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Core i9 on the way
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Well done for summing up how technology works.
Enjoy your fictional imac for 6 months, while I enjoy my lovely i7 that exists.
Enjoy your fictional imac for 6 months, while I enjoy my lovely i7 that exists.
Not only that, Gulftown is being branded as extreme edition CPU's (at least right now it is), which means it's going to be VERY expensive. It seems like it would even be cost prohibitive for all but the most expensive mac pro's. I think the current iMac's should be good until Sandy Bridge is released. They would be "good" after that of course, but they should be relatively top of the line for 12 months or so.
To the extent of current technology, iMacs can never have 6-core CPUs as this relies on more than 1156 pins to a socket and they will probably not (if ever) release an iMac with socket 1366. This is pretty obvious since Intel has branded their 1156 chips as "Mainstream" and iMacs are mainstream consumer computers.
Also, anything above a 4-core CPU becomes bandwidth limited unless you're using QPI. I don't think Intel ever plans on having QPI be a "mainstream" feature.
So I think it's safe to say that as long as Intel's current strategies remain the same, we may never see 6- or 8-core iMacs. What I see happening first is all iMac models eventually becoming 4-core standard, and eventually after a newer architecture comes out with a "mainstream" 8-core CPU solution, a high-end 8-core option. Maybe in a few years?
I don't like non-2^N cores anyway... "Hexacore" sounds nice, but I think it has been shown that some multithreaded apps scale poorly with six as compared to four cores. I'll wait to make my next gaming rig once they come out with 8-core chips.
Also, anything above a 4-core CPU becomes bandwidth limited unless you're using QPI. I don't think Intel ever plans on having QPI be a "mainstream" feature.
So I think it's safe to say that as long as Intel's current strategies remain the same, we may never see 6- or 8-core iMacs. What I see happening first is all iMac models eventually becoming 4-core standard, and eventually after a newer architecture comes out with a "mainstream" 8-core CPU solution, a high-end 8-core option. Maybe in a few years?
I don't like non-2^N cores anyway... "Hexacore" sounds nice, but I think it has been shown that some multithreaded apps scale poorly with six as compared to four cores. I'll wait to make my next gaming rig once they come out with 8-core chips.
To the extent of current technology, iMacs can never have 6-core CPUs as this relies on more than 1156 pins to a socket and they will probably not (if ever) release an iMac with socket 1366. This is pretty obvious since Intel has branded their 1156 chips as "Mainstream" and iMacs are mainstream consumer computers.
Also, anything above a 4-core CPU becomes bandwidth limited unless you're using QPI. I don't think Intel ever plans on having QPI be a "mainstream" feature.
So I think it's safe to say that as long as Intel's current strategies remain the same, we may never see 6- or 8-core iMacs. What I see happening first is all iMac models eventually becoming 4-core standard, and eventually after a newer architecture comes out with a "mainstream" 8-core CPU solution, a high-end 8-core option. Maybe in a few years?
I don't like non-2^N cores anyway... "Hexacore" sounds nice, but I think it has been shown that some multithreaded apps scale poorly with six as compared to four cores. I'll wait to make my next gaming rig once they come out with 8-core chips.
You sound like Bill Gates when he said 640KB of RAM is everything that home user will ever need
Computing technology develops very rapidly so we can't even imagine what we will see in 2020. Haswell should be out in 2012 and it should provide 8-core mobile CPUs and +4GHz clock speeds.
Something new is always "high-end only" for certain time because it's expensive but when time goes by and new techs are developed, it becomes a standard. When dual-cores came, I doubt anybody thought we will see dual-core iMac soon because they were so expensive and "new" but now we have QUAD-core iMacs..
Before you get too excited about i7, the next imac update will have the core i9
and before you get too excited about the i9 there is going to be abother bigger, faster chip on the way.... In fact why bother to buy anything knowing that there is always something better just around the corner.......
Before you get too excited about i7, the next imac update will have the core i9
No way!!!! You mean CPU development will not stop with i7 .... must cancel my order for i7 imac... but how can i buy the latest and greatest if they keep bringing out new chips each year... aaarrghhhhh!!!!
but if you have waited that long you might as well wait for the CPU or perhaps the one after that just to make sure to bang up to date with the latest tech
...Haswell should be out in 2012 and it should provide 8-core mobile CPUs and +4GHz clock speeds...
...but by then since the world is coming to an end on 12/21/12, none of it will matter
...Before you get too excited about i7, the next imac update will have the core i9
The iMac is completely IO bottlenecked. I would MUCH prefer an eSATA port today rather than a faster CPU, no matter how fast.
Don't use / need FireWire? hehe..
I don't think we need to be worrying ourselves about Core i9 ANY time soon on the Mac Pro... Much less on the iMac. Apple was what, at least six months behind getting the i7's into anything that wasn't a Mac Pro???
I doubt few people on this forum actually need the i9 for anything unless you're doing high-end video / audio work..... or something with Photoshop
The i7 iMacs are pretty nice machines, and will be for a long time.
Hang in there till 2040 (ish).
If we follow moores law, and the laws set out by quantum mechanics, the rate of improvement wont slow down until about 2040.
However, by that time I reckon that either:
A). Biological computing will have been invented, leading to yet further massive boosts in speed.
B). Optical computing will pave the way for even greater speeds.
C). Robots will be in overall control of the earth, and as such a Personal Computer would not be needed / allowed.
D). WW3 will have just ended, leaving the worlds supply of existing computer chips rendered useless, and computers will be the lest of your worries.
E). We will have run out of reasons for a 'faster computer'. As the one we have will do anything we ever need it to whilst running pretty much at idle.
Personally I hope for option E, B or A. Preferably E though, as that's the cheapest.
At the current rate, the next few die shrinks will render silicon unable to semiconduct. The barrier was already hit by Seagate in flash memory density (IIRC). Biological computing won't happen unless scientists figure out a way to arrange carbon on an atomic level, which I don't see happening anytime in the near future.
A little off topic, but this is why I love MR. People are smart as hell here. The typical trip to MR is: me laughing a someone funny, me laughing at some whiny complainer, then learning something on my way out.
Yep, that's a fair point. I was talking more in theoretical terms though rather than practical terms. There is a good chance that the practicality of fitting so many transistors into such a small space will far outweigh the advantages gained.
We are beginning to see a general slowdown in market demand anyway. I mean, every day, thousands of computers are being sold new with processor speeds that have been around now for well over 4 years. Granted these are netbooks but for a lot of people this is now plenty fast enough. Hopefully in a few years time the latest tech then will be plenty fast enough even for those of us who are into heavy video editing or multimedia based work....
Until then though, let's wait with excitement and start saving for the newer, faster, more powerful, more energy efficient, smaller and (probably more expensive) iMac 34 inch i12......
