Thing is
@Appleaker, your suppositions conclude with what can be summarised as the simple statement: 'trust me, I have done the research'. What makes your following statements a bit objectionable is the way you cast shade on other people who (by your own standards) have provided about as much evidence as you have.
You may have all the inside tips as you say but you're going to get differing arguments which you will have to defend by
backing up your remarks with evidence. Link to the leak stories, paste Intel slides, Twitter feeds, etc rather than just claiming you know more than everyone else.
In the past I have written up heavily attributed articles from respected websites which in the past have leaked future marketing slides from Intel - roadmaps if you will. In the intervening years some of these leaks have come to pass, others haven't. The overriding 2 factors of interest for me at the moment is that:
A.
10NM process is proving harder to achieve reliably for Intel and the slides which I have in the past posted are looking increasingly inaccurate with no new roadmaps coming to pass.
B. I don't see any evidence of the 15w Iris Graphics processors that would power the non touch bar MacBook Pro (and coincidentally in the bottom SKU 21.5" 2017 iMac.
Point A dictates when we will see a successor to Whiskey Lake CPU in the future. Skylake/Kaby Lake/KBL-R/Coffee Lake and Whiskey Lake. There could some slim pickings going forward if Intel's annual release schedule is looking messed up.
Point B is about Intel abandoning certain CPUs that Apple would have liked to use. They already did this with the Iris Pro desktop parts and Apple have mitigated against that by heavier use of GPUs in their desktops. It's different for laptops with a question mark over the arrangement of the MacBook, MBA and non touch bar MacBook Pros due to the gap in Intel's line-up. I haven't seen any solid news regarding those Iris Pro parts.
Intel may deliver some more interpretable news on July 26 so we'd have to see at the end of the month how that might translate to the situation with respect to the 14NM process which is looking very 'mature' at the moment.
The only released 10NM Cannon Lake product is a
mediocre looking product with the iGPU disabled - something that Apple don't want because they heavily rely on Quicksync so the iGPU is vital to their plan.
Before I go too far off track, I will comment by saying I am surprised by Apple's use of the
i9-8950HK in the recently released 2018 MacBook Pro. The addition of the 32Gb DDR4 RAM option and larger SSD options pushes the
maximum price configurations up to $6600 which does open the door to future iMac configurations way beyond the price of an iMac Pro in October which is the latest normal date by which it would be released without speculation about a serious problem at Apple coming to light.
The i9-8950HK retains the same number of cores and threads as the existing i7 CPUs - they pick the best i7 CPUs and base clock it accordingly. This gives MacBook Pro buyers extra performance for their money.
Putting 8 cores (marketed as i9 as well) into an iMac is not the same win win for the money scenario. At lower clock speeds for more money the work load would have to be massively parallel to make sense. This thinking
torpedoed the 2013 Mac Pro.
I would say the better SKU for Apple to offer would be a VEGA 56 graphics option (even if down clocked) into the iMac given that product differentiation would be better from that standpoint and more powerful graphics benefit more than more CPU cores.
If Intel were sufficiently spooked by AMD to release an 8 core i9 which Apple would supply in an iMac for a $300 uplift on the top SKU iMac while keeping within the 95w TDP we're looking at a massively reduced clock speed over the expected i7-8700K which would be offered in the proposed 2018 iMac.
Here's something which isn't a 'recent leak'.
The thing is, the 8 core CPU in the iMac Pro appears to be
down clocked to 3.2GHz compared to 3.7GHz on the regular part but perhaps not necessarily deliberately to fit a heat profile - perhaps more to engage a bigger discount from Intel on parts that don't make the grade for the general sale. It's effectively an off-book part. Remember that there are lots of parts tear downs that claim that Apple are selling the iMac Pro cheaper than you can buy the same parts off the shelf.
Snazzy Labs' Youtube Channel
concurs with the down clocking theory.
So, to fit a 95w SKU with 8 cores in an i7 and hit the desired margin, the per core speed will be low - would 3GHz or less be a problem? Probably not a problem as Apple would offer that SKU up as an optional extra and it's up to the buyer to choose. I would still ask why Apple would create such an SKU unless they are filling price points between iMac and iMac Pro. And where does that realistically leave the 2019 modular Mac Pro?
Do you think it would look good for inevitable price comparisons to appear headlined "How to get a cheaper iMac Pro?" where folks price up 8 core non pro iMacs with 32Gb of crucial ram (assuming they can still easily access the RAM) and SSD? At the moment an i7 5k top SKU iMac with 8Gb of RAM and 1Tb SSD (buy your own RAM later) costs $3099. Add $350 or so for 32Gb of RAM.
And finally, I'll be quite blunt about
@Appleaker's future reply here - look at my attributions above. Bit of time spent there and not the only time I have done that. And I'm ready to debate with anyone who has a different point of view - but bring attribution or other evidence or you're no different to the guys flinging random specs about out there no matter how you butter yourself up.
