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When will Sunny Cove apper in iMac?

Cashmonee said:
The way Intel has been putting out chips, I doubt we will see these in an iMac. I would guess 9th-gen iMacs are more likely next year.
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Never. By the time 9th gen would be implemented, Apple will be manufacturing their own. To answer your question, many macs still have 7th gen intel procs. So... two years, may longer for some?
 
Apple always seem to put 12 month old chips in their machines so I doubt you will see them until 2020.

That being said it depends on intels roadmap, the Sunny Cove CPU may have been announced but they dont all appear at once the release is staggered. This means chip suitable for certain products may not be available or not in enough volume to implement.

That and Apple is beyond lazy with their updates they dont feel the need to keep up with latest CPU releases but thats because there hasnt been huge improvements. Hence why we are still on 7th gen yet the 9th gen chips were available from October 2018 the 10th have been swept under the rug as a flop and the 11th gen have just been slated for release.

That being said intel has done this before and not delivered. The 14 NM process was released in September 2014 with 5th generation Broadwell. Although Broadwell was released Sept 14 the roadmap wasn't complete until Q3 2017 with the Xeon D processors. Broadwell's H and C variants are used in conjunction with Intel 9 Series chipsets in addition to retaining backward compatibility with some of the Intel 8 Series chipsets.

Since broadwell the 6th (Sky lake) 7th (Kaby lake) and 8th (Coffee lake) are all based on the same technology and have been refreshes rather than die shrinkage because of the struggle with 10nm. Cannon lake was meant to be the successor to Kaby lake to be released in 2016 and was pushed back to 2018. They managed one i3 processor on the 10 nm process. The technology for Cannon Lake had too low yields to be profitable. We are still waiting for icelake too which was meant to be the successor to replace Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, Amber Lake and Cannon Lake microarchitectures in 2019 and 2020.

Sunny Cove, which many believe will go into Intel's upcoming Ice Lake-U CPUs. 10th gen cannon lake has been swept under the rug as a failure.

This is the reason we've had no real big changes since 2015 because intel has seemingly hit a brick wall.

Don't get too excited we will see if they can actually produce it at a decent yield and everything that has been displayed is deceiving. In one demo intel showed a Sunny Cove CPU performing a 7-Zip encode using AES-256. It ran up to 75 percent faster than an equivalent current Intel CPU, but with a catch: The demonstration used a version of 7-Zip that was recompiled to take advantage of Sunny Cove's instructions. Take that as you wish.

One of the big differences is integrated graphics which seem to be getting up to 50% and the first intel integrated graphics to hit 1 teraflop but still lags behind vega 8 for example. Still should be a huge improvement for macbooks, air and 13 macbook pros.

TBH I would assume apple has been runing mac OS on its own ARM processors for the last 5-10 years as a back up plan and the new iPad shows how powerful these can be. Apple could implement multiple A12X CPUs in a laptop or desktop as they are so efficient but scaling them is probably the issue.

Its a difficult time to think about buying but also a really exciting time to see where we go! If apple can get away from Intel we may see some really inovation. We are sort of in the same boat we were at the end of the Power PC era.

Still I wouldnt get too excited about that prospect either as it will take a few years to implement. By the time it is implemented in a desktop we might have had another 2-3 refreshes of the iMac.
 
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Thanks for the clarifications, not least to Tom Scott. It is really a mess. Unfortunately, like many, I simply do not find the iMac attractive as it is now:
- the form factor is really yesterday's, launched in 2009 or so. I saw the iMac and the iMac Pro next to Windows' similar offer with touch screen in a store the other day. The slim bezels just looks better. The iMac needs to be trimmed.
- the lack of TrueTone. This is a dealbreaker to me. I am currently trying out a LG 5K with a MBP 2018 - and the differencen between TrueTone (what you get with the lid open) and not (clamshell) is surprisingly huge.
- the noise issue, which has been discussed endlessly on this forum. Giv us better cooling.
- lack of integrated VESA, which comes with the iMac pro (of course you have to pay $100 for a piece of alu ...)

I really hope Apple gets their act together and produce a convincing and tempting offer packing what we know they can do (like the most recent CPU, the best graphic cards for the money, TrueTone etc.) this spring.

Unfortunately, I am tilting towards returning the LG/MBP 2018 due to the frustrating - to say the least - hibernation problem (the screen won't wake up half the times and needs to be unplugged/replugged to work). This leaves me in a bit of a limbo sitting on funding from my workplace that I better use before it is too late. Just so frustrating being forced to buy something too expensive and much too dated on arrival day.

Yikes
 
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mortenjensen said:
Thanks for the clarifications, not least to Tom Scott. It is really a mess. Unfortunately, like many, I simply do not find the iMac attractive as it is now:
- the form factor is really yesterday's, launched in 2009 or so. I saw the iMac and the iMac Pro next to Windows' similar offer with touch screen in a store the other day. The slim bezels just looks better. The iMac needs to be trimmed.
- the lack of TrueTone. This is a dealbreaker to me. I am currently trying out a LG 5K with a MBP 2018 - and the differencen between TrueTone (what you get with the lid open) and not (clamshell) is surprisingly huge.
- the noise issue, which has been discussed endlessly on this forum. Giv us better cooling.
- lack of integrated VESA, which comes with the iMac pro (of course you have to pay $100 for a piece of alu ...)

I really hope Apple gets their act together and produce a convincing and tempting offer packing what we know they can do (like the most recent CPU, the best graphic cards for the money, TrueTone etc.) this spring.

Unfortunately, I am tilting towards returning the LG/MBP 2018 due to the frustrating - to say the least - hibernation problem (the screen won't wake up half the times and needs to be unplugged/replugged to work). This leaves me in a bit of a limbo sitting on funding from my workplace that I better use before it is too late. Just so frustrating being forced to buy something too expensive and much too dated on arrival day.

Yikes
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I agree. I also am now thinking if there is an iMac this spring, it will likely be a simple spec bump, which actually would be welcome. If there is to be a full redesign or significant changes, I suspect we won't see that until summer or fall. The timing of releases just seem to point to the spring being too early for anything that will require new Intel chips, AMD GPUs or that would warrant an event.

If you must buy now, take a look at refurbs. You can get machines for a bit less than EDU pricing, so it somewhat takes away the sting of buying old hardware. Yesterday there were several available in 27".

On a side note, your issue with hibernation is so sad. It used to be we all made fun of Windows for those types of problems. I used to exclaim how wonderful it was to have a laptop (Mac) that went to sleep and woke properly, something Windows always struggled with. It is sad to see things reversing themselves.
 
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TBH if your looking at a higher config the Macbook pro and 5K LG is considerably more expensive and doesnt perform much better. Your looking at £5.5k vs £3.5k and in most situations the 2017 iMac is faster although it has two cores less because its not "as" thermally limited. IMO the Macbook Pro pricing is at breaking point, for a mid range its £3k then the applecare has got considerably more expensive at £399 and really you would be mental not to get it with all the issues it has. That puts you at £3734 for a 2.6ghz 1TB 32gb vega 20 then £1179 for the 5k LG add the £399 for applecare and your at £5312... That is bonkers.

The 2017 iMac 5k 1tb 8gb 580 £3158 + £250 for 32gbs ram £3408

On the other hand its likely that the 2019 iMac when ever it comes out will be 20% more expensive which writes off the 20% increase in performance.

TBH the baseline iMac Pro might be a better fit but the 5K iMac has better single core performance and no T2 chip to worry about.

Although its older the 2017 iMac is probably the best value and least risky purchase from a reliability perspective in the whole apple lineup currently.
 
Yes, I actually agree that the iMac is Apple's best offer and has been for many years considering the 5K screen. However, I need a laptop as well for home work and presentations. I have considered buying a low spec air and it would roughly be the same. That is basically the choice I have to make: One MBP 2018 geared up for office use with the LG 5K or an iMac with a low spec air for out of office use.
Morten
 
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If you were so inclined... you could buy both

The 2.2 i7 15" really is probably the best option and the 555X is fine for the majority of anything for that display. The 2.2 is literally within 5% of the 2.9 i9 because of thermal issues. A 2.2 16gb 512gb would be great for almost anything and you could buy a mid range iMac 3.8 8gb 580 512gb for about the same cost as the high end macbook and 5K display.
 
tomscott1988 said:
If you were so inclined... you could buy both

The 2.2 i7 15" really is probably the best option and the 555X is fine for the majority of anything for that display. The 2.2 is literally within 5% of the 2.9 i9 because of thermal issues. A 2.2 16gb 512gb would be great for almost anything and you could buy a mid range iMac 3.8 8gb 580 512gb for about the same cost as the high end macbook and 5K display.
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I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the MBP you reference with the LG 5K would run you about $3900 ($2600 MBP + $1300 LG) versus $2500 for the iMac. If you do not need a laptop, then the iMac is the far better value here. Faster in every metric and costs less.
 
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Cashmonee said:
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the MBP you reference with the LG 5K would run you about $3900 ($2600 MBP + $1300 LG) versus $2500 for the iMac. If you do not need a laptop, then the iMac is the far better value here. Faster in every metric and costs less.
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What I meant is for the price of just the high end mbp and LG 5k you could buy both an iMac and MBP.

You wouldnt need the 5k monitor if you had the 27" iMac. 15" for power on the go and iMac for desktop use. With the specs above you could buy both mid range for one high end macbook pro and 5K display.

2.6ghz 1TB 32gb vega 20 £3734, LG 5k £1179, applecare £399 = £5312

2.2 512 16gb 555x =£2529
5K iMac 3.8 8gbs 512 580 = £2429

Total of £4958 Saving of £354

Still leaves you with £350 to spend so you could upgrade the iMac ram to 32gbs for £260 giving you 40 in total or buy the i7 CPU upgrade on the iMac. Or get a ram upgrade on the MBP or even buy the mid tier 2.6 option.

Just shows what poor value the top end macbook pro with a 5k display is.

Problem is this equation wont exist with the 2019 iMac because pricing will be in line with the 2018 MBP.

If you were so inclined you could get both on refurb pretty easily

The above MBP is £2229 on refurb
You can get the 5k on refurb with i7 512 8gb 580 for £2539

Total is £4768 £544 saving on the 2.6 1tb 32gb vega 20, Applecare and 5k monitor.

You arguably get a laptop which is within 10% and a desktop which is faster and looks far nicer than that awful 5k LG display.

Crazy when you do the numbers.
 
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SecuritySteve said:
When Apple refreshes their iMacs of course. Please refer to this thread for speculation as to when the next iMac will come out: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/no-2018-imac.2121604/page-69
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And don't bother believing any of that nonsense.

No one knows what Apple plans to do or when it will happen.
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mortenjensen said:
Yes, I actually agree that the iMac is Apple's best offer and has been for many years considering the 5K screen. However, I need a laptop as well for home work and presentations. I have considered buying a low spec air and it would roughly be the same. That is basically the choice I have to make: One MBP 2018 geared up for office use with the LG 5K or an iMac with a low spec air for out of office use.
Morten
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You have to go with what works best.

I'm looking at an iMac Pro if the budget supports what I want. None of what I need it for would I ever do on a laptop.

In my case, an Air would be just the ticket but I get by with an iPad Pro and 3rd party keyboard for my laptop needs including when I go on the road for my company.
 
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Great with some buying-brainstorming here!
To clarify, I am not going after af high-spec MBP (vega), but rather a 13'' maxed out. So the numbers are:

MPB/LG solution:
- MBP 13'' 512/16/i5: $2199.
- LG 5K: $1300.
- eGPU: $699
- Total: $4.198

iMac/Air solution
- iMac i5/512/580 + 32GB ram: §2499 + 300 = $2799
- Air 16gb ram/512: §1799
- Total: §4.598

So the iMac-solution does end up costing some §400 more - that could be cut out by going for an Air 256 gb/8 gb. Of course, I could also skip the eGPU and accept the choppy animation when connected to the LG. That would bring me down to $3499

I see upsides and downsides in both solutions:
- The 2017 iMac is really not tempting to me, lacking integrated VESA, TrueTone, current gen CPU, refreshed design with slimmer bezels.
- The LG has its problems, I am not sure how long-lived is will be. I do, however, find it to be rather beautiful for desktop use, more subdued than the iMac.

Morten
 
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