightly better image).


I'm sure he knows that, but he's probably like me, and feels that by far the best way to run games is at the native resolution of your monitor. Anything less looks far far worse, IMO.

Using half the resolution of a 2X display looks identical because one pixel at the lower resolution maps exactly to 2x2 pixels of the higher resolution. That's why the iPhone and iPad doubled the resolution: Because old graphics looks identical as before, not worse, and new graphics looks better.
 
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LOLWUT?

People, stop talking about "too low performance" for retina displays. In 1996, GPUs could push out desktops at 1600x1200 without sweating. And right now it's 2012, you know, hardware is slightly more performant.

It's a simple 2D picture rendering, after all, not gaming.
Yes grasshopper, but what happens when you do try to game? My iMac sucks at gaming and most certainly pushing such a high resolution helps attribute to that. So for it to push an even higher resolution? Eeks.

Plus, there's a lot more to computing than just staring at your desktop or gaming. Plenty of other activities tax the GPU and a substantial increase in resolution can undoubtedly hamper its performance. I notice lag all the time with my 27in iMac extended with a 1920x1080 monitor...
 
David Barnard has argued that Apple could still use the pixel doubling motif on larger Mac displays without necessarily having to quadruple the number of actual pixels if users would be willing to accept a smaller workspace than seen on current machines. In one example, Barnard describes how rather than moving the current 2560x1440 27-inch iMac all the way to 5120x2880, Apple could instead offer a display at 3840x2400 that would present itself with a Retina workspace of 1920x1200

No, thanks, David. What's the bloody point then? Less workspace for a minor difference in my pixel size? Yeah, great idea.
 
The Retina display of the iPad 3 renders nearly 66% of the Adobe RGB1998 color gamut, so it still sucks for professional use. A high resolution doesn't mean it is a good screen, just like digital cameras...

A lot of people would like an iMac with anti-reflective glass and 98@ AdobeRGB 1998.

An increase in resolution of the iMac screen won't mean a drop in gamut. iPad 2 had an ever worse gamut yet iPad 3 got 4x the resolution and better gamut.
 
The Retina display of the iPad 3 renders nearly 66% of the Adobe RGB1998 color gamut, so it still sucks for professional use. A high resolution doesn't mean it is a good screen, just like digital cameras...

A lot of people would like an iMac with anti-reflective glass and 98@ AdobeRGB 1998.

THIS.

I own a mid 2011 MacBook Pro, fully loaded with a 2.3ghz Quad Core i7 with a matte screen. As nice and bright the screen is, I never use it at home, I've got my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode connected to a Dell U2410 IPS monitor as a PROPER display. Color rendition on this thing is amazing. Coupled with my Canon 50D dSLR, it is a professional grade solution both for my photography and graphic design.
 
Yes grasshopper, but what happens when you do try to game? My iMac sucks at gaming and most certainly pushing such a high resolution helps attribute to that. So for it to push an even higher resolution? Eeks.

Plus, there's a lot more to computing than just staring at your desktop or gaming. Plenty of other activities tax the GPU and a substantial increase in resolution can undoubtedly hamper its performance. I notice lag all the time with my 27in iMac extended with a 1920x1080 monitor...

You'll continue to render games at their current resolution. No GPU can drive a modern game at 3k vertical res yet. If Apple decides to ship an iMac with a retina screen, they'll make sure that nothing lags on the main monitor. You can always lag a bit when you start adding extra monitors. It's normal.
 
The Retina display of the iPad 3 renders nearly 66% of the Adobe RGB1998 color gamut, so it still sucks for professional use. A high resolution doesn't mean it is a good screen, just like digital cameras...

A lot of people would like an iMac with anti-reflective glass and 98@ AdobeRGB 1998.

This link might interest you: http://www.fxphd.com/blog/just-how-good-is-the-ipads-color/

Of course, that was a single iPad and we know colour can shift slightly from device to device, however the results were impressive.
 
if Apple finally brings out a TV its going to be 4K for sure
You know that you cannot (except a few with 20/8 vision) see the difference between 720 and 1080 resolutions? (when viewing from the normal distance of 4 to 5 times the screen-diagonal)

4K (2160p) is nice for a screen the size of a house with people as close as twenty feet (front row in cinema) but for the average american livingroom it would be massive overkill.
 
I don't mean to be a downer, but there's no way apple or anyone can have a 27" retina display with the specs described.

The number of pixels would make it prohibitively expensive.
If the technology really is in the pipes and apple delivers a 27" retina iMac... May god have mercy on my wallet.
 
it might just be me, but i don't see the point of having a retina display monitor. is apple trying to force the entire internet to double their graphics just to accommodate macs?

You and the rest of the internet can go on a regular pc with regular resolution monitor. Apple is not pushing down Retina down your throat.
 
I would love to see a retina display on imac, but i would hate a retina display on imac when it delays the new imac......:p
 
i think given apples push to retina on iOS, and maybe the macbook lines.
its kind of a given it will happen to the iMac,

but i hope apple will do the right thing, and not force it onto the macs with any major trade offs.
i also think apple won't give people a choice, that they will have to take retina.
 
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