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2017 iMac refresh wish list [merged]
- Thread starter Sirmausalot
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So the guy says that this year update won't bring a new design, and that we'll have to wait yet longer. :-/
The next design may be restricted to the "iMac Pro", or come only with the update following the next one, which is probably more than a year away.
I'm not too happy with either possibly. A redesign is long overdue and should not be restricted to the high end.
We've been waiting for more than 1.5 year and the last update was pretty meh. Give us something new!
The next design may be restricted to the "iMac Pro", or come only with the update following the next one, which is probably more than a year away.
I'm not too happy with either possibly. A redesign is long overdue and should not be restricted to the high end.
We've been waiting for more than 1.5 year and the last update was pretty meh. Give us something new!
Man that info is disappointing - I really thought the redesign was coming this year. If all we're getting is incremental specs this year - what's the wait been for?
Most of us expected a spec bump 8 months ago, and then again this spring. Huge bummer if the better cpu/gpu/thermals/'pro features' don't come until next year, and what we get is really just kaby lake and same thermal throttling on the i7.
[doublepost=1496509732][/doublepost]
Unclear if he was talking about the new iMac design, he was responding to a user asking about the design of both macbook and iMac. The glowing apple logo info made me think he was only describing the macbook.
>any interesting hardware features of a future iMac or MacBook you can share?
>More glass and dark black body. Reintroduce white apple light.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comm..._insider_with_information_on_next_12/diecgs0/
Most of us expected a spec bump 8 months ago, and then again this spring. Huge bummer if the better cpu/gpu/thermals/'pro features' don't come until next year, and what we get is really just kaby lake and same thermal throttling on the i7.
[doublepost=1496509732][/doublepost]
Unclear if he was talking about the new iMac design, he was responding to a user asking about the design of both macbook and iMac. The glowing apple logo info made me think he was only describing the macbook.
>any interesting hardware features of a future iMac or MacBook you can share?
>More glass and dark black body. Reintroduce white apple light.
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comm..._insider_with_information_on_next_12/diecgs0/
The wait has been for Intel and AMD to release those incremental spec boosts.
And honestly, they don't sound too special. Kaby Lake is just a bit better than the Skylake CPU in the 5K model and Dell just introduced a Ryzen 27" 4K All-in-One with the AMD 580 GPU (likely the one the iMac is getting if mobile Vega is not ready) that is said to be fine for 1080p gaming, but stumbles at 1440p (likely what most folks use on the 5K) and falls down hard once pushed to 4K (to say nothing of 5K). Now gaming may not be important to you (it is not to me), but it sounds like it's not going to be a significant improvement in general performance over what the M395X has been giving us.
Information according to people at Foxconn.
iMac
• Incremental update in 2017. Full redesign in 2018
• Updated design language. More glass and dark black body
• New Design "somewhat" similar to Thunderbolt Display. Black finish will be similar to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 4
• Will issue an updated report before October on status of the iMac and keyboard
• New keyboard with "smart keys" coming alongside full redesign in 2018
iMac
• Incremental update in 2017. Full redesign in 2018
• Updated design language. More glass and dark black body
• New Design "somewhat" similar to Thunderbolt Display. Black finish will be similar to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 4
• Will issue an updated report before October on status of the iMac and keyboard
• New keyboard with "smart keys" coming alongside full redesign in 2018
If true, I expect the 2018 iMac and iMac Pro to launch with the new Mac Pro at a combined event.
I'm guessing we're talking the Black finish and not the Jet Black finish considering how susceptible the latter is to damage and an iMac is going to get a lot more touching during assembly than an iPhone so quality-control could be a major issue (or Apple will put limits on how "damaged" the finish is before they replace it like they do with LCD panel defects).
I'm guessing we're talking the Black finish and not the Jet Black finish considering how susceptible the latter is to damage and an iMac is going to get a lot more touching during assembly than an iPhone so quality-control could be a major issue (or Apple will put limits on how "damaged" the finish is before they replace it like they do with LCD panel defects).
AMD Polaris / Nvidia Pascal have been there for more than 10 months.
I'm not sure about Intel, but I see no reason why Apple should have waited this long to update the iMac if they did not a least design a new case with new connectors.
Yeah, he's clearly referring to the laptop here. There is no Apple light to "reintroduce" on an iMac. If he was referring to the iMac in the first sentence, he would have made it clear.
Yes Polaris desktop has been available since last summer, but those are far too hot to fit in the iMac. The mobile versions of Polaris have only recently hit the market - especially the 480/580 series that the iMac would use (the 460 in the tbMBP would be a downgrade from the current R9 GPUs in the iMac).
The 91W Kaby Lake CPUs the 5K iMac use did not ship until Q1 this year.
The RX580 is MUCH faster than the M395X. The latter is a mobile part.
But Vega should be faster still. If Apple releases new iMacs now, it would be a pretty bad timing. Polaris has been here for almost a year and hasn't changed much, and Vega should not be ready before August at the earliest.
I think a lot of people have some unrealistic expectations of what they expect the update to be. Remember, no matter what they do to it its still a all in one computer with tight spatial and thermal limitations.
Here are my expectations for the 27":
Base line (i.e. realistic):
Intel Kaby Lake (or coffee lake if iMac doesn't come until fall)
AMD Polaris 10 based GPU
Thunderbolt 3
5k display
Keyboard with touchbar/touchid
What would make for a great update or "unexpected" things:
Nvidia Pascal or AMD Vega based GPUs
Case redesign
Adaptive/free sync display
AMD Ryzen CPU or Intel Skylake X/Kaby Lake X (I don't really expect this to happen)
8k display
All flash storage (this is an upgrade in my book, and something could justify with iCloud being the "mass" storage)
Right, M395X is a 3.7 TFLOP part whereas the 480/580 Pro would likely be 5.7 TFLOP like the WX 7100.
Here are my expectations for the 27":
Base line (i.e. realistic):
Intel Kaby Lake (or coffee lake if iMac doesn't come until fall)
AMD Polaris 10 based GPU
Thunderbolt 3
5k display
Keyboard with touchbar/touchid
What would make for a great update or "unexpected" things:
Nvidia Pascal or AMD Vega based GPUs
Case redesign
Adaptive/free sync display
AMD Ryzen CPU or Intel Skylake X/Kaby Lake X (I don't really expect this to happen)
8k display
All flash storage (this is an upgrade in my book, and something could justify with iCloud being the "mass" storage)
Right, M395X is a 3.7 TFLOP part whereas the 480/580 Pro would likely be 5.7 TFLOP like the WX 7100.
Only 180W TDP GTX 1080 is actually the stock, founders edition. Aftermarket GPUs consume north of 200W, up to 235W, with 215W average.
Again, RX580 is a desktop CPU with a TDP of 185 watts. Put that in an iMac and it will throttle itself well below it's 1257MHz base clock to keep from melting.
I am assuming the Dell Inspiron 27 7000 AIO's RX580 is a mobile part, but perhaps they did shove a desktop unit in there since it is a fair bit thicker than an iMac and there are a lot of sills on the entire bottom edge so if they are vents, then they could put some serious fans in the thing. But even if it is a desktop unit, the folks who played with it said that it did 1080p gaming (including VR) well, but as you raised the resolution towards 4K UHD, performance dropped significantly.
The desktop RX 470 has lower TDP than the M395X.
EDIT: the thing is, with the right frequency and voltage, a Polaris 10 GPU can certainly fit in an iMac with minimal effort from AMD.
If Apple was committed to update desktop Macs on a timely basis, which they clearly aren't, they could have partnered with AMD to offer Polaris 10 GPUs in iMacs long ago.
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WX 7100 is the same GPU die, as RX 580/480, it has clocks around 1243 MHz and actual power consumption around 135W.
P.S. The Dell RX 580 has different core clocks, and most importantly different binning. It has slightly different power curve, because of this.
Don't forget that the desktop version of the M395X, the R9 380X, is a 190 W part. Its standard practice to take the same chip in the desktop card, pick the most efficient chips (i.e. binning), lower the clocks a bit and call it a mobile card.
I don't find the DELL thicker than the iMac, except at the edges. But the heatsink and fan are in the thick part of the iMac. The vents take the whole bottom edge, but I don't think their thinness is a limiting factor here.
i dont see a macbook with "more glass"
[doublepost=1496514993][/doublepost]Would you say the design is similar to the Thunderbolt Display?
Foxconninsider[S] 47 points 8 hours ago
Somewhat; similar to the black iPhone 7 and the iPhone X finish (like iPhone 4).
So black iphone, he mean matt black...so its ok
I'm purposely avoiding reading any news concerning WWDC rumors because in the past few years, most major websites have set some pretty wild expectations that never seem to be met. Even when articles are written and segmented to break rumors down by probability, Apple has typically delivered on about 1/3 to 1/4 of those top rumors at best as of late. The iMac wasn't even on my radar as something that will get anything more than a spec bump. I think we can assume Apple is going to continue to ignore the Mac line for at least a bit longer at this point.
Main focus will probably be MacOS and iOS 11 as per usual. Same old song and dance that we've seen under Tim Cook's leadership for the last 6 years. There's never really been any groundbreaking surprises anymore. He just likes to keep shareholders happy and stay par for the course to hit sales targets for iPhone and the services side of things.
If they did something like drop a redesigned iMac on Monday, I will eat my own words, but I doubt it. There's a fraction of a percent change we will see the iMac get some pro BTO options, since its already been announced that some more premium (and expensive) CPU offerings will be coming down the pipe. However, this might be deferred until a later redesign and marketed as an iMac Pro for all we know, especially if the enclosure design plays any role in cooling and operation of those components.
Main focus will probably be MacOS and iOS 11 as per usual. Same old song and dance that we've seen under Tim Cook's leadership for the last 6 years. There's never really been any groundbreaking surprises anymore. He just likes to keep shareholders happy and stay par for the course to hit sales targets for iPhone and the services side of things.
If they did something like drop a redesigned iMac on Monday, I will eat my own words, but I doubt it. There's a fraction of a percent change we will see the iMac get some pro BTO options, since its already been announced that some more premium (and expensive) CPU offerings will be coming down the pipe. However, this might be deferred until a later redesign and marketed as an iMac Pro for all we know, especially if the enclosure design plays any role in cooling and operation of those components.
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no imac redesign for WWDC but for 2018.We will get the 10.5" ipad pro and 12.9" updates, updates also for 12" Macbook, 13" macbook pro and 15" macbook pro(that seems can be config up to 32 gb ram) and siri speaker but with release date later this year
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If that vision of 2018 turns out being truthful, I must say I'm underwhelmed. Slightly smaller bezels, a different color and a glowing apple - Whoop-de-doo ;>(
When envisioning a packaging change, I was thinking more in terms of a much DEEPER display, more user access or maybe even the processing power in a base unit with a thin display on top.
But if the referenced prediction continues to be the expectation, it will make it VERY easy for me to just buy the fall 2017 update and be happy for another 5 years.
When envisioning a packaging change, I was thinking more in terms of a much DEEPER display, more user access or maybe even the processing power in a base unit with a thin display on top.
But if the referenced prediction continues to be the expectation, it will make it VERY easy for me to just buy the fall 2017 update and be happy for another 5 years.
I'm sorry but i dont subscribe to these rumours that imacs will be redesigned for a 2018 release, if 2017 is only getting a spec bump then apple have all the chips needed for this so called "spec bump" to be unveiled at wwdc.. whats the hold up then?
iMacs are not manufactured at foxxcon (To my knowledge), they are manufactured by quanta computers, and also in a factory in ireland, one of the reasons why there are very little leaks of the imac.
On a side note, the only reason that a full imac redesign might make or have made sense for 2018 is that it marks the 20th anniversary of the iMac, i think initially apple may have planned in they're road map to do a redesign for 2018, but the gap from the 2015 iMac has simply been too long for a small spec bump, i think apple will bring it forward to this year.
A smalller form factor closer to the thunderbolt display sounds about right though, a new black look with more glass and space grey sounds about right too, having a all black imac will make the screen pop more, maybe they will finally do away with the famous chin. (This would also mean apple will finally drop the slow HDD's and fusion drives across all models) and go SSD only.
I still firmly believe redesigned iMacs will drop, imminently. This i have no doubt.
iMacs are not manufactured at foxxcon (To my knowledge), they are manufactured by quanta computers, and also in a factory in ireland, one of the reasons why there are very little leaks of the imac.
On a side note, the only reason that a full imac redesign might make or have made sense for 2018 is that it marks the 20th anniversary of the iMac, i think initially apple may have planned in they're road map to do a redesign for 2018, but the gap from the 2015 iMac has simply been too long for a small spec bump, i think apple will bring it forward to this year.
A smalller form factor closer to the thunderbolt display sounds about right though, a new black look with more glass and space grey sounds about right too, having a all black imac will make the screen pop more, maybe they will finally do away with the famous chin. (This would also mean apple will finally drop the slow HDD's and fusion drives across all models) and go SSD only.
I still firmly believe redesigned iMacs will drop, imminently. This i have no doubt.
Exactly.
And let's not ignore the FACT that iMac pros are planned for this fall. Which may facilitate a need for a redesign in itself to possibly accommodate a higher end video card and or a chip that is closer to the server side of things that will have a higher heat envelope.