Intel iMac disassembled...

[minimax]

Don't get me wrong, I truly appreciate Apple's design aesthetics (the internals of my PowerMac G5 are a work of art relative to most computers), but I just don't feel they are truly relevant with the latest iMacs (and iMacs in general). If Apple can make the internals "beautiful" without sacrificing function (and to some extent, price), then great! However, I'm not going to cry if the internals of a machine that 99% of its users will never see are not appropriate to frame and hang on the wall.

..Al

Yes but it tells you something about engineering quality and attention to detail.
But all of this is irrelevant as the pictures shown are that of a disassembled Imac.

 

[macdong]

(Or do you think the iMac's fung sui is important. )

it has been only 15 days into the year of 2006, but i've already found the funniest post of the year

 

[ifjake]

although i'm not entirely certain, from the looks of these pictures it seems like there is slightly more wiggle room in the intel iMacs compared to the G5. (i could be dead wrong.) maybe there's a possibility in the future that the iMac could be even smaller, and that the current design was merely fitting the necessary intel innards into the current form. i'm sure there are guys at Apple working on the next iMac redesign in which tighter spaces may call for more particular placement and design (thinking something similar to the nano). right now i'm sure the main goal was to get it to work. now that they have, they can focus on refining it.

there's probably a lot on Apple's plate right now, and they just need to work on one thing at a time.

again i am just a schmuck who really knows nothing of what he is talking about. i want them to succeed as much as anyone with this switch and stick around as long as possible.

 

[riciad]

I care.

So, no, in of itself the prettiness of the insides don't matter. To consumers, the insides rarely matter. But for the Engineers among us, messy internals hint at the possibility of a sub-optimal design and potential problems.

Now, give me the choice between a Rev. B iMac and a Rev. D (Intel) iMac and I'd choose the Rev. D with barely a pause for thought. But offer me the choice between two iMacs with essentially the same spec. but where one looks like the Rev.D and the other is $100 more but has a beautifully elegant internal layout and I'll choose the later. There is a good possibility that the later machine has a better design and quality and I'm willing to pay a bit extra for that. After all, those are two of the main reasons I buy Apple.

Bit slow replying but only just online. Totally agree. Wish I could have expressed that so succinctly.

 

[Eidorian]

Don't get me wrong, I truly appreciate Apple's design aesthetics (the internals of my PowerMac G5 are a work of art relative to most computers), but I just don't feel they are truly relevant with the latest iMacs (and iMacs in general). If Apple can make the internals "beautiful" without sacrificing function (and to some extent, price), then great! However, I'm not going to cry if the internals of a machine that 99% of its users will never see are not appropriate to frame and hang on the wall.

..Al

I agree with you. I'd rather have a cooler interior than a pretty one. We'll be seeing more people have upgrades to the hard drive and optical drives of the older G5 models. In the Intel model we might see more users leaning toward a CPU upgrade.

I'm just trying to facilitate an understanding for the bashers of the interior. You're not going to be opening it up so it doesn't really matter. Most of the upgrades that we used to make are now coming standard. I'm looking at you RAM and Airport/Bluetooth. Apple even made it EASIER for the average joe user to add more RAM without getting scared.

 

[Ilgaz]

They already have SSE (x) Optimization

Possibly you didn't use windows version of iTunes I see. They display "SSE enabled" in preferences menu.

I really hope benchmarks fail because of a valid reason as guy gave up PPC with Altivec you know.

My comment about article/photos:

I didn't see that sort of "chip on green" equipment since I gave up my P4 1800 for G5 1600 Mac in 2003

Well still glad I did.

 

[Platform]

Exactly. If it makes him feel better, Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest are supposed to be 64-bit.

Well at least there is something better about my month old iMac

 

[maya]

Looks like a rushed hack job.

I believe I am going to hold on to my iMac G5 for a bit longer than I thought.

 

[Ilgaz]

I think you and I are just about the only people on this forum to comprehend that fact. And I swear, it's stressing me out that as a result of the misguided wording of this article, the thousands of readers are soon to think that the Intel iMacs are less nicely designed than the G5 iMacs.

MacRumors - you're misleading people, and to me that's a misuse of power.

Ahem Intel chipset used to power an Intel CPU. Apple no more setting own standards and that is WHAT YOU GET if you use INTEL.

There are amazing machines running Xeons etc but they look just like that!

You all totally aware that there is nothing special on these machines except pretty case with "magnetic" power outlet yes?

It is all you will see. You won't see a custom chipset etc. The best you can expect is stuff looking like these: http://usa.asus.com/products1.aspx?l1=3

They are in fact "luxury" mainboards generally used by home pc building people and some pro workstation companies build Intel stuff.

I remember people saying "oh we only switch CPU". Well no, we switch CPU and move to Intel. Apple has become a sylish Intel OEM having a custom OS.

 

[Eidorian]

Looks like a rushed hack job.

I believe I am going to hold on to my iMac G5 for a bit longer than I thought.

I'm holding out until my PC buds get their new computers. That and more applications to be Universal. I have too many PowerPC apps right now. It's mostly freeware too.

 

[Ilgaz]

Well at least there is something better about my month old iMac

Don't give away that iMac (G5) on eBay etc. If you actually believe that "4x faster" etc stuff , you are making a mistake.

Someone will pick it for dead price and happily encode video etc for years!

Speaking own exprience as a G5 1600 desktop user, just add RAM. Make it like 1.5 GB. You will be happy next 3-4 years. I mean using it fully.

If you get orphaned by Apple (no PPC OS X etc,impossible), sue them

 

[EricNau]

For all who are saying it doesn't matter;
...you would be right, it doesn't really matter; HOWEVER, what is Apple most famous for? -their design. When I show someone what the inside of a Mac computer, they are always impressed. Now that Apple doesn't seem to care about interior design anymore, that is one less positive point for them. (and when people already hate you, that one point can make a big difference)

 

[Platform]

Don't give away that iMac (G5) on eBay etc. If you actually believe that "4x faster" etc stuff , you are making a mistake.

Someone will pick it for dead price and happily encode video etc for years!

Speaking own exprience as a G5 1600 desktop user, just add RAM. Make it like 1.5 GB. You will be happy next 3-4 years. I mean using it fully.

If you get orphaned by Apple (no PPC OS X etc,impossible), sue them

Yeah, no I'm planning having mine far into Leopard

 

[Ilgaz]

OH.

MY.

GOD!!!


I have never seen so much 'tarded fanboisim as on this forum now. This is the kind of crap that gives Mac users a bad name. It's a chip, people. It has NOTHING to do with 'rush', with 'PC' (whatever you think that means), with 'getting comfortable with intel', or anything other than engineering decisions by smart people who know what they're doing.

(snip)

It is running Intel on a standard Intel chipset. People call these "PC" since 1981.

If you mean the engineers claiming G4 500 is 3x faster than P3 500 are smart, we have a problem.
http://web.archive.org/web/19991013065614/apple.com/powermac/processor.html (yep, there, 3x for you)

Let Apple play with its iPods. That's what I say since Mactel announced.

Every machine I bought except PCs had excellent interior design showing it's uniqity.

Let me list

Amiga 500 (1986), Amiga 600 (1991) Amiga 1200 (1993-94), G5 1600 (2003)

See one thing common: They are not common market PCs, they are not Intel, they don't share anything with stuff sold in wal-mart.

(edit) very interesting side note. Why did Apple remove G5 design photo that actually compared it to a Intel (regular PC)? http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Compare it to: http://web.archive.org/web/20031202030649/http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

See the "PC" with macaroni cables all over?

 

[EricNau]

(edit) very interesting side note. Why did Apple remove G5 design photo that actually compared it to a Intel (regular PC)? http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Compare it to: http://web.archive.org/web/20031202030649/http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

See the "PC" with macaroni cables all over?

That pic doesn't work, but I know the one you are talking about. I had been wondering the same thing. After seeing this Intel iMac - I know why.

EDIT: found it on Google...

 

[Eidorian]

Yeah, no I'm planning having mine far into Leopard

Yeah, I think I'll hold out for 10.5 too. I'm the kind of person that buys a new computer each new OS version.

 

[avus]

For all who are saying it doesn't matter;
...you would be right, it doesn't really matter; HOWEVER, what is Apple most famous for? -their design. When I show someone what the inside of a Mac computer, they are always impressed. Now that Apple doesn't seem to care about interior design anymore, that is one less positive point for them. (and when people already hate you, that one point can make a big difference)

As an industrial designer, I can see from both sides - sure, I would like to make everything looking nice, but realistically, many modifications are necessary in a lifespan of any consumer products. Plus, a company must ship a product even with daunting cost and time constrains. No company can ship a product designed from scratch every revision.

This iMac with Intel is a fourth generation product. And it has a new motherboard.

I don't want to use bigger types to scream my point, but I don't agree with so many in this thread who already made up their minds that "Apple doesn't care" just by looking at this 3-year old design.

 

[steve_hill4]

Has anyone seen this?

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=281987

Seems Rosetta and Photoshop are not as slow as expected.

And that's the main point isn't it? If you want a Mac to upgrade, the iMac isn't the natural choice anyway, so if it is messy inside, it wouldn't bother me until it started to effect performance and/or reliability. If Photoshop is running faster under Rosetta than natively on a PPC G4, (I'm thinking this because of my upcoming MacBook), think what we will get under a Universal Binary release of it.

Give Apple and the 3rd party developers time to get things right and then we will truely be able to laugh at the performance of the biege box Windows machines, whilst safe in the knowledge that the Mac OS is also more secure and virus-free.

 

[steve_hill4]

so the intel dual core is a 32 bit processor?
um does anyone else think thats a lil loony?
i mean amd and intel have been in the pc news for the past couple years fighting over whose 64bit processor is better and/or cheaper, so wtf is apple doing downgrading us to 32bits? wasn't that part of the hype of osx? it's a 64bit operating system and whatnot.
i can only pray that they're just entry level chips for this first dance with intel.
if there's a 32bit processor in the Powermac, or whatever they decide to change that name to, then i'll just have to give up on apple. dual core or not, that would straight be ridiculous after the Quad.

No, Merom, Conroe, Woodcrest will be 64-bit and so the true G5 replacements. This is what could frustrate me further down the line when the MacBook Pro goes 64-bit, but since few apps I use often will fully utilise the extra functionality of 64-bit, I should be okay to wait until I want a new Mac, be it desktop or notebook.

 

[steve_hill4]

Exactly. If it makes him feel better, Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest are supposed to be 64-bit.

They will be and Conroe should find it's way into both the iMac and MacTower Pro, with Woodcrest looking more like a server processor. So you get a dual core 64-bit CPU in the iMac and suddenly the Intel switch looks a whole lot better. I personally am doubting the 2x performance of the iMac Core Duo over G5 due to its 32-bit-ness, but if it is fully genuine, we could be looking at 3-4x performance from Conroe over the G5. Stick two of those in a MacTower Pro instead of the 2 Dual Core 2.5GHz G5s and what are we looking at? I would say a minimum of double performance, as long as those Universal Binaries have found their way into most Pro apps by then.

 

[Ilgaz]

No, Merom, Conroe, Woodcrest will be 64-bit and so the true G5 replacements. This is what could frustrate me further down the line when the MacBook Pro goes 64-bit, but since few apps I use often will fully utilise the extra functionality of 64-bit, I should be okay to wait until I want a new Mac, be it desktop or notebook.

Unless Intel doesn't adopt full Altivec functionality, no pentium 64 can "replace" G5.

I try to find a reliable and serious source except newly adopted Intel fan Apple and Altivec fanatics to give you credible info but not lucky tonight.

Only serious source is here: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-unrollav1/

It took SSE3 for Intel to reach the functionality comparable to G4 Altivec while G5 Altivec is not "that good".

Some hardware pros not jumping up and down after Intel announcement and not claiming Altivec is same functionality Cray gives can enlighten us.

Yes, I mean an objective review

Sad thing is, Intel and AMD (lets say x86) has no alternative on common desktop PCs anymore so not worth going too deep analyzing them. I mean IBM or Motorola won't come up and say "There, Altivec II, 5x performance then Intel SSE". Not to general public at least. Scientists will keep using their PowerPC HPC stuff with Yellow Dog.

 

[Stridder44]

That pic doesn't work, but I know the one you are talking about. I had been wondering the same thing. After seeing this Intel iMac - I know why.

EDIT: found it on Google...
View attachment 38840

I had that Gateway model!!! It was quite awesome actually because it was screwless, and the damn thing was made of steel or something because it weighed a ton. Most sturdy, easy to get to case I've ever used...

 

[jouster]

The original G5 was so pretty inside. Everything Rev B and up is just hideous.

Ah, who cares?

They can throw the pieces in with their eyes closed as long as it goes faster, for all I care

 

[ailleur]

Unless Intel doesn't adopt full Altivec functionality, no pentium 64 can "replace" G5.

I try to find a reliable and serious source except newly adopted Intel fan Apple and Altivec fanatics to give you credible info but not lucky tonight.

Only serious source is here: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-unrollav1/

It took SSE3 for Intel to reach the functionality comparable to G4 Altivec while G5 Altivec is not "that good".

Some hardware pros not jumping up and down after Intel announcement and not claiming Altivec is same functionality Cray gives can enlighten us.

Yes, I mean an objective review

Sad thing is, Intel and AMD (lets say x86) has no alternative on common desktop PCs anymore so not worth going too deep analyzing them. I mean IBM or Motorola won't come up and say "There, Altivec II, 5x performance then Intel SSE". Not to general public at least. Scientists will keep using their PowerPC HPC stuff with Yellow Dog.

IBM is your credible source to compare SSE and altivec? Was apple.com your source for mac benchmarks too?

 

[Squozen]

Ilgaz, I'd love to hear what scientific apps you're running on a daily basis that's making you rant about the new iMac so much. From the benchmarks being posted it seems far faster than my current PowerBook and the Rev C iMac I was considering buying for the apps I run.