iMac Sandy Bridge

[Robert Grant]

Hey guys, as you know the only update possible for the high end 27" iMac at the moment is the core i7-870 which only offers a minor speed bump. Now I am going to patiently hold out for an update (at least for the graphics) but I decided to do a bit of research and came across the Sandy Bridge architecture:

Now I was wondering what you guys think the upgrade performance-wise will be to Sandy Bridge? I have a 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo 24" iMac at the moment and have read in articles that the jump from this to the i7 isn't that big, but that the jump from the i7 to Sandy Bridge will be huge. What do you guys think? And jump in performance in this questions is not including power efficiency.

As you can see from the table on the following page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)

...the iMac could include the Sandy Bridge-MB processors which are due for release Q4 2010. Bearing in mind that Apple didn't include the i7 in the iMac until a year after release (I think), when do you guys think we could expect the iMac Sandy Bridge?

Happy speculating!

 

[Hellhammer]

Sandy Bridge won't be out until early 2011. Production may start in late 2010 though. I've read couple articles which stated that Sandy Bridge is looking good but they are based on speculation. It's too early to speculate on performance increase but I would guess ~15% clock for clock, core for core increase. iMac is due an update before Sandy Bridge release so I think Q2 2011 at the earliest for SB iMac.

 

[TMRaven]

Nah the iMac used the new lynnfields the very moment they came out.

The jump in performance from a high-end core2duo to high end lynnfield can be subjective; performance differences depend on what your'e looking at.

I also highly doubt the iMacs would use mobile sandy-bridge, as its current nehalems are the high-end desktop lynnfields with TDPs of 95 watts.

On the performance issue of the lynnfields compared to core2duos, sure you won't notice any difference when doing minor things like internet browsing or simple multitasking, but it appears that the i7 lynnfields in these current iMacs are just monsters with multitasking. I've done some pretty ferocious multitasking on this lynnfield iMac of mine, and have never once even gotten it to max out (to the point where you'd experience slow'd down performance and beachballs) Watching an HD flash video on youtube on a 2.66ghz core2duo on the iMacs at my university took up around 30% of the cpu I think, while watching an HD flash video on the i7 lynnfields only take up 8% of the cpu capacity.

So the performance gain from a core2duo to i7 lynnfield can be anywhere from none to extreme depending on what you're doing.

Yeah I guess if you're waiting for an iMac upgrade, it would be nice to hold out until sandybridge, because your current iMac already sounds pretty powerful as is, and the iMacs are not the type of machines you'd upgrade come every new major release of cpu architecture. I had an iMac G5 for 6 years until I upgraded it to the lynnfield iMac-- boy what an upgrade.

edit: jesus christ 20mb l3 mache and 50gb/s memory bandwidth on extreme edition sandybridge. so good.

 

[Robert Grant]

Nah the iMac used the new lynnfields the very moment they came out.

The jump in performance from a high-end core2duo to high end lynnfield can be subjective; performance differences depend on what your'e looking at.

I also highly doubt the iMacs would use mobile sandy-bridge, as its current nehalems are the high-end desktop lynnfields with TDPs of 95 watts.

On the performance issue of the lynnfields compared to core2duos, sure you won't notice any difference when doing minor things like internet browsing or simple multitasking, but it appears that the i7 lynnfields in these current iMacs are just monsters with multitasking. I've done some pretty ferocious multitasking on this lynnfield iMac of mine, and have never once even gotten it to max out (to the point where you'd experience slow'd down performance and beachballs) Watching an HD flash video on youtube on a 2.66ghz core2duo on the iMacs at my university took up around 30% of the cpu I think, while watching an HD flash video on the i7 lynnfields only take up 8% of the cpu capacity.

So the performance gain from a core2duo to i7 lynnfield can be anywhere from none to extreme depending on what you're doing.

Yeah I guess if you're waiting for an iMac upgrade, it would be nice to hold out until sandybridge, because your current iMac already sounds pretty powerful as is, and the iMacs are not the type of machines you'd upgrade come every new major release of cpu architecture. I had an iMac G5 for 6 years until I upgraded it to the lynnfield iMac-- boy what an upgrade.

edit: jesus christ 20mb l3 mache and 50gb/s memory bandwidth on extreme edition sandybridge. so good.

Yeh I mean I'm only looking at a new iMac cos my Dad is offering to subsidise it if I give my current iMac to my Mum. And the new 27" iMac looks so sexy, even more sexy than my 24" which is hard to believe. And I really want the higher resolution - I love everything small!

I noticed that the mobile SB's only have 6mb L3 cache as opposed to 8mb in the Lynnfields but those high end desktop SB's look sweet lol, Q3 2011 though.

Waiting until Q2 2011 is too long for me I think, even if SB is a good update and the desktop versions look even later - I may aswell get the next refresh of the i7 and use it for my final year of uni.

 

[iMacmatician]

Mainstream desktop Sandy Bridge is also Q1 2011. It's the Bloomfield/Gulftown successors that are out in Q3.

 

[Hellhammer]

There is always something to wait for... ATI is releasing Southern Islands in early 2011, Intel is adopting USB 3.0 somewhere in 2011, LightPeak production starts in late 2010, nVidia must be coming with new GPUs in mid 2011, DDR4 is coming in 2012, OS X 10.7 is already knocking the door, Ivy Bridge is only a year away after Sandy Bridge....

Just buy as soon as possible

 

[ohanian]

There is always something to wait for... ATI is releasing Southern Islands in early 2011, Intel is adopting USB 3.0 somewhere in 2011, LightPeak production starts in late 2010, nVidia must be coming with new GPUs in mid 2011, DDR4 is coming in 2012, OS X 10.7 is already knocking the door, Ivy Bridge is only a year away after Sandy Bridge....

Just buy as soon as possible

Looks like I should start saving up my money for 2012