Speculation, next iMac refresh.

[rococoloco]

With the imminent release of Arrandale mobile processors in January, talk of LightPeak next year and the culling of Core2Duo by Intel, what will the next refresh of the iMac line up consist of?

My thinking is this, sooner rather than later we will see the quiet introduction (no fan-fare or event) of "i" processors across the iMac line up.

I think the 27" will stay with the i5 and i7 desktop class respectively, Core2Duo will be superseded on the base model by the i5 and i7 will be a non BTO top of the line product.
Perhaps speed bumps and maybe USB 3, or even LightPeak, or even official support for DDR1333 memory, at least from Apples end.

The 21" will ditch the Core2Duo (because it's the end of the road for this accomplished line) and will contain some variant of Arrandale, most likely i5-520M, or prehaps even at a later date a mobile i7 flavour.

Solving the heat package problem in the smaller iMacs with mobile quads or next gen duo, while keeping the prestige of desktop class processors for the 27" lineup.

I don't think Apple would stick the i3 in an iMac.

I think this will happen March to May next year, similar to the first gen Intel Macs which happened 1/2006 a few months after a G5 refresh on 10/2005, not quite as quick as that transition, but I think Apple will want to put these processors in sooner than later to consolidate their iMac lineup to the new architecture.

What do you think?
Wild speculation or within the realms of possibility.

 

[miles01110]

Probably sometime after right now and before 2012 when the world will end.

 

[Hellhammer]

I doubt Apple will use Arrandale in iMacs because the now house desktop CPUs and Arrandales are mobile CPUs so I think Clarkdale seems to be more likely, so I can see Core i5 650 in 21.5" with option for 660 and 660 as default in 27" with option for 670. Or maybe 27" will go quad core only, so Core i5 750 would stay in low-end and then 860 would be in high-end with option for 870 if no new variants exists.

No USB 3 in Macs before late 2010 or 2011 because Intel isn't going to adopt it to their products before that if I remember correctly.

LightPeak sounds promising but it's useless unless other manufacturers will adopt it to their products so it would become a new USB.

As for GPU, I think Apple will use either nVidia's GT3xxM series (not available yet) or ATI's Mobile Radeon HD 5xxx series. Hard to say which though because ATIs have caused troubles in early 2009 iMacs and it might be one of the causers in late 2009 iMacs too. nVidia has problems with their unreleased GPUs so that's their negative issue.

Maybe Apple would finally add option for SSD so people would not have to add them by themselves. Option for dual SSDs or SSD + 2.5" HD would be cool as well.

Just my ideas

 

[flopticalcube]

I wouldn't dismiss C2D just yet. Remember the GMA950? That was supposed to have died a long time ago but is still being produced for netbooks in the millions. A low-end C2D may still be in the iMac's near future, if only to milk that extra bit of profit. The real issue is graphics. What will Apple do about the ending (supposedly, again) of the 9400m and what about the ATI HD5xxx series?

 

[picky88]

I hope they improve the graphics card, as the current one is a little low compared to the core i7 processor and ddr3 memory that it has. The graphics adapter will be working harder anyway with all those pixels to work with!

I also suspect the core2duo will be around for a while yet, as the less informed customer will still look purely at the clock speed when comparing the dual and quad core cpus, and the clock of the core2duos is higher than both the quad core offerings.