Yep. There have been real signs of new iPads, but nothing about the iMacs. I'm thinking this "spring event" may be iPads and iPhone SE only.
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.
2017 iMac refresh wish list [merged]
- Thread starter Sirmausalot
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yep. There have been real signs of new iPads, but nothing about the iMacs. I'm thinking this "spring event" may be iPads and iPhone SE only.
If AMD can continue to do well I'm open to them. However I have been happy with the progress made from my 533FSB Xeons with HT to the Core 2 Quad system to the X99 based system. Intel has made steady progress.
What I am not going to do though is flip on a company with a proven track record without seeing their response after so many years of the other brand lagging behind.
I don't buy machines every year. Each time I have purchased my new machines Intel was the fastest available.
For me right now Ryzen is a year too late.
Maybe in another two years I might consider upgrading chipsets and cpus on my gaming machine. If AMD can stay on top for that long and show no signs of struggling then I would say they are a contender.
Right now though they are promising but the chipset is unproven.
I don't see why I should replace my 2011 MBP except that Apple will not own up to their defective product.
What are you talking about?
Apple did eventually implement a repair program for the Late 2011 MacBook Pro that expired at the end of 2016. https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/
At this point these MacBook Pros are very old in terms of computers. You have the choice of repairing the machine yourself, paying someone to repair it or upgrading. You're not being forced to do anything. This is not unreasonable.
On a side note:
Computers age faster then dogs. I estimate a year for a computer is at least a decade of a person's life. Your machine at this point would be 60 years old. I have a 80 year old Core 2 Quad geriatric desktop that will be doing some hackintosh testing and playing around with still alive and kicking.
They never really fixed it. Mine was "repaired" twice and is now dead again. They are not old at all.
What where you doing with the machine to have it fail twice? After the first repair you didn't decide to ease up on the machine? The thing had cooling issues. Did you think it would magically not cook itself off again?
A six year old computer is ancient. Companies have a three year life cycle for a reason. It's not always because a computer becomes too slow. Macs especially are prone to heat related deaths. A Intel i7 processor is not meant to be run at 90C and not really meant to be running above 80C. A AMD R9 395X should not be running at 104C.
My 2012 Mac Mini 2.3GHz thermal throttles because it gets up to 94C while running handbrake. I stopped using it for hand brake. It is not designed to run that hard and still be able to last. When processors run that hot they degrade faster then normal.
I'm sorry if you feel six years was not that long, but you would be wrong.
I was using it normally. If Apple really wanted to serve their customers relatively properly now they would at least come up with a boot fix that permanently disables the dGPU.
I don't know if it can do it on boot up but this will allow you to switch manually. https://gfx.io
What do you define as normal use? Where you playing intensive games on it, spread sheetings, running a virtual machine for office work, ect?
I know that program. That only works within OSX.
I was not playing games, and whatever non-abusive use I do is my business and Apple sold me a machine that was supposed to be able to handle that.
It did for three years. Then they stepped up and extended support for it to the end of 2016 from what I understand.
Considering I had a Dell Latitude Ultrabook for work that was new in 2014 that was falling apart by mid way through 2016 I would say you did quite well.
This is a defective product. It should be perfectly usable for eight years at least if you take care of it properly.
And you can similarly have zero hardware problems with PCs if you don't buy crap.
I am not saying a fault cannot happen or that it is not normal for some mechanical parts to eventually break. But this is an engineering problem from the start.
I had a Dell whose Bezel cracked because it was flimsy. And an Acer whose hinges broke because of terrible engineering. This is a similar problem. It is a substandard product. But at least the others could still be used.
What happens if Intel surpasses them again? Simple, Apple falls back on Intel for chips. You seem to be assuming that moving from Intel to AMD (x86->x86) will be as difficult as moving from PPC -> Intel (x86). It won't be. They're the same architecture, the vast majority of code will run as is.
If hackers can get macOS running on Bulldozer in their spare time, Apple should have no trouble it all (and this is before we consider that most operating systems like Windows 7,8 and 10, as well as Linux run just fine with Ryzen out of the box)
Heck Apple doesn't even have to switch it's whole lineup, they could use Intel for laptops and AMD for desktops, or any number of combinations.
Changing processor brands can and should be as simple and common as changing GPU brands. Intel did some of their best work (the original Core series) when they felt most threatened by AMD. If large manufactures like Apple never give AMD a chance though, we'll continue to be stuck with an Intel monopoly drip feeding us a slightly tweaked architecture every year. I certainly wouldn't call THAT a "safe choice."
This, so much this. As someone who remembers when Apple fans hated Intel, I've been amazed since the Ryzen launch to see just how many people here are now just as attached to Intel (if not more so) as they are to Apple.
I'm not worried about the technical side. I'm worried about the business side.
Assume Apple goes AMD in 2017. In 2018, Intel bests AMD. Apple then goes hat in hand looking to again buy Intel CPUs. Intel may say that Apple is no longer a loyal customer, needs to go to the back of the queue, and will no longer receive first run chips. Further, Intel might not include features requested by Apple.
BTW, I'm actually quite interested in a Ryzen powered iMac.
I would rather if they focus on switching chipsets instead give the Intel based Macs nVidia graphics chips.
I'm not willing to get a close enough experience. Right now Macs have enough problems running games as it is. Lets make sure we add a processor that has problem with games.
AMD has a reputation of lagging behind and being the it's close and less expensive but not as fast processor. No thanks. I'll pay the Intel tax. When AMD is unequivocally better and less expensive then and only then would I say flip to AMD.
It's not a matter of hating a brand. It's a matter of knowing the Apple price is going to be what it is. If it is going to be what it is then I want the best chip possible.
Last edited:
Good to see another person interested in Ryzen powered Macs
BTW that kind of monopolistic behavior you highlighted is exactly why Apple should start using AMD. Intel abusing its dominant position to force people to continually buy Intel or "lose their place in line" seriously undermines competition, and is bad for EVERYONE.
Besides, unlike PC vendors, the Mac is not Apple's main source of revenue, and the relationship between Apple and Intel is more complicated, giving Apple significantly more leverage. "Oh, you don't want to sell us your new desktop chips, or listen to our feature requests? That's too bad, I guess we'll have to go back to using Qualcomm modems in our iPhones..."
If Intel attempts to strong arm Apple the way it did PC vendors in the past, they'll quickly discover that Apple has numerous ways to fight back that might hurt Intel a lot more than they do Apple.
Just to be clear however, I'm not suggesting that Apple drop Intel all together or even switch cold turkey. We still have no idea how AMD's laptop parts are going to turn out, and anyone who remembers the G5 will know that can be a real deal killer. I am suggesting however that (particularly given their industry clout) Apple should be able to have the same kind of relationship with Intel and AMD on the CPU side that they do (did) with AMD/Nvidia/Intel on the GPU side; that is, they use the best chip for the situation.
The graphics situation is purely business, there's no need for Apple to "focus" on switching chipsets. GPUs are pretty much plug and play, if Apple and Nvidia get serious I doubt it would take them long at all to get Pascal working on macOS. If you're talking about Apple implementing CUDA however, you're going to be waiting a long time as Apple has almost never been interested in implementing other people's closed APIs (which have the "benefit" of vendor lock in).
While I wouldn't mind seeing a return to Nvidia on the Mac, as Pascal has been mighty impressive, I have a feeling that as long as Vega is as capable as promised Apple will see very little need to switch (given they likely get way better pricing from AMD)
All we really "know" is what AMD has officially said about Vega which can basically be summarized as "it's the biggest leap we've ever made" and "its a whole lot faster and more efficient than its predecessor"
However, if you consider that AMD was able to nip and tuck their (current) top of the line Fury X GPU into the 175W R9 Nano on a 28nm manufacturing process, the possibilities for Vega (which will be based on a 14nm manufacturing process) being able to be tweaked into a 125W TDP look quite promising IMHO.
To put it another way, I can't see any reason why AMD shouldn't be able to design a chip based on Vega that can at least outperform an R9 Nano within 125W. Of course whether they have the resources/time/motivation to design such a chip, and when it might happen are anyone's best guess (but I'd love it if it showed up in a refreshed iMac next week
)We know that there are two Vega chips being released most likely over the next 6 months. The first, Vega 10 has been showed publicly. This is a very large chip (and very fast) and is likely too hot for the iMac. Vega 11 is also rumored which will probably be faster than the RX 480 but slower than Vega 10. Vega 11 could probably fit in an iMac but this is all speculation since not much is known about it.
i hope fot no silent imac update but for 4 april event of a redesigned imac with vega.All we really "know" is what AMD has officially said about Vega which can basically be summarized as "it's the biggest leap we've ever made" and "its a whole lot faster and more efficient than its predecessor"
However, if you consider that AMD was able to nip and tuck their (current) top of the line Fury X GPU into the 175W R9 Nano on a 28nm manufacturing process, the possibilities for Vega (which will be based on a 14nm manufacturing process) being able to be tweaked into a 125W TDP look quite promising IMHO.
To put it another way, I can't see any reason why AMD shouldn't be able to design a chip based on Vega that can at least outperform an R9 Nano within 125W. Of course whether they have the resources/time/motivation to design such a chip, and when it might happen are anyone's best guess (but I'd love it if it showed up in a refreshed iMac next week
but it is Vega ready for April??
Quite simply, no, Vega will not be ready. The only one AMD has publicly talked about won't fit in an iMac and it does not have a release date. Certainly not one in early April.