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When is the 5K iMac due an update?
- Thread starter Futhark
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Sorry, DH50, I don't want to be harsh or attack you, but you should really try to get out of the reality distortion field eventually.
The RiMac does thermal throttling. That's a proven fact. A desktop case design with thermal properties that needs to lower the GPU frequencies in order to prevent damage to the MOBILE parts built into the desktop case IS NOT A GOOD DESIGN.
The issue of the thermal throttling of the RiMac was discussed in this thread ad infinitum -https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...lock-throttling-heat-and-performance.1815601/ dig in if you want an answer concerning the thermal problem (reading the first and the last page might suffice as an intro...)
Just to be clear, the RiMac makes many people very happy, and that's all well and nice and I'm glad for them. But keep the facts correct. The case may be visually gorgeous, as is the screen, but it's a bad design from an engineering point of view, at least concerning the thermal energy dissipation. And I want my computer to be as silent as possible while using moderately demanding games or youtubing… 2700rpm-fans is not my cup of tea... That's why Apple did not get my $$$ to replace the 2010 iMac I'm typing on…
Soooo, I'm waiting for October to come...
I have a 2010 iMac and am holding off for the same thing. You are correct - only a low end iMac was released this year.
Roll on October, the money's burning a hole in my pocket
Think of the bright side - you can save up a bit more between now and then and get an upgraded iMac.
I'm just going based off of what Mac Rumors buying guide says. It just says the 27" one is the only one that was updated a few months ago.
Hi Futhark,
I asked myself the same question a couple of months ago, and realised that an upgrade might be a long time coming! So I purchased a refurbished 27" iMac 5k with Retina display from Apple here in the UK at the end of July 2015. It is a late 2014 machine - probably October/November/December. It arrived in 'as new' condition, without the regular fancy box but in a plain grey box inside a plain brown outer box. The packing was done with Apple's famed attention to detail though! It came with 12 month's warranty and with the option of 3 year Apple Care, if purchased within the first 12 months. I save around £300 on the new price! I could not be happier - a great pice of kit now running 10.10.5 and anticipating El Capitan!
Don't delay - (Check out Apple Refurbished) buy one and max out the memory to 32 Gb (from Crucial), and you won't be disappointed!
BTW, I use the 2Tb hybrid HD from my old 24" as an external Time Machine back up - perfect!
What's not to like?
I asked myself the same question a couple of months ago, and realised that an upgrade might be a long time coming! So I purchased a refurbished 27" iMac 5k with Retina display from Apple here in the UK at the end of July 2015. It is a late 2014 machine - probably October/November/December. It arrived in 'as new' condition, without the regular fancy box but in a plain grey box inside a plain brown outer box. The packing was done with Apple's famed attention to detail though! It came with 12 month's warranty and with the option of 3 year Apple Care, if purchased within the first 12 months. I save around £300 on the new price! I could not be happier - a great pice of kit now running 10.10.5 and anticipating El Capitan!
Don't delay - (Check out Apple Refurbished) buy one and max out the memory to 32 Gb (from Crucial), and you won't be disappointed!
BTW, I use the 2Tb hybrid HD from my old 24" as an external Time Machine back up - perfect!
What's not to like?
Having just reviewed your linked thread, thermal throttling is not demonstrated to be a proven fact unless you are talking about the card shutting itself off. The CPU and GPU throttling seen in current desktop and portable computers as noted in the thread is the result of a variety of factors and the only way heat comes into play is higher clock frequencies for various turbo boost modes may limited by heat constraints. The original post does not prove heat was the cause of what he was seeing and that is discussed later, including at the end of the thread.
Clearly, the top end AMD GPU option is the problem, not the design of the iMac per se. I would agree it was not a wise choice to ever put that card into an iMac or to use that card at all frankly. The card itself has heat issues. It runs way too hot. Apparently, the next step down does not have these problems from what I read. Also, earlier in the thread I noted people stating various games such as Diablo III in OS X were not problematic performance-wise while they were in Windows which was at the time believed to be a driver issue.
Having just reviewed that information, I''d agree the retina iMac with the top end GPU option is not a wise purchase unless minimally you buy into AppleCare, accept risk of inconvenience for repairs to have it and plan to sell it just before Applecare expires which to be honest, is not a path I would feel good about taking - selling that time bomb to someone i mean.
This reminds me of the mid-2011 iMac I had which most certainly did have heat issues. Again, it was the top end AMD Radeon card and it melted, damaging the screen - not once but twice. The hard disk also failed due to heat. Three fans failed. It was a disaster. The heat was such a problem in that design, which as you know is not the same as the new slimmer ones that have thus far with the exception noted run cooler, that they replaced it for me 2 years in with a late-2013 that I've been very happy with and had zero issues with heat with. I recall they ran a program replacing those cards too for a time. I presume the cards themselves had issues as well.
In any case, the current slim design has been fine with the exception of a single GPU that can very easily be criticized for running far too hot with temps around 105 and 106 C under load. I don't blame the iMac design for that. I blame AMD for making a card that runs that hot and I would also blame Apple for using it rather than waiting for another year if need be to source an appropriate card that does not have this problem. I guess the thing is, from Apple's point of view this issue is not likely to affect the majority of retina iMac users so they went with it. Whether that was the right thing to do or not is easily arguable, depending on where you are coming from.
You know, I have over the years seen bad GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia that ran too hot and this was in a wide open, well ventilated PC tower with large fans blowing full tilt constantly and sounding like a plane taking off. They still melted down and failed during short lifetimes. So, it clearly was not the case design for those bad boys, it was the GPUs themselves running so hot that lead to their early demise. Having seen this before multiple times is why I am inclined to blame the GPU itself for the heat problem when no other GPUs in this case design including the step down from top end in the retina iMacs from what I just read have this problem. Even if that one did, I'd still blame the GPU design, not the iMac itself.
That's a shame about that card. I would not have bought into that upgrade myself anyway but that's another discussion for another time.
I can now appreciate completely why you want to wait on the next model so your point is well taken even if we disagree about the design fundamentally. I don't think we'll see that change very soon but I would sure hope the next refresh features a considerably better GPU for the system that does not hit 100 C temps, never mind above them.
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I don't think apple will bring out an updated 27" this year. It isn't a year old yet and the speed bump of sky'late' is to little.
An 21" 4k is definitely on its way.
An 27" update is more likely in q2 2016 when AMD brings its new HBM2 gpu to the masses. The speed jump expected with HBM2 ( without interposer) is probably high enough to even support the 8k rumor.
An 21" 4k is definitely on its way.
An 27" update is more likely in q2 2016 when AMD brings its new HBM2 gpu to the masses. The speed jump expected with HBM2 ( without interposer) is probably high enough to even support the 8k rumor.
I feel like you guys are arguing the same point from different perspectives.
Things to mention, that GPU doesn't run hot if properly ventilated. Meaning its not properly ventilated.
If you built a PC and your CPU or GPU was running to the point of max temps and starting to throttle at times would you A) Install a slower CPU/GPU, or would you B) Redesign your setup for proper cooling?
I think most of us would go with B. I feel like you are suggesting A would be a better solution. Apple got the GPU from AMD its not AMD's job to make sure its cooled properly.
I specifically pointed out multiple instances in my own experience of GPUs by both the leading makers failing due to heat in extremely well ventilated, spacious tower cases. The setup was fine for cooling. The design of those GPUs was flawed and thus they were not reliable because they ran too hot even in ideal conditions.
It is AMD's job to create a mobile GPU that does not run that hot. In what design calling for a mobile card is that going to be a good choice with rated operating temps over 100 C? This GPU would not be a good idea in any mobile PC design either. That's an important point by the way. The card is rated by AMD to run over 100 C. In fact it can run all the way up to 106 C I have seen reported without shutting itself off. That is by design on their part. What's up with that when they know they are going into mobile designs where that kind of heat is not a good idea? And if the GPU isn't performing to stated clock potential at it approaches those temps, isn't it misleading to advertise those clock speeds as being usable? How can they be if every time that card starts clocking that high it runs so it hot it has to throttle itself?
The iMacs call for mobile GPUs by virtue of their design. It isn't a flaw. It is a choice. People who have a problem with that from a performance perspective need to consider alternatives is the bottom line. As someone who often plays games, I personally wish Apple offered a small tower with a full size video card but they don't. So just in my own case I am willing to accept the tradeoff involved to own an iMac. While the GPUs in even the 27" iMacs are not high performance oriented for gaming they certainly are capable and good enough for many users including myself. On the other hand, those wanting more performance really need to be going where that can reasonably be had and it isn't in any mobile design which virtually all AIO computers are that I am aware of.
I think this issue will be corrected with a superior GPU that runs cooler while performing better, hopefully in the next refresh which is why I could see waiting for somebody wanting the top of the line option for whatever reasons. I do not think it will be corrected with a redesign of the iMac's body/case that is in my own view not the problem but naturally, I could be wrong. It will be interesting to see the next refresh.
5k iMac came out last year. That's.... a year.
8k is 5 years away most likely. Most people aren't even up to 4k yet.
So to sum up it's not Apple's design that's bad, it's just Apple's poor decision making that lead them to put a GPU that hits 105c whenever it's tasked, we get it. This is all semantics at this point but the truth is Apple's current 5k machine is a poor design choice for the hardware and why I didn't pick one up. I don't trust a machine that has a part in it that will regularly gets hot enough to boil water.
Your car is a machine that has a part in it that regularly gets hot enough to boil water
So what's everyone's feelings on the iMac 27" 5k getting an upgrade in October no matter how big or small? Will it happen?
I think that if you can wait until then to find out, you'll probably regret it less...
I think that if you can wait until then to find out, you'll probably regret it less...
I didn't realise it got an update mid 2015 which is making me wonder if it'll get another so soon. I'm itching here I keep putting it in the basket to buy then talking myself out of it hahahaha
Nobody knows for sure… it at least depends on:
- is the skylake cpu available in large enough quantities that allow accepting orders?
- is a GPU upgrade available in large enough…?
Then there might be other issues such as with motherboard etc… I have no deeper insights, maybe we should monitor more cpu-focused websites (I don't know, I would try Anandtech…)
Of course, there is always the possibility that Apple doesn't have the i5-6600K or the i7-6700K in mind - these are overclocker's CPUs. The 'normal' ones (i5-6600 and i7-6700) seem to come 'later this year'. OR they decide to go for the 2nd Skylake edition (Skylake-E?), maybe spring 2016, especially as from a marketing pov, the i7-4790 4.0 GHz / 4.4 GHz turbo mode 'sounds better' that the i7-6700K's 4.0 GHz / 4.2 GHz turbo mode frequencies…
However, it seems that the K variants are available to the general public, I guess Apple would also be able to have its bite.
The 'mobile' GPU market is an even more mystery to me… don't know what is available…
While I still maintain my position wrt throttling (not to be mistaken with 'energy saving' features) and RiMac hardware design, I appreciate your way of handling the difference.
I too had thermal breakdowns in 'thick-edge-iMacs' (a 2008 model suffered from that, first the hdd, afterwards the GPU), so your point is well taken here as well. To attribute the thermal problems of the RiMac to the case design ALONE seems to be inappropriate.
Well… I'm looking forward to fall. A stack of money is waiting besides my 2010 iMac screen to be thrown at the buy button as soon as Apple is offering a cool RiMac V2…
The other thought is these are mobile components inside a much larger area than a mobile computer has. Food for thought. Your perception of what are high temperatures may be incorrect. Consult the manufacturer of the card's website for the temperature limits. If you have AppleCare, they will take care of it.
The m295x is capable of exceeding the cooling capacity of the design inherent to the iMac.
It's important to note I said in the iMac, because the m295x isn't an issue in the AW15.
Blaming AMD for not making a GPU that can do 4x the amount of work meanwhile not require any additional cooling is just silly. Sure in the future we'll see it and we already see some good things entering the market but we need to be realistic. I think it's impressive what they were able to accomplish, just not the best idea cramming it into an old case design that was made for 1440p screen. Even the original 1440p tech couldn't work in the current design and had a multi fan set up.