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will the iMac be refreshed shortly?

Define "shortly".

Everyone can speculate.

Everyone will know, just as soon as Apple makes an announcement.

Past events would suggest sometime between September 1 and December 1, 2014 as fair territory . . . . . if there is a product refresh in 2014.
 
FreemanW said:
Define "shortly".

Everyone can speculate.

Everyone will know, just as soon as Apple makes an announcement.

Past events would suggest sometime between September 1 and December 1, 2014 as fair territory . . . . . if there is a product refresh in 2014.
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but given the info on the above processors I would think they would use those as opposed to waiting a whole year for the new architecture right?
 
zarf2007 said:
and based on these processors: http://thepcenthusiast.com/intel-core-i7-4790k-core-i5-4690k-devils-canyon-specifications/ or are we talking another year to include broadwell architecture..surely that is too long on apples cycle for them to wait for the latter?
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There are also some interesting graphics cards by NVIDIA expected to be launched by Q4; the GeForce GTX 870 and GTX 880, that would be quite suitable for the rumored jump to Retina screens in the iMac, and all that may very well be introduced alongside Broadwell, in the next gen iMacs, but at this stage, I have some serious doubts whether that's gonne happen before the holiday shopping season.

It's probably more likely to see a fall silent upgrade for the iMac, incorporating TB2, as well as those latest upgraded Haswell chips, possibly coupled with a modest price cut.
 
macs4nw said:
There are also some interesting graphics cards by NVIDIA expected to be launched by Q4; the GeForce GTX 870 and GTX 880, that would be quite suitable for the rumored jump to Retina screens in the iMac, and all that may very well be introduced alongside Broadwell, in the next gen iMacs, but at this stage, I have some serious doubts whether that's gonne happen before the holiday shopping season.

It's probably more likely to see a fall silent upgrade for the iMac, incorporating TB2, as well as those latest upgraded Haswell chips, possibly coupled with a modest price cut.
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isnt the 880M available now? I could see them doing an MX version of this and including the new processors with a fall launch...
 
zarf2007 said:
isnt the 880M available now? I could see them doing an MX version of this and including the new processors with a fall launch...
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You may be correct about that. The 880Ms that came out earlier this year, are rebranded 780Ms with 8GB of VRAM. The desktop versions I referred to earlier are slated for a Q4 release, but not likely to be used in the iMac line.
 
There's no point for Apple using these processors. They're for the overclock market with a lot of air-cooling. They can run extremely hot because they have a few different components and are probably therefore much more expensive. We'll be seeing more power efficient ones in the next refresh to keep the iMac run cooler and use less Watt's. 84-88 Watt's is a lot of heat generation, and that's just from the CPU. Apple will need to go back to the thicker 2010/2011 shaped iMac's just to handle the heat and put in a big fan. So not likely from my point of view.
 
Dreadnought said:
There's no point for Apple using these processors. They're for the overclock market with a lot of air-cooling. They can run extremely hot because they have a few different components and are probably therefore much more expensive. We'll be seeing more power efficient ones in the next refresh to keep the iMac run cooler and use less Watt's. 84-88 Watt's is a lot of heat generation, and that's just from the CPU. Apple will need to go back to the thicker 2010/2011 shaped iMac's just to handle the heat and put in a big fan. So not likely from my point of view.
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ok so which CPU's are they likely to use? are there lower power versions of these available now or soon to be? i think the gfx card can be covered off with the ones I mentioned (or an MX variation of) so it would make sense to do a spec bump in Q4 and then save the main architecture change for a year from now when they would introduce broadwell and retina along with it...
 
Isn't the next generation cpu's from Intel coming at the end of the year / after the holidays? I thought that was still the plan. And as happened before Apple could have those chips in large quantities a month before the rest of the world. Probably an upgrade to TB2 and 860m for graphics (or hopefully some surprise for graphics!). Maybe retina / 4 or 5K screen or Apple will introduce this seperately as is now the trend.
 
Dreadnought said:
Isn't the next generation cpu's from Intel coming at the end of the year / after the holidays? I thought that was still the plan. And as happened before Apple could have those chips in large quantities a month before the rest of the world.
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If you are referring to Broadwell, desktop variants will ship Q2 of 2015. Products with mobile variants was said to be shipping to by the end of this year, so we will see MacBook line ups with next-gen refresh. But iMac won't see one this year and if it does, it will most likely be with Haswell-Refresh which isn't much of improvement.
 
Missed that one, thought the desktop cpu's were all coming end of the year and mobile cpu's after the summer holiday.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next update would be switching the cpu to mobile variants. And maybe in 2015 a high-end additional iMac with retina screen and desktop cpu.

On the other hand, Apple has withheld updates before when Intel was slow with new cpu's. This could happen with the next iMac and you're already seeing it with the MacMini. There is a reason that Apple already introduced the low-end iMac.
 
Well, Apple and all other manufacturers got burned by Intel, they delayed Broadwell once and spread out processor classes over 3 quarters (at least that's the plan: Q4 2014 for tablet/convertible/ULV chips, Q1 2015 for laptop chips, Q2 2015 for desktop chips).
 
Dreadnought said:
Missed that one, thought the desktop cpu's were all coming end of the year and mobile cpu's after the summer holiday.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next update would be switching the cpu to mobile variants. And maybe in 2015 a high-end additional iMac with retina screen and desktop cpu.

On the other hand, Apple has withheld updates before when Intel was slow with new cpu's. This could happen with the next iMac and you're already seeing it with the MacMini. There is a reason that Apple already introduced the low-end iMac.
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aren't the current iMacs on mobile cpu & gpu already? is the cpu in the late 2012 iMac desktop?

Thanks..
 
Truthfulie said:
If you are referring to Broadwell, desktop variants will ship Q2 of 2015. Products with mobile variants was said to be shipping to by the end of this year, so we will see MacBook line ups with next-gen refresh. But iMac won't see one this year and if it does, it will most likely be with Haswell-Refresh which isn't much of improvement.
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which to me would point to a haswell refresh in late 2014, TB2, along with the latest GPU they could put in.....i think retina would wait until the broadwell refresh in mid 2015......they could just skip the update and wait until mid 2015 but it would be a long time to wait...also they have the new version of OSX coming in the fall and the iMac is the perfect showcase for it..
 
zarf2007 said:
which to me would point to a haswell refresh in late 2014, TB2, along with the latest GPU they could put in.....i think retina would wait until the broadwell refresh in mid 2015......they could just skip the update and wait until mid 2015 but it would be a long time to wait...also they have the new version of OSX coming in the fall and the iMac is the perfect showcase for it..
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That's why many of us were surprised that Apple didn't release a Haswell refresh along with the new low-end iMac. If they're not going to wait for Broadwell for the next iMac, it's hard to understand why they wouldn't do this now. So Apple may indeed wait until Broadwell on the premise that a Haswell refresh wouldn't be worth it.
 
Roller said:
That's why many of us were surprised that Apple didn't release a Haswell refresh along with the new low-end iMac. If they're not going to wait for Broadwell for the next iMac, it's hard to understand why they wouldn't do this now. So Apple may indeed wait until Broadwell on the premise that a Haswell refresh wouldn't be worth it.
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or if it is a small spec bump it could just appear any day now like the low cost iMac...
 
Dreadnought said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the next update would be switching the cpu to mobile variants. And maybe in 2015 a high-end additional iMac with retina screen and desktop cpu.
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I really hope that would not be the case. Unless Apple decides to accept lower margin with their iMac lineup, Retina iMacs are going to be considerably more costly than the non Retina models which would mean that only way to get a proper desktop performance is to spend a fortune, regardless of your need of Retina.
 
Wait -- didn't they just do a (very minor) refresh? Bumped the processor speeds up 0.1 MHz? I think the Mac Mini is due for a refresh before the iMac gets another one.
 
rambo47 said:
Wait -- didn't they just do a (very minor) refresh? Bumped the processor speeds up 0.1 MHz? I think the Mac Mini is due for a refresh before the iMac gets another one.
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That was only MBA, all other Mac line ups didn't get the Haswell-Refresh refresh yet.
 
Truthfulie said:
That was only MBA, all other Mac line ups didn't get the Haswell-Refresh refresh yet.
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It'd be really weird if refreshed iMacs were released overnight given today's 10.9.4 update and the Back to School promotion starting tomorrow. I wonder if 10.9.4 still includes references to unreleased iMacs?
 
Roller said:
It'd be really weird if refreshed iMacs were released overnight given today's 10.9.4 update and the Back to School promotion starting tomorrow. I wonder if 10.9.4 still includes references to unreleased iMacs?
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While I do find Retina resolution iMacs interesting, it's probably way too expensive at first, for me to afford. Hopefully by next year when Skylake rolls out, the price of 4K and beyond panels will come down considerably.
 
surely this article states that if there was a haswell refresh then it would still be worth it
with these chips, and they were released in may:

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/21/intel-chip-roadmap-2014/


if they stick in a decent MX version of a GPU with say 6gb or 8gb VRAM i could be tempted....

bare in mind the SSD speed is also likely to improve....


I'd say they will do this first (in the next 2 months) and then refresh with broadwell/retina middle of next year, who wants to take that bet!
 
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It's impossible to do anything but guess. I would think if apple wanted to make an update with the the 880m and latest haswell CPU they would have done it by now. Which is what I hoped they would do before the summer. I don't think apple wants to make an iMac refresh in the fall with just incremental card updates that are all ready months old... What would then be the point of waiting to make that refresh?
So my guess is then that apple didn't really see the the big benefit of creating a new machine with almost the same hardware - only having a rebranded gpu and a slightly faster CPU that is more energy efficient (which really doesn't matter much on an iMac anyway)... And now they are instead waiting for the broadwell chips and a proper gpu update. Intel has promised broadwell in q4, so either apple gets them early and we will see an iMac by Christmas (wishful thinking) or what now seems more likely for some reason is a first half of 2015 update, possibly with retina and a more significant update... That would be fun
 
I was reading an interesting article in a trade mag the other day that stated 'for the average user' which by the way is around 73% apparently, that a Mac or higher end PC is still more than good enough spec wise for 5 years or more.

It does make me wonder then when I read these forums why so many users upgrade so often - what is the point other than bragging rights?

My iMac is 3 years old and I have just extended the warranty for a further 12 months.

As and aside Apple have recently released a MBA with a 21.5" screen which they are calling an iMac!!!!! :rolleyes:
 
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