When will the iMac get Conroe?

[jamesparkinson]

I know this has been discussed at length, but is there ever any chance of the iMac getting conroe? My main reason for asking is that I have a now ageing iMac G5 Rev.B and need a replacement. I was considering the top spec 24'' iMac, which would cost me £2,289.01, having done a little more research into this(and talking to some of my mac-fanatic friends) I've been advised that what I am effectively buying is a very expensive, large laptop minus the portability( apparently a complete waste of money). Which brings me to the Mac Pro, which I am now planning to get, it's costing me about £4,500. I would rather have bought an iMac and saved a few bob , nevermind though.

So is there ever any possibility of the iMac getting a desktop processor?

 

[rdowns]

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

 

[reflex]

So is there ever any possibility of the iMac getting a desktop processor?

If they were to ever get the desktop Core 2 Duo processor, they would have gotten it already. So my answer is no.

If I were you I'd just get the iMac, since that seems to be what you want anyway. The processor will most likely do what you want it to do (I may be wrong) and since it has a desktop harddisk, it will still be faster in use than most laptops.

 

[zerolight]

I know this has been discussed at length, but is there ever any chance of the iMac getting conroe? My main reason for asking is that I have a now ageing iMac G5 Rev.B and need a replacement. I was considering the top spec 24'' iMac, which would cost me £2,289.01, having done a little more research into this(and talking to some of my mac-fanatic friends) I've been advised that what I am effectively buying is a very expensive, large laptop minus the portability( apparently a complete waste of money). Which brings me to the Mac Pro, which I am now planning to get, it's costing me about £4,500. I would rather have bought an iMac and saved a few bob , nevermind though.

So is there ever any possibility of the iMac getting a desktop processor?

If you drop the 3GB of ram to 2GB instead of wasting money on two very expensive 2GB module of which you only get 3GB out of then you can lob a bundle of that price, ditto if you drop the 2.33Ghz cpu which has limited benefit over the 2.16. You're then left with a 24" iMac that's going to perform mostly like the £2289 priced one but for less than £1600. And it;s performanice is just a tiny bit shy of a Mac Pro for most things.

I just sold a power mac for it and think that shelling out £4,500 for a Mac Pro setup is simply crazy. It's plenty powerful. At least on a par with the dual 2.7 G5 I sold to get my iMac, and that was more powerful than most people really need anyway.

So what if it's a very large laptop? It's certainly not very expensive. It's cheaper and faster than a MBP, has a larger HDD, better gfx, much bigger and better screen. It gets desktop performance. It's a thin desktop that's got laptop spec processors. Very fast, 64bit laptop spec processors. On a desktop setup. And. It'll sell easily in a few years and the cost of the screen will be reflected in the resale price. I don't know who told you it was a waste of money and advised you to get a Mac that costs twice the price for far less than twice the performance. If you aren't planning to do serious video editing and simulateously working on other stuff, thus requiring a Quad cpu, then you'll be just fine with an iMac. Infact even if you are planning that, I find no reason why a dual core system won't perform very very well. There's not many apps that will take full advantage of all 4 cores at once.

I'm going to thoroughly enjoy mine, and in 3 years time I'll trade up to the inevitable 30" iMac.

ps. it's not a waste of money if you place value in a 24" screen. I don't see the dilemma. If you wanted a laptop then that's what you'd go for. What you want is a desktop that's fast, that has desktop gfx card, that's got a huge screen with loads of real estate, that looks good, saves space, etc. Enter iMac. If you don't need the performance or the screen space then you have a macbook or macbook pro. For me, I don't want portability. I want a big ass screen, excellent performance, and a Mac. iMac for me is a no brainer. Just drop the 3GB. An extra £500 to get it with 1GB extra is a waste of money.

 

[yoak]

I personally don´t think so. They rather make it slimmer and smaller, than putting a desktop processor in there again. That´s the way it seems to be going. The iMac is a very fast machine, unless you really need raw power for pro applications.

I ordered the 24" because I don´t have much space and I will spend the money I save on a MP for other things. AND I think the iMac is more than powerfull enough for me

 

[carlyleholdings]

what i dont understand is why the Rev.C iMac G5 with the current slimmed down case could thermally accommodate a 2.1GHZ PPC processor, and for some reason the same case can't accommodate a 2.0 C2D chip. Since the Conroe chips are faster and cheaper, i can't see any reason whatsoever why Apple would put a mobile chip in a desktop computer, this is exactly the reason i will be getting a C2D MB pro when they are brought out, purely as an interrim solution to the inevitable release of the C2Quadro iMac.

 

[zerolight]

what i dont understand is why the Rev.C iMac G5 with the current slimmed down case could thermally accommodate a 2.1GHZ PPC processor, and for some reason the same case can't accommodate a 2.0 C2D chip. Since the Conroe chips are faster and cheaper, i can't see any reason whatsoever why Apple would put a mobile chip in a desktop computer, this is exactly the reason i will be getting a C2D MB pro when they are brought out, purely as an interrim solution to the inevitable release of the C2Quadro iMac.

Perhaps to distance the iMac from the Pro level MP Quads. Though the distance doesn't seem to be that much, given the benchamrks.

Perhaps because the current iMac chips require less cooling and so are quieter?

I'd bet that future iMacs will be thinner still. Apple are probably aiming to get them as thin as a regular PC monitor whilst still maintaining excellent performance. Given the speed differential between the desktop verses mobile C2D doesn't seem to be significant, it makes sense to follow this route.

 

[carlyleholdings]

Perhaps to distance the iMac from the Pro level MP Quads

But the Mac Pro uses Xeon chips, and the laptops will use Core 2 Duo(mobile) so there is a gap in apple's product line for a standard Core 2 Duo (desktop) chip.

 

[nagromme]

I've been advised that what I am effectively buying is a very expensive, large laptop minus the portability( apparently a complete waste of money).

You've been advised wrong

Once upon a time (few months ago ) laptops used very different chips from desktops. That changed with Core 2.

With Core 2, all Intel chips from mobile to server/Xeon share the same architecture. Mobile versions may cost more and not be offered at the top GHz, but they are essentially the same chip otherwise, and are VERY fast. They generate less heat than Conroe (which means they run quieter too) and thus are perfect for compact desktops--which explains why they were chosen for the iMac. Anything could happen in future, but I wouldn't hold your breath for Conroe--and that's not such a bad thing: Merom is an outstanding processor.

This "complete waste of money" iMac tests out VERY fast--it even holds its own against a Mac Pro in many tests. (It has only two cores instead of four, of course--same as Conroe systems.)

Bare Feats has lots of tests, including: http://www.barefeats.com/imcd4.html

I was going to get a Mac Pro myself--but instead I have ordered a 24" iMac/7600. Still very fast and a lot cheaper! I could replace the iMac every few years and STILL save money compared to a pro tower.

And in fact, the stigma against mobile chips hasn't made sense for some time: recent Pentium Ms (the chips that came before Core "1") tested out, at the time of their release, very close to the speed of a top-end desktop Pentium 4!

But people have prejudice against something with "mobile" in the name. (Either that or prejudice against Macs, and "mobile" is just an excuse to call a Mac a waste.)

Mobile in this case means cool, compact and quiet. It does not mean slow

 

[abrooks]

I've been advised that what I am effectively buying is a very expensive, large laptop minus the portability( apparently a complete waste of money)

In a way I'd have to agree, the iMac shares the same issues as any laptop, when it's dead or too old you chuck and you chuck the screen with it.

With a laptop you don't think about it so much but when you're throwing out a useless 24" display, it would certainly stir me slightly.

 

[wakerider017]

In a way I'd have to agree, the iMac shares the same issues as any laptop, when it's dead or too old you chuck and you chuck the screen with it.

With a laptop you don't think about it so much but when you're throwing out a useless 24" display, it would certainly stir me slightly.

By the time the 24" imac is outdated so will the screen...

I would never want to use a LCD from say 4 years ago... YUK!


And I will feel the same way in a few years from now....

 

[nagromme]

If/when my iMac screen dies, I'll either put a new one in (this is along time away), or more likely, retire it to headless purposes with TV or other display connected. Being 2" thick with a removable foot I think I--or whoever I sell/give it to in 6 years--can find a way to fit it into a closet

To some, ANY all-in-one seems like a "waste." Others appreciate the benefits of that format. But whether the chip is code-named Conroe is a separate issue.

 

[QCassidy352]

I was a big proponent of putting Conroe in the imac. When it didn't happen, I was pretty disappointed. Conroe is available now, it's cheap(er than merom) now, and it would fit in the current imac case. That said, now that merom is what we've got, I see no reason that Apple would switch to Conroe. Me thinks that the imac will be using a laptop processor for the foreseeable future, for better or worse.

 

[Pressure]

I was a big proponent of putting Conroe in the imac. When it didn't happen, I was pretty disappointed. Conroe is available now, it's cheap(er than merom) now, and it would fit in the current imac case. That said, now that merom is what we've got, I see no reason that Apple would switch to Conroe. Me thinks that the imac will be using a laptop processor for the foreseeable future, for better or worse.

The performance difference between Conroe and Merom is negligible.

It's the same core with a different Front Side Bus.

 

[suneohair]

In a way I'd have to agree, the iMac shares the same issues as any laptop, when it's dead or too old you chuck and you chuck the screen with it.

With a laptop you don't think about it so much but when you're throwing out a useless 24" display, it would certainly stir me slightly.

Who "chucks" a computer? I mean really. Are you that rich that you can just throw it away?

I don't know about you, but I SELL my old computers. Apples hold their value exceptionally well. There is no reason to just throw it away because 4 yeats down the road you will get a nice chunk of what you paid for it on eBay.

So this whole "I have to throw a computer/display/kitchen sink away! What a travesty" argument is ridiculous. If you just throw things away let me know where you live so I can pick this stuff up and make money on your foolishness. Thanks!

 

[solvs]

I still have a rev. B G5 iMac with 2GB of RAM, and it's performing fine for most of what I do with it. Which is nice, since a lot of the programs I use are still PPC, but the Universal ones run fine too. 10.4.8 is going to speed it up a little, and 10.5 will be even faster. If you upgrade this often, the Mac Pro will be a waste. But if you can afford it, go nuts. Otherwise, maybe wait until after 10.5 comes out and see if you need a faster machine. By then, maybe the iMacs will be even faster or we'll get a Conroe desktop.

 

[Sun Baked]

Probably sometime around the time Steve Jobs herb garden in his corporate office gets raided.

---

Or around the time that the iMac can get the volume up high enough to merit a desktop processor. Probably around 1-to-2 million iMacs produced a quarter.

Basically when the iMacs and the portables double-to-triple in sales per quarter.

 

[bearbo]

I still have a rev. B G5 iMac with 2GB of RAM, and it's performing fine for most of what I do with it. Which is nice, since a lot of the programs I use are still PPC, but the Universal ones run fine too. 10.4.8 is going to speed it up a little, and 10.5 will be even faster. If you upgrade this often, the Mac Pro will be a waste. But if you can afford it, go nuts. Otherwise, maybe wait until after 10.5 comes out and see if you need a faster machine. By then, maybe the iMacs will be even faster or we'll get a Conroe desktop.

isn't one of the strong suit of mac pro is its upgradability? three yr down the road, simply swap the CPU, bigger HDD and etc
(how easy is to change motherboard?)

 

[vniow]

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

I'm just quoting this in case anyone missed it the first time.

 

[wchong]

we'll see mobile quad cores on iMac before iMac gets conroe c2d

 

[Eidorian]

we'll see mobile quad cores on iMac before iMac gets conroe c2d

Now tell me where I can find these magical mobile quads.

 

[Sun Baked]

Now tell me where I can find these magical mobile quads.

I think they have been outsourced to those capable of cooking up some magic.

 

[Eidorian]

I think they have been outsourced to those capable of cooking up some magic.

Thread Over

 

[milozauckerman]

Or around the time that the iMac can get the volume up high enough to merit a desktop processor. Probably around 1-to-2 million iMacs produced a quarter.

Basically when the iMacs and the portables double-to-triple in sales per quarter.

Yes, that's brilliant. Before Apple begins to use cheaper desktop processors, they need to radically increase volume while using more expensive, less profitable mobile processors.

 

[Sun Baked]

Yes, that's brilliant. Before Apple begins to use cheaper desktop processors, they need to radically increase volume while using more expensive, less profitable mobile processors.

You are leaving out the R&D/support costs of adding another chipset to the lineup, along with the reduction in the volume discounts by going from 1+ million units a quarter to 500k mobile only units.

Not only losing the discount on the CPU, but the complete chipset. And doubling the platform R&D while halving the number of units always makes for more profit.

Apple needs the volume in order to make the R&D/support for a third chipset/platform viable.