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Baseless iMac Speculation

J

jesuscandle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 22, 2003
141
22
Boston, MA
Seems like the conventional wisdom is that the iMac refresh will be nice, but not earth-shattering. Presumably Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt, new GPUs, and Facetime HD.

Don't get me wrong, that's a very nice upgrade. It's just that none of that is really going to change my day-to-day workflow. It also won't stop me from buying on day 1.

That said, I think the CW also suggests Apple has been taking their sweet time in launching the new line. I believe the right SB processors have been available for at least a few weeks, if not a month or more.

So, anyone have any wild, baseless speculation as to what caused the "delay?" Could it be new features? My hope is that it's somehow related to sticking an SSD in every stock iMac, thus eliminating the upgrade cost and (if the MBA experience is any guide) giving it a good speed boost.

Anyone else have a guess? Help me pass the time until the upgrades are announced.
 
I'm sure a horde of unicorns disrupted the manufacturing, as well as the shipping, of the iMacs. Hence the delay.

How's that for baseless?
 
jesuscandle said:
So, anyone have any wild, baseless speculation as to what caused the "delay?"
Click to expand...

I don't think there was any kind of extra delay. It takes a while for Apple to design a new machine (even if it is "just" a processor/chipset/GPU change). They have to make sure that the zillions of problems that could crop up are taken care of any time there is a design change. Even with all their effort, MacRumor's OCD crowd will still find some tiny flaw to obsess about :rolleyes:
 
How's about wanting MBP/iPad 2 sales to be under control before they launch? I'd guess there's a few shared supply lines, even more if a new Mini is launched alongside it. When those lines seem already kinda stressed by MBP's/iPad 2's, it's probably not a good idea to put another load on them.
 
I too am waiting for 'something else'.
Posted here about my thoughts on Z68 a while back. It is due to be announced by Intel on May 8th.
Also, there was just a leak of a 20gb SSD drive announced in conjunction with a Z68 chipset. That combo would be perfect - nice jump in performance for magnetic drives with minimal added cost. I think that is what delayed the announcement until early May...at least I really hope it is:rolleyes:

Oh and the real power of Z68 is not overclocking (a no-no for Macs) but in the SSD caching as well as something (can't remember catchy name) to speed video coding
 
Well if they really have been working on some sort of new levitation method that would keep the screen exactly in front of your face wherever you looked then I would accept the delay.

Oh hang on is that not what you meant by baseless?
 
G4er? said:
Baseless iMac? How would it stand up?:D

What I want is an iMac without the built in screen.
Click to expand...

I can picture it now -- the glass screen replaced with a large sheet of aluminum. :)

But seriously, Apple appears completely unwilling to produce a desktop box midway between the Mac Pro and mini.
 
jesuscandle said:
Reading up on this now. Is overclocking feasible for an iMac? Are there other advantages?
Click to expand...

Macs don't have user accessible EFI so overclocking is a no-go. What makes Z68 so interesting is the SSD caching feature. That would allow Apple to use very small SSDs, e.g. 20GB, while still providing huge performance boosts. Intel will be releasing 20GB 311-series SSD which should be priced at below 50$ (this is aimed solely at Z68 users).
 
Hellhammer said:
Macs don't have user accessible EFI so overclocking is a no-go. What makes Z68 so interesting is the SSD caching feature. That would allow Apple to use very small SSDs, e.g. 20GB, while still providing huge performance boosts. Intel will be releasing 20GB 311-series SSD which should be priced at below 50$ (this is aimed solely at Z68 users).
Click to expand...

Man, Hellhammer-way to ruin our baseless speculations. You had to bring in a dose of reality to our delusions!
:p

Speaking of baseless speculation-your post, Hellhammer, does bring my wish of having the OS on a the SSD while having the internal HDD for the programs and user files.
 
eoren1 said:
Oh and the real power of Z68 is not overclocking (a no-no for Macs) but in the SSD caching as well as something (can't remember catchy name) to speed video coding
Click to expand...
It's called Quick Sync. You need either the H67 or Z68 chipsets to access that feature. P67 allows for overclocking, but that won't work on a Mac anyway, and P67 can't access the integrated GPU which is required for Quick Sync.
 
Eduardo1971 said:
Man, Hellhammer-way to ruin our baseless speculations. You had to bring in a dose of reality to our delusions!
:p

Speaking of baseless speculation-your post, Hellhammer, does bring my wish of having the OS on a the SSD while having the internal HDD for the programs and user files.
Click to expand...

I only bashed the overclocking part ;) GPU OCing is still possible under Windows though.

If Apple decides to use Z68, then you won't be able to choose what goes where. The SSD caching feature will work similarly to Seagate Momentus XT, i.e. the SSD will work as a cache. That means the most frequently used files will be in the SSD while other, less used files will remain in the HD. If you have e.g. 1TB HD and 20GB SSD, they will show up as a single volume (similar to RAIDs and JBOD, it will create an array).

Since OS files are accessed frequently, they will most likely find their way into the SSD very quickly and thus boosting the performance. Tom's Hardware has a small preview on Z68 and its performance but I haven't had time to read that yet. There should be more thorough reviews out in a week or two.

kfscoll said:
It's called Quick Sync. You need either the H67 or Z68 chipsets to access that feature. P67 allows for overclocking, but that won't work on a Mac anyway, and P67 can't access the integrated GPU which is required for Quick Sync.
Click to expand...

But then you can't use a discrete GPU (well, at least one display must be connected to the IGP but that's not ideal for iMacs and it is doubtful that Apple would even use the output of the IGP). To use both, the IGP and dGPU in a desktop, Apple would have to use Lucid Virtu or switch back to NVIDIA GPUs and use Optimus/Synergy (I wrote that article so my thoughts are in there, if someone is interested).
 
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0512_imac_tablet_inset_450.jpg


Somewhere safe to keep your iPad :D:D:D
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Steve Jobs used a random date generator for iMac launch date and it came out as May 3rd .. So that's what we're gona stick with is what steve told his biaatches at apple
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

JS77 said:
0512_imac_tablet_inset_450.jpg


Somewhere safe to keep your iPad :D:D:D
Click to expand...

Anjunabeats !!
 
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