Possible, but unlikely. I do not think Intel would be able to supply 9th-gen chips in a large enough quantity for Apple to ship them in iMacs this spring. If they are waiting for 9th-gen, then I would imagine no new iMac until next fall.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Would you buy an iMac now?
- Thread starter zama36
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Possible, but unlikely. I do not think Intel would be able to supply 9th-gen chips in a large enough quantity for Apple to ship them in iMacs this spring. If they are waiting for 9th-gen, then I would imagine no new iMac until next fall.
Wouldn't it have been easier just to split the Fusion drive into a separate SSD and hard drive.
Yeah, something like that. Just wondering. Or else one OS on the internal SSD and one OS on an external SSD, leaving the HD for data.
One of the rumors is iMacs adopting much nicer display, which includes the possibility of brighter 10-bit display capable of HDR. Beyond the display and spec bumps, I hope Apple brings space gray option. Every Macs can be purchased in Space Gray except iMac (much more expensive iMac Pro doesn't really count).
Focus on a 1 or 2tb SSD. Adjust the CPU and GPU down if cost becomes a concern.
I say that for several reasons. With day to day task the perception of a computers speed is how fast mouse clicks convert to screen response. With software optimizations made to MacOS generally you are waiting for things to load from the storage device. And that is where an SSD shines, all your files are ready multitudes of times faster than an HDD.
The Fusion is a pretty cool and unless you have a very specific reason I don't recommend de-fusing one. CoreStorage operates on a block level not a file level so for example if you play the same 30 minutes of movie file that 30 minutes can be loaded onto the SSD portion of the fusion. The same with programs, the data used by the features you don't use in the program Garageband will make its way onto the HDD while the portions of the program you always use will reside on the SSD. This is a level of control with the filesystem the end user doesn't have.
The fusion drive is a great compromise between speed, storage capacity and cost however it is still a compromise. Consider this, years from now you are scrubbing through all your old videos and movies or whatever in finder. Do you want to scroll for a bit and wait a few seconds for the thumbnail to pop up and previews load or do you want to see them instantly?
Something else to consider is the rest of the hardware. The monitor has a 5k resolution is capable of a 10 bit color depth. The CPU is capable of encoding video natively using the latest codec. Video editing software is able to leverage the GPU for rending. At a consumer level its not that big of a concern but know that an HDD isn't even remotely fast enough for reliable playback of video that the rest of the hardware is capable of including the display.
I want to make it clear this won't be a real concern for you (4k video with wider color gamuts you'll be watching will be compressed using h264/h265 and the bitrates will be within what the HDD can stream) but I mention it because you are "future proofing" with a potential bottleneck right out the gate.
Here is a easy visualizations of video formats reliably supported between an HDD and a comparatively slow SSD.
Single 1tb 3.5" 7200RPM HDD I have connected to USB 3. This is near what you'd expect with it install internally.
SATA3 1tb SSD installed internally (again, no where near as fast as the PCI-e SSD's Apple uses.)
Realistically if you were editing 4k video like that it would be done from an external RAID array, using proxies etc (I'm hoping to not catch too much flack for bring it up but who knows you might be editing 4k RAW video a couple years from now. That brings up another point about "future proofing". If you max out an iMac today it doesn't get you 10gigabit ethernet or the next version of Thunderbolt or Bluetooth etc. Hardware changes like that are why people upgrade.
The only CPU and GPU related bottlenecks you'll encounter are things that can't be upgraded for. My 2013 iMac is a good example because it uses a Haswell CPU, Haswell doesn't support H265 encoding or decoding. HEVC playback has to be done through software which hammers the CPU and depending on the file playback can stutter. And native support isn't that big of a deal now that HEVC is main stream, a 300 dollar 4k TV can effortlessly play a file my iMac struggles with due to it. The only way I can get smooth 4k play back is to re-encode the video using h264 which is a codec Haswell does support.
The GPU performance different isn't enough (IMO) to go from a poor experience to a great experience years down the road. You'd just go from poor performance to less poor performance.
MacOS support is arbitrary and based on the model year. A current base model iMac will stop receiving support from Apple the same day the current maxed out iMac will.
Finally, updates tend to be incremental. While the next iMac will certainly have a couple things better about it then the current iMac its generally not enough to upset people. I got a 2013 iMac and the 2014 came out with 5k I didn't need it though. Why sit around waiting instead of enjoying a new system now? What is the absolute worst case.....you need to sell it in practically new condition so you can get the updated iMac? 1st world probs...
I just bough the baseline 2017 27 inch on a Black Friday sale and im more then happy with it FOR NOW... I needed an iMac since living off of just my iPhone and iPad, wasn't cutting it for me (I still have both and all 3 work wonderfully together btw)
That said..I purposely only bought the baseline hoping and preying its only a temporary machine until they hopefully upgrade and redesign it come June at WWDC with Face ID, True Tone display, T3 Chip, HDR, etc..
I refuse to upgrade to a new one unless they have most of those features, and ill be severely disappointed if its just another spec bump.
The iMac is in drastic need of a redesign imho. I love the current one but its so out of touch with the rest of the product line.
That said..I purposely only bought the baseline hoping and preying its only a temporary machine until they hopefully upgrade and redesign it come June at WWDC with Face ID, True Tone display, T3 Chip, HDR, etc..
I refuse to upgrade to a new one unless they have most of those features, and ill be severely disappointed if its just another spec bump.
The iMac is in drastic need of a redesign imho. I love the current one but its so out of touch with the rest of the product line.
It seems I have a different view on Apple's attention, or lack of attention some would say, toward the iMac.
The iMac represents Apple's core product. It is what built the company. Perhaps they're good with having the iMac, as their core product, also be their most rock-solid product, even if it has a wart or two and is "techinically outdated" while they incorporate all new technologies into a package, that just works. Like for example, T2? Heat?
It's not a terrible business model while a whole host of other products from your catalog of products are bringing in the big bucks.
The iMac represents Apple's core product. It is what built the company. Perhaps they're good with having the iMac, as their core product, also be their most rock-solid product, even if it has a wart or two and is "techinically outdated" while they incorporate all new technologies into a package, that just works. Like for example, T2? Heat?
It's not a terrible business model while a whole host of other products from your catalog of products are bringing in the big bucks.
While I wouldn’t buy one now, I plan on keeping my already 18 month old model for another 5 years or so.
Last edited:
Bass ackwords is right, for nearly the past decade. Way more bang for your buck going all SSD than upgrading the processor. I'm still on a 2010 21.5" iMac with an SSD, and while it's starting to show its age it's still very usable due to that SSD.
If I split the drives I could have done that but Windows on the HD would have been brutally slow. Basically I just did the latter option but left the fusion intack (installed Windows on an external drive). It was definitely not an easy task. I ran into a lot of issues and was able to get around it with cloning software.
I will not be making that mistake on the next iMac. It's going to be a big fat SSD.