⭐️⭐️⭐️ℹ️ NEW HERE? READ ME! Post your iMac topics for 2006–2013ish models on Early Intel Macs forum!

[B S Magnet]

Hey all, from one iMac user to all of you iMac folks:

A few months ago, forum posts relating to Intel Mac models made between 2006 and (roughly) 2011, began being moved over to the Early Intel Macs forum. (iMac G3s, G4s, and G5s, of course, always have had a home at the PowerPC Macs forum.) Each time a qualifying post met this date range, moderators were notified and the post was moved to Early Intel Macs.

Doing this helps to free up space on this forum for the more current iMac models. (The same applies with the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, and MacBook forums; I haven’t posted this notice over there just yet, since this forum tends to get the heaviest new traffic.) Doing this also frees up space for many of the iMac models still (as of June 2023) under some kind of support by Apple as either supported or designated as “vintage”.

Regulars on the Early Intel Macs forum have plenty of experience to help with your iMac questions. Many also use at least one older iMac, if not several, to this day.

At some point, moderators may be open to the idea of striking a Late Intel Macs forum into service, especially once most, later Intel-era Macs — models with Retina displays; T2 support; native support for post-10.x versions of macOS; and the like — fall away from Apple’s main and “vintage” support streams.

tl;dr:

If you’ve got support questions about your iMac, and you’re not sure which forum is the best to post, a good rule of thumb is the one above (that is: models from 2006 to the 2011 A1311 and A1312 iMacs). If it’s one of those, then post your question to the Early Intel Macs forum. Some allowances are also being made for discussing Ivy Bridge (2012–13) and early Haswell (2013–14) era A1418 and A1419 models on there, as well — namely, models which lacked a 4K/5K Retina display (which excludes post-”late 2014” Retina iMacs as well as all iMac Pros).

Thanks for your understanding!

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EDIT TO ADD: If you scroll down to post #4, I prepared a kind of scoring guide to help you figure out whether an Intel Mac from the early/mid 2010s qualifies as an “Early Intel Mac” or not. If in doubt about yours, use this guide; if yours scores 4 or higher, then it’s probably good to post your question on the Early Intel Macs forum.

 

[Juicy Box]

I think the line should be between the Late 2011 and Late 2012 iMacs.

There are significant changes separating the two model years, and personally always thought of the Late 2012 iMac as the start of the later model Intel iMacs.

 

[Longplays]

A thought... how about auto moving posts about any Mac that turns 10 years old from its introduction?

These likely have received their final macOS Security Update months prior.

The date of introduction is already present on https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac

This could be adjusted to 8 years to reflect its final macOS Software Update.

 

[B S Magnet]

I think the line should be between the Late 2011 and Late 2012 iMacs.

There are significant changes separating the two model years, and personally always thought of the Late 2012 iMac as the start of the later model Intel iMacs.

Over on the Early Intel Macs forum, we’ve a few and ongoing discussions about the threshold for Intel Macs and, at a more granular level, the line for each of the Macs available then. There will, including right here on this thread, be more discussions about how this demarcation will look in the long run.

In that long run, Apple’s Intel era covers, give or take, roughly 16 years of models (whether counting from the 2005 DTK to the last new Intel Mac introduced, or roughly 16–17 years if starting with the first Intel Macs of January 2006 through the end of sales for the Intel Mac Pro this week).

The eight-year mark with, again, leeway depending on which Intel Mac model involved, will probably be a good place to mark the “early” from the “late”.

Apple’s Intel era covers, give or take, roughly 16 years of models (whether counting from the 2005 DTK to the last new Intel Mac introduced June 2020, or roughly 16 to 17 years, if starting from the first Intel Macs sold in 2006 through end of sales for the late 2018 Mac mini [ended in January 2023] the Intel Mac Pro [this week]). Maybe the most basic way to bifurcate this is “eight years on either side”. But as we all know, that gets muddy once one zooms in to that grey zone in the middle. That’s where the discussion lives.

My own yardstick for determining “early” versus “late” Intel camps — particularly, in that 2012 and 2014 zone — falls along a fairly loose set of criteria having at least four or more features below to be qualified as an “Early Intel” Mac. That model probably:

1. OS bootability/CPU:
   • is able, even if buggy, to run Snow Leopard 10.6.8 (without VM), even if it requires some hacks (this includes Ivy Bridge Macs like the early 2013 iMac i3 (education model) but not Haswell Macs);
2. High-speed peripheral ports:
   • has FW800 (sold on at least one model until late 2016) and/or Thunderbolt 1 ports (but no Thunderbolt 2);
3. Internal drives:
   • SSD-only models: lacks PCIe slot for NVMe m.2 SSDs (e.g., late 2012 & early 2013 rMBPs,and mid-2012 MBAs, as these use AHCI SATA); or
   • mixed models: could be configured at purchase with standalone SATA HDD or “fusion” drive setup (instead of only NVMe SSD option);
4. Display:
   • lacks Retina display; or
   • if “headless”, lacks native HiDPI capability, out-of-box (some leeway given for Ivy Bridge rMBPs);
5. GPU/graphics:
   • lacks any integrated GPU above Intel HD Graphics 5000 (and if Intel, is not an Iris Pro);
6. Lacks pre-processor cryptography/security:
   • that is, a T2 (i.e., on every new model since the iMac Pro in 2017);
7. Memory/RAM:
   • lacks soldered RAM on at least one or more variants of a particular revision
     (special inclusion: non-NVMe MBAs and rMBPs; i.e., 2012 MBA; late 2012 and early 2013 rMBPs).

These all have pretty decent leeway, and it’s still pretty flexible at this time.

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So (checking my work), if one relied on the above “three or more” criteria, which iMac outliers would fit the ”Early Intel Macs” bill?

• mid-2014 iMac (education-only): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — (total: 5)
• late 2013 iMac (all, but base 2.7GHz i5): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — (total: 6) [note: GeForce models do have an HD 5000 handling some low-level tasks]
• late 2013 iMac A1418 (base 2.7GHz i5 only): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — (total: 5) [note: lacking GeForce, this shipped with Iris Pro 5200]

Late 2014 (and later) iMacs, meanwhile, would all fall short as “Early Intel Macs” test and would be “Late Intel Macs”:

• late 2014 iMac (all): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — (total: 3)

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As for my using iMacs…

For the last few years, I’ve had a late 2013 iMac I’ve used as my main desktop when I’m at home (I rely more on laptops). It has a pair of Thunderbolt 1 Mini DisplayPort-styled ports; shipped with a spinner (with NVMe Fusion capability); lacks a Retina display; has an Intel HD Graphics 5000 GPU (running underneath the GeForce GT 750M for low-level tasks); lacks a T2; and lacks soldered RAM (so that’s 6 of the above seven criteria met).

Even so, is it “early” or “late”? For now, in my mind I’ve got it in a kind of grey zone, leaning more toward “early” (as it also, by year, falls within that first, eight-year Intel window and was not a brand-new iMac generation released that year, but rather, the second revision of the A1418/A1419 released first in 2012).

Anyway, the discussion ought to continue.

A thought... how about auto moving posts about any Mac that turns 10 years old from its introduction?

These likely have received their final macOS Security Update months prior.

The date of introduction is already present on https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac

This could be adjusted to 8 years to reflect its final macOS Software Update.

That’s probably not the best way to approach how to assess what qualifies “early” versus ”late” Intel Macs, especially at this kind of post-mortem juncture when we know when Intel Mac products stopped being offered by Apple.

 

[Longplays]

That’s probably not the best way to approach how to assess what qualifies “early” versus ”late” Intel Macs, especially at this kind of post-mortem juncture when we know when Intel Mac products stopped being offered by Apple.

I look at this from the point of view of if the product is actively supported by Apple or not.

To my knowledge Apple itself does not distinguish "early" or "late" Intel Macs.

Hence my suggestion we put it at 10 years.

An "early" and "late" PowerPC Macs could be argued for as it span 1994-2005.

But as of 2023 it does not matter anymore as all of them are abandoned by Apple and very few active users are on MR.

Similarly by 2028 or 2030 all Intel Macs will end support.

Will the distinction of "early" and "late" matter by then?

I think the separation is helpful to users on actively supported Macs or not.

Or we could just leave it as is without distinction...

 

[redheeler]

As for my using iMacs…

For the last few years, I’ve had a late 2013 iMac I’ve used as my main desktop when I’m at home (I rely more on laptops). It has a pair of Thunderbolt 1 Mini DisplayPort-styled ports; shipped with a spinner (with NVMe Fusion capability); lacks a Retina display; has an Intel HD Graphics 5000 GPU (running underneath the GeForce GT 750M for low-level tasks); lacks a T2; and lacks soldered RAM (so that’s six of the above seven criteria met).

Even so, is it “early” or “late”? For now, in my mind I’ve got it in a kind of grey zone, leaning more toward “early” (as it also, by year, falls within that first, eight-year Intel window and was not a brand-new iMac generation released that year, but rather, the second revision of the A1418/A1419 released first in 2012).

Anyway, the discussion ought to continue.

I posted in another thread about there being what I see as a middle period of 2012-2015 models in addition to early and late. Someone there suggested USB-C as a bound for late and that makes sense to me.

 

[Aii]

Bottom Line Up Front TL;DR Summary Suggestion:

Consider changing the sub-title to the Early Intel Mac sub-forum if you want A1311 and A1312 owners to post there, without Moderators having to move their posts. Sample suggestion below is inspired by Post #1 of this thread:

Early Intel Mac
2006 - Mid 2011


Background for the suggestion:

As a new member, I will only be an expert at first impressions of MacRumors forum for another few days.

After reading the forum more, I will likely become just as accustomed as you all may now be to how things are.

Yet that familiarity can blind one to how things first appear to a new member, so to take full advantage of my first impression of confusion, before it becomes lost to familiarity, consider what a new member stumbles into:

The subtitle of the Early Intel Mac subforum states:

Early Intel Mac
Core 2 Duo, Core Duo, Core Solo machines

Yet the Mid 2011 iMac has a Quad Core i5 processor, second generation at that, which per the sub-forum title, would not seem to belong to the defined subset of "Core 2 Duo, Core Duo, or Core Solo" processor families of Intel (details below).

A quick scan of the first page of stickies and current posts in the Early Intel Mac sub-forum also seemed confirm the sub-forum's title... related to Core Solo, Core Duo, and Core 2 Duo machines.

Yet the present sticky found here suggests that I post there. That's the conflicting part. Already there is more discussion here about my machine than found in the sub-forum where I am otherwise directed to post.

It would be a LOT less confusing, and moderators would likely have to do a lot less "work" moving threads, if say, @WildCowboy altered the sub-title of the Early Intel Mac forum to also include a reference to "Core i5 & i7".

However, since Core i5 & i7 processors designations are multi-generational, where later iterations are in Intel iMacs that are still too new to be relegated to the "Early Intel Mac" sub-forum, another suggestion is to consider a simpler sub- forum description, defining the delineation by model years, as Apple does, in the subtitle to the Early Intel Mac sub-forum. An example might be what @B S Magnet suggested:

Early Intel Mac
2006 - Mid 2011

This would be easier for newbies like me to know where to post. We really do want to put our questions in the correct forum. We really do read the forum rules and regulations and readme stickies when starting out, especially if we know that we are way out of our depth, and will need a lot of help over the long haul, and want to start off on the right foot, in the appropriate subforum.

As a newbie, I first floundered by searching for and piggybacking on to existing threads in the specific MacOS sub-forums that seemed to speak to the issues I came here for help with. I soon realized that the hardware (iMac) sub-forums have higher participation, and are actually more appropriate, since I really don't know what MacOS to install.

I will post my many questions in the Early Intel Mac sub-forum as this thread directs, but please understand that had I not taken the time to read this thread first, I would not think that my questions would be appropriately placed in that sub-forum, based on the processors listed in the subtitle, which my machine does not have.

Thanks for listening.


Abbreviated Sequence of Intel Core Processors (Not all may be found in Macs):

Core Solo
Core Duo
Core 2 Solo
Core 2 Duo
Mobile Core 2 Solo
Mobile Core 2 Duo
Core 2 Quad
Core 2 Extreme

The foregoing Intel Core processors listed above, with Intel architecture codenames like Merom, Penryn, Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale, Kentsfield, and Yorkfield would be what I think of when reading "Core 2 Duo, Core Duo, Core Solo machines".

The processors named in the Early Intel Mac subtitle were all made in the 2006-2008 era, PRIOR to Intel introducing "Nehalem" architecture at the end of 2008, and PRIOR to Intel simultaneously introducing an all new nomenclature of "i3, i5, i7, i9", for Core processors, a naming scheme which continues to this day.

First Generation i3, i5, & i7 processors released at the tail end of 2008 through the beginning of 2011 had codenames of Bloomfield, Lynnfield, Clarksfield, Clarkdale, & Gulftown. The fact that these "iX" series of processors were in use in 2009 and 2010 is another argument in favor of modifying the subtitle of the Early Intel Mac sub-forum to either include a reference to the iX series of Intel processors, or to eliminate all references to Intel processor names, and utilize model years of Mac machines, as Apple does. (Apple model numbers are too small to read for old folks like me).


What is relevant to owners of the A1311 and A1312 models that Moderators want to move to "Early Intel Macs":

Fast forward to the Second Generation i5, based on Intel's then all new Sandy Bridge microarchitecture, released in 2011, and now twice removed from any "Core 2 Duo, Core Duo, or Core Solo" processor model designation. This is the processor I think I have in my 21.5" Mid-2011 iMac, where I used Terminal to type the command

"sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.brand_string"

to find a result returned as

Intel Core i5-2400 S CPU 2.50 GHZ

According to Intel, the number "2" in 2400 indicates "Second Generation."

So, when I was trying to figure out where to post questions on MacRumors for my new to me Mid-2011 A1311, I was thrown off by the sub-title listing the processors covered under the Early Intel Mac sub-forum.

I hope this "virgin eyes" perspective helps you help newbies place our questions in the right sub-forum on MacRumors.




Sources:

How to Identify My Intel® Processor

Shows how to determine the number of Intel® Processor

www.intel.com

How to Find the Generation of Intel® Core™ Processors

Explains how to find Intel® Core™ Processor generation.

www.intel.com

Support for Intel® Processors

Support information regarding product highlights, featured content, downloads and more for Intel® Processors.

www.intel.com

Intel® Processor Names, Numbers and Generation List

Understanding Intel® processor names and numbers helps identify the best laptop, desktop, or mobile device CPU for your computing needs.

www.intel.com

Intel Core - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of Intel Core processors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org