iMac's are an awful purchase

[phrehdd]

I love these kind of debates, because when you get down to it, it's downright silly, because what matters in this equation is the use of the computer. If you are surfing the net, watching movies, checking email, then the iMac is certainly good enough to do all that and all of the fancy processors, GPUs, externals and other toys are totally unnecessary for that. I have 8 year old Mac Pro 3,1 for doing some photoshop, video conversion, music editing and it does what I need it to do. A new iMac would do all that as well, as would a Hackintosh, but what would I want to spend the money? Remember that a computer is just a tool and you too can be a tool.

You are right. After all, an uninformed public who buys into the hype is quite willing to over spend on a computer thinking they do everything they want and that the Apple echo system is above reproach. If someone only needs to surf the web or perhaps do a little writing or similar, the iMac is not only well suited to the task but is over kill. These are the same people that could get a system that is less than half the price to do the same thing.

As for anyone with just a bit of computer knowledge to understand the basic components of a computer might also get swept into the over priced iMac line up. I say over priced given that some of the technology that comes to the public is already behind many counterparts in the PC world ranging from CPU to GPU. As for thunderbolt, it sat on many a system and never touched because it was an expensive means to an end that USB3 handled just fine. In short, you seem to praise the ignorance of the masses and find those that demand a bit more from Apple to be suspect.

Candidly, I find many of these conversations/threads to be a bit specious but at times there are excellent posts from passionate uses of Macs that bring up some very good points. As for me, there is very little left in the Mac line up that meets my needs but I am sure they might meet yours. It appears that the population of Mac users is varied and enjoy exchanging their thoughts and experiences from totally happy to frustrated. We all as well get to sure the magnificent
"Apple Tax" for purchasing their hardware much akin to some film cameras of yore. Yep, we can be proud we are all members of "the club."

 

[DontGetTheCheese]

Personally, I wouldn't use the word awful, but they're a tough purchase. I've given the iMac a lot of thought and I struggle to get there. It's because of the video card and if anything goes wrong, it's toast, no swapping. It's just tough at that price.

The other thing, defending the iMac, based on 5K is sort of a weird argument. I run my 27-inch $200 monitor at 1920x1200 and it's fine. The more than a year old video card, on what's around a $1K box, as near as I can tell is better than the m395x. So, the iMac I'd get is a better processor, better hardware certainly, weaker video card and overall a toss up. The monitor, which is certainly better, well, is it really "that much better"? I've used them in an Apple store and I can't see what makes 5K magical.

So, I don't think the word awful is correct, but "great value" certainly isn't either.

 

[jerwin]

The monitor, which is certainly better, well, is it really "that much better"? I've used them in an Apple store and I can't see what makes 5K magical.

Text. Text is what makes 5K magical. Plus 1920x1080 is a little cramped.

 

[johngordon]

Video card?

I realize this might come as a bit of a shock to you, but I wasn't discussing monitors. I'm discussing the computer part of the computer. I could have hooked up whatever monitor I liked to this thing and it wouldn't change the basic facts that even the highest end iMac is pretty mediocre when it comes to performance.

Sure, you have a nice pretty 5k display to use Facebook with, but good luck doing anything more with that awful GPU. For such an expensive machine, topping out at an R9 M395x is ridiculous.

Well, kind of, you were. Like when you talked about your Hackintosh besting the iMac in EVERY way.

So to be clear, are telling me I'm not going to able to do anything more demanding than look at Facebook on my new iMac?

Are you absolutely sure the reality isn't more like I'll be able to do pretty much anything perfectly well apart from a very small number of intensive things like hi end gaming or video editing?
[doublepost=1457737423][/doublepost]

The OP made some reasonable points -

Why offer a 5400 rpm drive at all on these computers?
Why offer on some models mediocre video (on board) to support hi rez screens?
Why the need to take a desktop machine and make it "thin?"

The list goes on.

By the time one has a BTO of choice, it becomes a rather expensive option.

Lets all remember folks-

OSX is held hostage by the hardware
while
PC hardware (commercially) is held hostage by the OS (Windows)

Take your choice.

If the list goes on, could you post the rest of it?

I'm genuinely interested.
[doublepost=1457738260][/doublepost]

You are right. After all, an uninformed public who buys into the hype is quite willing to over spend on a computer thinking they do everything they want and that the Apple echo system is above reproach. If someone only needs to surf the web or perhaps do a little writing or similar, the iMac is not only well suited to the task but is over kill. These are the same people that could get a system that is less than half the price to do the same thing.

As for anyone with just a bit of computer knowledge to understand the basic components of a computer might also get swept into the over priced iMac line up. I say over priced given that some of the technology that comes to the public is already behind many counterparts in the PC world ranging from CPU to GPU. As for thunderbolt, it sat on many a system and never touched because it was an expensive means to an end that USB3 handled just fine. In short, you seem to praise the ignorance of the masses and find those that demand a bit more from Apple to be suspect.

Candidly, I find many of these conversations/threads to be a bit specious but at times there are excellent posts from passionate uses of Macs that bring up some very good points. As for me, there is very little left in the Mac line up that meets my needs but I am sure they might meet yours. It appears that the population of Mac users is varied and enjoy exchanging their thoughts and experiences from totally happy to frustrated. We all as well get to sure the magnificent
"Apple Tax" for purchasing their hardware much akin to some film cameras of yore. Yep, we can be proud we are all members of "the club."

I take exception to that to be honest, and it's something I see a lot of in discussions about Apple products.

This POV that many people are buying Apple products, not because they like them, or they feel they are best suited to their needs, but because they are "uninformed", or have somehow been tricked or even brainwashed by Apple into buying them.

That you are of the view that if only these people were better informed, if only they knew what you knew, they would make the same buying choices as you is just unbelievably arrogant.

 

[AxoNeuron]

How does this matter for 90% of the customer base of iMacs to begin with?

It's a gorgeous display, and the machine is a solid OSX device. Why should consumers care?

Why would 90% of the customers care about having 8GB of RAM? Would that have made it ok for Apple to stick 4GB of RAM in a $2300 machine?

Heck no. Same argument goes for the GPU. If you're seriously gonna be using a machine with a 4K or 5K display...it's not even just about gaming. With that many pixels, an Intel Iris Pro is gonna start lagging out for anything more demanding that spreadsheets.

It truly wouldn't have been any more difficult or expensive for Apple to at least given the option of a laptop video card from Nvidia with highly superior performance and good power/thermal parameters. It wouldn't have been very expensive either. But no, Apple seems happy with slapping awful AMD cards in everything.
[doublepost=1457739221][/doublepost]

Take if from a professional video editor, the top M395X does very well editing 4K video in FCPX. Most time-consuming video editing tasks are not GPU or I/O-bound they are CPU-bound and even an infinitely fast GPU would not dramatically help. Anyone can see this themselves by monitoring common video editing tasks with iStat Menus.

The same is true for many time-consuming photo editing tasks. Importing raw stills into Lightroom and generating 1:1 previews is almost totally CPU bound. There are things LR is slow at, especially on a 5K iMac, but this isn't a GPU problem it is poor coding by Adobe. This is obvious because when you disable the GPU in LR, some of these slow tasks speed up. Yes, their code is so poor it actually slows down when using GPU acceleration.

I agree a faster GPU could occasionally be using in video editing. It's possible writers of editing software and plugins could find some way to leverage that. However everything has a cost. The GTX-970 you mentioned pulls up to 170 watts. My entire 2015 iMac 27 with two Thunderbolt RAID arrays only pulls about 150 watts total under load -- I have measured it myself.

To add a GPU that pulls more power than the entire current iMac would require a totally different physical design, greatly upgraded power supply and cooling, probably louder fans, etc. All iMacs of that configuration would cost more, which means all those customers would pay the price whether they needed that or not. Apple would then possibly have to splinter the iMac product line and add a "big GPU" version with a totally different physical design. A few people would pay for that but Apple obviously thinks it's not worth it.

This year both AMD and probably nVidia will be moving from 28 nm fabrication to 14 nm. This will improve GPU performance per watt by about 2x. This has already been demonstrated on sample parts:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/can-amd-outperform-nvidia-with-14nm-polaris-gpu-tech/
http://wccftech.com/amd-unveils-polaris-11-10-gpu/

This will allow Apple to retain a similar physical design, maintain low power consumption yet greatly increase GPU performance. It would have been nice to have this a year or two ago but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

I totally disagree. Nvidia's latest mobile GPU's are pretty power efficient and they have SIGNIFICANTLY better performance/watt ratios than AMD. If anything, Apple could keep the same power and thermal characteristics with better performance if they just used an Nvidia laptop card. I mean really, the 980m totally beats the m395x in nearly every category AND it draws less power and generates less heat.

I have to do a lot of video processing for my own job, and I have given the 27" iMac with the m395x a spin and I had a completely different experience in several video editing suites. It was significantly slower (more than 30% slower) than my hackintosh, which cost less. Let's just face it, for ANY video intensive tasks (which includes a LOT of tasks for professionals), the iMac is a pretty bad choice for performance to cost.

 

[johngordon]

I have to do a lot of video processing for my own job, and I have given the 27" iMac with the m395x a spin and I had a completely different experience in several video editing suites. It was significantly slower (more than 30% slower) than my hackintosh, which cost less. Let's just face it, for ANY video intensive tasks (which includes a LOT of tasks for professionals), the iMac is a pretty bad choice for performance to cost.

Which is it?

Is it a bad choice for pretty much anything other than looking at Facebook, or is it a bad choice for video intensive tasks?

Maybe I've been under the mistaken impression that those are not the only two things people can use computers for.

 

[cynics]

Why would 90% of the customers care about having 8GB of RAM? Would that have made it ok for Apple to stick 4GB of RAM in a $2300 machine?

Heck no. Same argument goes for the GPU. If you're seriously gonna be using a machine with a 4K or 5K display...it's not even just about gaming. With that many pixels, an Intel Iris Pro is gonna start lagging out for anything more demanding that spreadsheets.

It truly wouldn't have been any more difficult or expensive for Apple to at least given the option of a laptop video card from Nvidia with highly superior performance and good power/thermal parameters. It wouldn't have been very expensive either. But no, Apple seems happy with slapping awful AMD cards in everything.
[doublepost=1457739221][/doublepost]
I totally disagree. Nvidia's latest mobile GPU's are pretty power efficient and they have SIGNIFICANTLY better performance/watt ratios than AMD. If anything, Apple could keep the same power and thermal characteristics with better performance if they just used an Nvidia laptop card. I mean really, the 980m totally beats the m395x in nearly every category AND it draws less power and generates less heat.

I have to do a lot of video processing for my own job, and I have given the 27" iMac with the m395x a spin and I had a completely different experience in several video editing suites. It was significantly slower (more than 30% slower) than my hackintosh, which cost less. Let's just face it, for ANY video intensive tasks (which includes a LOT of tasks for professionals), the iMac is a pretty bad choice for performance to cost.

NVidia doesn't have a GPU that will work with Apples/AMDs custom TCON on their single tile 5k display. You don't feel it's little naive to suggest nVidia is better from random specs pulled from the Internet with no engineering thought put behind it at all?

The 5k iMac does great editing 4K video, I watch a team of people do it daily. And if you do need more horsepower then Apple makes a Mac Pro and it's a powerhouse for creative types.

Typically these discussions start because Mac gaming is lackluster...and I can understand and agree with that mostly based around the OS or lack of DirectX to be more specific. However for editing they are fine.

Can you build something better? Yes. Can you do it cheaper? Yes...what is your point?

I just remodeled a bathroom. It turned out better, and it was cheaper. Where can I go to complain?

 

[jerwin]

well, if poor decisions have locked you into nVidia's CUDA monopoly, the switch to AMD might rub you the wrong way.

 

[blwest78]

A dell 5k monitor currently sits at about $2200. I love my iMac, but to each their own. To my knowledge, and also according to anandtech, you cannot take advantage of SLI setups in OSX. Compute yes, SLI, no; making SLI useless in a hackintosh.

There's a lot of value to some of us who make a decent living for something to just work. Every hour I spend futzing with a hackintosh is an hour I'm not riding my motorcycle, spending time with my family or doing something to better myself. My $3k iMac with the 5k display has a lot of value to me and in 2 years when I'm ready to upgrade, I'll sell it for about 75% of what I paid on ebay. Try that with a pile of PC parts.

 

[MBHockey]

This thread is nothing more than nerd rage at the lack of a high-end gaming video card in a Mac.

yawn

 

[AxoNeuron]

Which is it?

Is it a bad choice for pretty much anything other than looking at Facebook, or is it a bad choice for video intensive tasks?

Maybe I've been under the mistaken impression that those are not the only two things people can use computers for.

I should have realized that some people can take things literally quite often so I will make this a bit clearer for you, please stop being pedantic. I obviously wasnt saying that iMacs literally aren't capable of doing anything more intensive than facebook. I am saying that for a large number of professional users, even the highest end iMac has a wimpy GPU that just doesn't even come close to some competing machines at the same or even lower price. For a computer that needs to power a 4K display, the iris pro should make people LAUGH, not want to buy it.
[doublepost=1457751696][/doublepost]

This thread is nothing more than nerd rage at the lack of a high-end gaming video card in a Mac.

yawn

Um...yeah...

...I haven't even mentioned gaming a single time. I don't even play video games. So please, maybe you could actually read what I am saying before you decide to drop some comment like that.

 

[Fozziebear71]

Why is it that some people believe that the only "good" computers are the ones that are good for playing video games?

 

[AxoNeuron]

well, if poor decisions have locked you into nVidia's CUDA monopoly, the switch to AMD might rub you the wrong way.

Poor decisions? Like the fact that nearly every single Nvidia card beats the performance of it's AMD rival in nearly every way? The m395x compared to the 980m (which is an OLD card) is laughable, Nvidia crushes AMD.

But this isn't about Nvidia vs. AMD. The market has largely settled that debate, there's an obvious reason why Nvidia has such a larger market share. This is about Apple's decision to gimp their iMac line, which used to be great, with awful 2005 era hard drives and awful video cards.
[doublepost=1457752001][/doublepost]

Why is it that some people believe that the only "good" computers are the ones that are good for playing video games?

...I don't think anyone I this thread has ever said that. I don't even play video games. I'm talking about professional editing and software development and things that require good hardware, not the junk that Apple is slinging these days.

 

[blwest78]

I should have realized that some people can take things literally quite often so I will make this a bit clearer for you, please stop being pedantic. I obviously wasnt saying that iMacs literally aren't capable of doing anything more intensive than facebook. I am saying that for a large number of professional users, even the highest end iMac has a wimpy GPU that just doesn't even come close to some competing machines at the same or even lower price. For a computer that needs to power a 4K display, the iris pro should make people LAUGH, not want to buy it.
[doublepost=1457751696][/doublepost]
Um...yeah...

...I haven't even mentioned gaming a single time. I don't even play video games. So please, maybe you could actually read what I am saying before you decide to drop some comment like that.

1. Nice misuse of pedantic.
2. Not everyone needs a fast GPU. Iris Pro drives 4k just fine for everything but gaming. (I do it daily)
3. You should be more pedantic in your posts.
4. There's more to life/computing than a spec sheet.
5. Enjoy your buggy hackintosh.

 

[AxoNeuron]

A dell 5k monitor currently sits at about $2200. I love my iMac, but to each their own. To my knowledge, and also according to anandtech, you cannot take advantage of SLI setups in OSX. Compute yes, SLI, no; making SLI useless in a hackintosh.

There's a lot of value to some of us who make a decent living for something to just work. Every hour I spend futzing with a hackintosh is an hour I'm not riding my motorcycle, spending time with my family or doing something to better myself. My $3k iMac with the 5k display has a lot of value to me and in 2 years when I'm ready to upgrade, I'll sell it for about 75% of what I paid on ebay. Try that with a pile of PC parts.

The 1 or 2 hours I spend annually messing around with the Hackintosh update issues is WELL worth the time and money I save. You literally cannot get a better computer for graphics work than mine from Apple, and mine cosy WAY less. Even Apple's "best" computer is a woefully outdated anachronism.

 

[435713]

I'll agree with Nvidia as the GPU. The 980m would be very nice.

The rest is silly anger and justifying a decision is all. Heavy hyperbole as well, which is par for the course on most internet posts. Also reads sexual frustrated from the anger from my eyes. Could be wrong. A Pleasure house is in order for you sir.

 

[blwest78]

Poor decisions? Like the fact that nearly every single Nvidia card beats the performance of it's AMD rival in nearly every way? The m395x compared to the 980m (which is an OLD card) is laughable, Nvidia crushes AMD.

But this isn't about Nvidia vs. AMD. The market has largely settled that debate, there's an obvious reason why Nvidia has such a larger market share. This is about Apple's decision to gimp their iMac line, which used to be great, with awful 2005 era hard drives and awful video cards.
[doublepost=1457752001][/doublepost]
...I don't think anyone I this thread has ever said that. I don't even play video games. I'm talking about professional editing and software development and things that require good hardware, not the junk that Apple is slinging these days.

Professionals don't use hackintoshes. Software development requires a text editor, no more. Anything apple sells will run vi, vim, nano, xcode, sublime, atom, git and tmux just fine at 5k.

 

[AxoNeuron]

1. Nice misuse of pedantic.
2. Not everyone needs a fast GPU. Iris Pro drives 4k just fine for everything but gaming. (I do it daily)
3. You should be more pedantic in your posts.
4. There's more to life/computing than a spec sheet.
5. Enjoy your buggy hackintosh.

My hackintosh works just as well as anything you can get from the Apple store. My MacBook Pro with retina display has died three times in the last two years because Apple switched to some garbage environmentally friendly solder. My hackintosh has run flawlessly for years, after every upgrade I have given it (which you can't even do with the iMac's laughable laptop components)

 

[blwest78]

The 1 or 2 hours I spend annually messing around with the Hackintosh update issues is WELL worth the time and money I save. You literally cannot get a better computer for graphics work than mine from Apple, and mine cosy WAY less. Even Apple's "best" computer is a woefully outdated anachronism.

Good for you. Love your overly enthusiastic justification of your hackintosh thread. I love my 5k display, nothing on the market can touch it.

 

[AxoNeuron]

Professionals don't use hackintoshes. Software development requires a text editor, no more. Anything apple sells will run vi, vim, nano, xcode, sublime, atom, git and tmux just fine at 5k.

Dude...I am a software developer, and no, it requires way more than just a text editor.

Good luck publishing an app with just a text editor.

Large companies pay me to make them apps for iOS and Android. I tried doing it with a Mac Pro's D700's, but they're pretty old and outdated at this point and my hackintosh blows them out of the water. A good app pretty much requires expertise in all fields, graphic design, video editing, etc. And these are things Apple just isn't good at anymore. Which is sad, because Apple used to be the best before they got this idiotic obsession with making their desktops thinner (because SO many people were complaining about how heavy the original was...)

I'm not exaggerating when I say this: my hackintosh has been way more reliable than my macs. Probably because they don't use cheap solder like Apple does.

 

[Fozziebear71]

Shouldn't you be playing Minecraft, AxoNeuron, on your badass gaming computer?

 

[435713]

This thread is nothing more than nerd rage at the lack of a high-end gaming video card in a Mac.

yawn

Pretty much spot on. Claims it is for something else and needs to play TEH GAMEZZZZZZZ

I agree with this post.

Thank you!! I can see it a mile away. This man is hilariously funny though.

Shouldn't you be playing Minecraft, AxoNeuron, on your badass gaming computer?

Nah, needs to play crysis, and become the ultimate badarse!

 

[952863]

I'm not exaggerating when I say this: my hackintosh has been way more reliable than my macs. Probably because they don't use cheap solder like Apple does.

Excuse me? Cheap solder? Last time I checked, Macbook Pro's are really reliable, and same with iMac's(minus the AMD Cards, due to AMD being sub-par compared to Nvidia.)

Shouldn't you be playing Minecraft, AxoNeuron, on your badass gaming computer?

Minecraft? Its all about Call of Dooty on badass gaming compooter's these days. lol
Disclaimer: I purposely misspelled.

 

[blwest78]

My hackintosh works just as well as anything you can get from the Apple store. My MacBook Pro with retina display has died three times in the last two years because Apple switched to some garbage environmentally friendly solder. My hackintosh has run flawlessly for years, after every upgrade I have given it (which you can't even do with the iMac's laughable laptop components)

Alright, I'm through with your immaturity. It's obvious you're either young or very emotionally immature. Everyone uses "environment friendly" solder, even when they send things to space.

The GTX 970 was released September 18, 2014, so it's impossible to have run for "years".

Good luck and enjoy your "better" hackintosh. Go overcompensate somewhere else.

BTW, you should email Tim with all your contact info so he can sue you into poverty for breaking the license agreements for OSX. Nothing beats bragging about breaking the law, using the english language improperly and posing on the internet.

 

[AxoNeuron]

Shouldn't you be playing Minecraft, AxoNeuron, on your badass gaming computer?

And now we have completely left any semblance of an actual conversation. Sucks to lose, doesn't it?
[doublepost=1457752778][/doublepost]

Alright, I'm through with your immaturity. It's obvious you're either young or very emotionally immature. Everyone uses "environment friendly" solder, even when they send things to space.

The GTX 970 was released September 18, 2014, so it's impossible to have run for "years".

Good luck and enjoy your "better" hackintosh. Go overcompensate somewhere else.

BTW, you should email Tim with all your contact info so he can sue you into poverty for breaking the license agreements for OSX. Nothing beats bragging about breaking the law, using the english language improperly and posing on the internet.

I said earlier in the thread that I've since upgraded the machine. Obviously, I wasn't using the 970 before it was released...