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Baseless iMac Speculation
- Thread starter jesuscandle
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Well with Apple liking magnets so much they could fix up some kind of repulsion system where by you place a magnetic pole on the desk and the same pole across the bottom chassis of the iMac so it floats. Of course your hard drive data might not last long with a magnet floating near it!
Hmm.. As my ex pointed out to me: A lot of people are used to booting their computer and then grabbing a cup of coffee to come back to their computer ready to go. I can imagine wanting the whole 20GB for files actually loaded while sitting at your desk. Similarly, I can imagine gamers caring less for photoshopping speed than for loadtimes in games even though they might do the first about as often.
On the other hand, what you described sounded quite appealing to me: having fast access to important files while still having plenty of space AND it being affordable, without putting alot of effort in what goes where because the system does that for you. Come to think of it, picking what goes on the SSD doesn't sound like something Apple wants their users to do, sounds more like DIY-Windows/Linux users to me.
Exactly. SSD caching takes down two flies with one hit. It allows the costs to be affordable since you only need an SSD with at least 18.6GB of free space. That means you can use an SSD as small as 20GB and like I mentioned earlier, it should cost less than 50$.
I was never a fan of the small SSD + HD idea (without caching). 256GB SSD + 1TB HD makes sense because the SSD is big enough to be used as a main drive if needed. It is also a BTO so the people who opt for that may be more knowledgeable and thus will know how to handle two separate drives in OS X. However, at least in my opinion, Apple is all about making things simple. Since SSDs are still pretty pricey, I couldn't see Apple putting more than a 64GB in iMacs if the SSD became a standard. Without caching, how would an average user manage with that? He would most likely end up filling the whole SSD in matter of days and then he would be shocked when OS X starts to whine about the boot volume being full and the system starts to be irresponsive. Even for more advanced users, playing around with a small-ish SSD can be annoying because all the time you have to decide what goes to the SSD and what doesn't.
I'm not saying that Apple will make SSD a standard in next gen iMacs but now they have a good chance. While the Z68 chipset is slightly more expensive, the money is saved on the SSD. Due to the caching, handling a small SSD and a bigger HD shouldn't be a problem anymore, it should be as easy as handling a single HD, but a lot faster.
Why couldn't Apple use the same proprietary automatic graphics switching that they do in the MacBook Pros? AFAIK Apple claims that Quick Sync is supported on the '11 MBPs (at least when using FaceTimeHD), the MBPs have (and use) both integrated and discrete GPUs, and NVIDIA dGPUs aren't being used.
New All-in-one graphics?
I've been very curious as to what they will be putting into these new machines.
I think apple is going to put in a new type of GPU. Typically, mobility graphics (such as the ATI Radeon 5850 that are currently used in the higher end iMacs) are used for all-in-ones. I visited ATI's website to guess what the new GPUs for the next iMac might be and came upon this... http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/oem-solutions/amd-radeon-hd-6000a/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6000a.aspx
The specs and details are not yet released. I don't know when they were announced but doing some quick googling didn't yield much in the way of information. Perhaps these are being made (mostly) for iMacs? It would make sense to me if they gave better graphics performance than the mobility chips currently being used while still providing the energy efficiency and cool performance they claim in the teasers.
Perhaps the development of such a card could also be the cause for the delay of a refresh. I imagine the redesign and some of the above mentioned CPU changes would create quite a machine though...
Hellhammer, your posts are always so informative and awesome... any ideas on this?
Long-time reader, first time poster.
I've been very curious as to what they will be putting into these new machines.
I think apple is going to put in a new type of GPU. Typically, mobility graphics (such as the ATI Radeon 5850 that are currently used in the higher end iMacs) are used for all-in-ones. I visited ATI's website to guess what the new GPUs for the next iMac might be and came upon this... http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/oem-solutions/amd-radeon-hd-6000a/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6000a.aspx
The specs and details are not yet released. I don't know when they were announced but doing some quick googling didn't yield much in the way of information. Perhaps these are being made (mostly) for iMacs? It would make sense to me if they gave better graphics performance than the mobility chips currently being used while still providing the energy efficiency and cool performance they claim in the teasers.
Perhaps the development of such a card could also be the cause for the delay of a refresh. I imagine the redesign and some of the above mentioned CPU changes would create quite a machine though...
Hellhammer, your posts are always so informative and awesome... any ideas on this?
Long-time reader, first time poster.
Currently, Virtu and Synergy are the only option for desktop chipsets AFAIK. I don't know does it change the game that iMacs use desktop chipsets but mobile GPUs. To be honest, I don't know what the Apple's GPU switching is based on so I can't tell would it work in iMac or not. I don't have time to do any research at the moment but I will try to dig up some info on this tomorrow. You have a good point, I didn't even think about that lol.
I've been very curious as to what they will be putting into these new machines.
I think apple is going to put in a new type of GPU. Typically, mobility graphics (such as the ATI Radeon 5850 that are currently used in the higher end iMacs) are used for all-in-ones. I visited ATI's website to guess what the new GPUs for the next iMac might be and came upon this... http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/oem-solutions/amd-radeon-hd-6000a/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6000a.aspx
The specs and details are not yet released. I don't know when they were announced but doing some quick googling didn't yield much in the way of information. Perhaps these are being made (mostly) for iMacs? It would make sense to me if they gave better graphics performance than the mobility chips currently being used while still providing the energy efficiency and cool performance they claim in the teasers.
Perhaps the development of such a card could also be the cause for the delay of a refresh. I imagine the redesign and some of the above mentioned CPU changes would create quite a machine though...
Hellhammer, your posts are always so informative and awesome... any ideas on this?
Long-time reader, first time poster.
Nice find, I have not heard of those before. Since there are no details about those GPUs, it's hard to say anything about the performance or anything else but my guess would be that they are cards between mobility and desktop versions (they are all based on same chips). That means they may feature slightly higher clock speeds and voltage (and thus TDP) than mobile chips but still noticeably slower and cooler than desktop chips.
I guess we will see. Apple will have their own names for them anyway so we won't find out the truth until someone runs GPU-Z
I've been very curious as to what they will be putting into these new machines.
I think apple is going to put in a new type of GPU. Typically, mobility graphics (such as the ATI Radeon 5850 that are currently used in the higher end iMacs) are used for all-in-ones. I visited ATI's website to guess what the new GPUs for the next iMac might be and came upon this... http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/oem-solutions/amd-radeon-hd-6000a/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6000a.aspx
The specs and details are not yet released. I don't know when they were announced but doing some quick googling didn't yield much in the way of information. Perhaps these are being made (mostly) for iMacs? It would make sense to me if they gave better graphics performance than the mobility chips currently being used while still providing the energy efficiency and cool performance they claim in the teasers.
Perhaps the development of such a card could also be the cause for the delay of a refresh. I imagine the redesign and some of the above mentioned CPU changes would create quite a machine though...
Hellhammer, your posts are always so informative and awesome... any ideas on this?
Long-time reader, first time poster.
wow, great find! i think these may be very possible. if you look at the pic on the link you gave (the one with the red background) there is [what looks like] a safari browser right behind the dude with the headphones! hint hint? what else could it possibly mean?
If the graphics processor is embedded into the monitor (as stated on the AMD site) it might not be possible to add an external, second monitor. Do other AIOs allow external monitors like iMacs do? I don't think this would be a likely candidate for the iMac, at least I hope not!
I'm sure AMD would think past an issue like this before releasing a new product.
Edit: did some google searches, and I'm pretty sure these were announced in early february.
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One could wonder if using these would be an upgrade:
5670 is in the 21.5" higher end and 27" lower end* and it scores 1247
6670, or atleast the desktop variant and assuming an AiO variant be slower, scores 1357
4670, the one in the low 21.5" variant*, scores 764
5750, in the quadcore 27"*, scores 1486
* As reported on the Apple Store, I understand that it actually uses a mobile part that performs about the same.
With respect to the safari browser in the background: Ofcourse an iMac application would be best to demonstrate this, as Apple is probably still the company most people associate 1:1 with all-in-ones.
5670 is in the 21.5" higher end and 27" lower end* and it scores 1247
6670, or atleast the desktop variant and assuming an AiO variant be slower, scores 1357
4670, the one in the low 21.5" variant*, scores 764
5750, in the quadcore 27"*, scores 1486
* As reported on the Apple Store, I understand that it actually uses a mobile part that performs about the same.
With respect to the safari browser in the background: Ofcourse an iMac application would be best to demonstrate this, as Apple is probably still the company most people associate 1:1 with all-in-ones.
South Park chronicled why Apple has been delayed in releasing the iMac update, they were very busy working on the HumancentiPad.
Did anybody mention no yellow tinge yet? Would go nicely with the anti-glare option!
Tom B.
im not fully knowledgable on this tech -- how would this work if you had a bootcamped partition with windows 7? would that cause any issues?
Logic would agree, based on the numbering, but there's not specs released yet so who knows? The "6670" might be the AiO version of the 6970m or something.
To be honest, I am not sure. I guess we will find that out when it is released and more reviews start to pop up. This seems to be more or less software based so that means it would only work with one OS like software based RAID (well, it will work with two or more but it has to be enabled for each, though Apple might include the necessary stuff in the Boot Camp drivers so the end-user wouldn't have to worry about this).
I'm at least hoping for upgraded CPU (like Sandy Bridge), better GPU (AMD 6*** series?), standard SSDs (maybe duel 512GB SSD?), I'd say more RAM, but that's useless and won't happen. The last thing I'm begging Apple for is a BIGGER SCREEN. Why? Because I'm a huge screen obseessy. 30" would be nice at 3k res. Just "baseless speculation", right?