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Mid-2017 iMac is >600 days old - all time record for an iMac without an update

Fishrrman said:
iTurbo wrote:

"Not liking the T2 chip. Sounds more problematic than any benefit to me."

You have two, and ONLY TWO choices:
1. Buy a 2017 iMac WITHOUT the t2
2. Buy a 2019 iMac WITH the t2.
CHOOSE. (while you still have an option to do so)

Final advice to iTurbo:
If you want an iMac WITHOUT the t2, and WITH user-upgradeable RAM, buy a 2017 27".
But get one with an SSD inside!
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Or do what I did: Take out the 2tb spinning drive portion of the fusion drive and replace it with a 4tb 860 evo. Not all that hard really.

As far as snapping up a 2017 model now, I’m pretty sure that even after the 2019 iMacs are released the 2017’s will still be available in the refurb store for a good long time. So theres no big rush imo.
 
tomscott1988 said:
There's a difference between the iMac being a good machine and paying top dollar for CPUs released in January 2017 and not implemented until June, 2 year old technology when, for the first time since 2012/13 there is a significant performance increase with 8/9th gen CPUs yet these aren't available and your still paying a premium for it.

Same issue with the 7700k throttling, poor cooling performance and that its speculated that these CPUs apple are buying are lower grade and run slower... yet you still pay a 30% premium.

I wouldn't exactly call it ideal.

So really if you want one you have to settle for a mid range CPU, single core is ok but the multi core is literally 5-10% performance difference to 2013/14/15 machines and similar performance to 2009/10 mac pros that can be had for literally a couple of hundred pounds. The only benefit is you get a desktop grade GPU with the 580... but again this is bang in the middle of the road and is hardly ideal to drive a 5k display, it would be perfect for 2k. Again the GPU is based on the 480 that was released in June 2016...

Either way its not something I would be paying £3000 for by the time you add a decent sized SSD and add your own 32gbs ram.
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Hell to the yeah! Finally someone that is seeing what I was seeing some time back. This seems to be a trend of the new crAPPLE. They have been taking money and not giving what really is due and the original apple people seem to have died off, walked away, or something. I feel like what we have left are the 'in crowd' that is willing to wait in line for **** for a week just to get on TV. Those Fu*&^$# will buy anything you sell. I am looking forward to a new imac and I want/need one but to think of the charge upgrade boggles my mind. If the next one doesnt come out soon and isnt willing to not rape me I may just build my own, which I really shouldnt, or go buy a windows again. Shoot me now. what a crappy thought.
 
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Just to add to this thread, I ended up buying a 10 month old base model 3.4 2017 5k iMac on FB for sale. Bagged it for £1150 with the Apple trackpad too also has apple care for another 2 years. Currently retails for £2070+ Apple care.

Its not the fastest thing on earth but it is a lovely machine. As I have stated previously feels similar in performance to my 2010 Mac Pro but Lightroom which is what I primarily use my machines for the performance is pretty poor and stuttery. I think this is an Adobe issue as it seems to be the same across the whole 27" line up including the iMac pro. I think they have scaling issues with the 5K monitor as even with the graphics card option ticked it barely sweats while editing. So many threads on the Adobe forums about it many annoyed iMac pro owners I feel the frustration.

If you run lightroom in an order AKA all the computational stuff at the end - sharpening, noise reduction, lens corrections etc it doesn't run too badly. If you run it in low res mode it runs a treat but its essentially 1080 and its so pixelated its an awful experience and images look so smudgy on that display. Lets be fair you buy these for the resolution but thats what kills the performance.

Just really annoying I usually add these adjustments as a preset at the beginning of the process, it means I dont have to do it 500 odd times in an editing session. Work around is to sync all at the end with those preferences.

I think if I was a casual user I wouldn't complain, but its my bread and butter, I edit thousands of images a week and waiting 1-3 seconds everytime you zoom to 100% and the laggy sliders make accurate edits a a pain to do and image viewer takes ages to scroll through.

If I had paid £2k for it I would have been pretty disappointed and would have returned it.

Photoshop runs well and a 3 minute motion graphic piece I made in After Effects which was pretty intensive, rendered in 14 minutes, 3 minutes faster than my 6 core 12 thread mac pro which I thought was impressive for a 4 core 4 thread machine albeit being 10 years newer. On the other hand my i7-4770 32gb GTX760 gaming PC rendered it in 8 minutes.... so.... ye nearly half the time for a 5-6 year old PC that you could put together for £400.

I added a USB C 3.1G2 Raid 0 enclosure - 2x256gb samsung 840 EVOs - 500gb SSD as a boot drive and put 32gbs of ram in it.

Its primarily for my GF. I understand the appeal, one cable amazing screen everything normal is a treat but do something more intensive on it and it is laggy.

The one downfall is the screen the hardware just doesn't seem powerful enough to run well. 14mp at 60fps...
I added my 2010 ACD which is 2560x1440 and lightroom runs like a dream and the machine feels so much more snappy but you dont buy the 5k imac to run a 1440p screen do you...

Im also pretty impressed with the 1TB fusion, its plenty quick. I moved over my GFs old mac stuff via migration assistant which was bout 700gbs and I would never have known it was a fusion. Im used to running PCI Raid 0 SSDs on my mac pro which runs at 1000+ read and writes feels no different. For the average user I think its a pretty good compromise.

Also have to note that this is the second base iMac I have bought. Also bought one for my father and its been a great machine for him.

I dont think the difference in speeds is worth buying the better CPUs there is like 10-15% difference in ideal conditions but these things throttle anyway and the base stays quiet pretty much all the time.

This base model as standard benched at 4920 and 14365

With 32gbs of ram it boosted the performance by 3-5% 5067 and 15095

This is 2014-2017 macbook pro performance but the graphics performance at the minimum is twice the speed. If you are interested in buying an older macbook pro because you either dont agree with the new prices, annoyed with the poor quality control and the T2 chip the base 2017 iMac might be a decent option.

Currently on eBay 2017 macbook pros run anywhere from £13-1700 and 2013-2016 £500-1300.

Good deal if you can find one.
 
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mikehalloran said:
They're showing up now. Over 20 last week including an i7 with 2TB SSD & 64G RAM.

Only 2 27" 2017s today.
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Well yea, they HAVE been in the refurbished store since late 2017.
All I’m saying is theres no need to ‘rush’ to get one, since they’ll still be avail for a good while even after the 2019 imacs are released.
 
pastimage said:
Always one of you in every crowd
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Hey, listen to this man (me) in the crowd:
I'm using an iMac right now, but I work with Windows everyday at job. It's OK.
My son is needing a computer, his iPad not being enough for some tasks or hobbies. I want to get him an Apple computer, if possible (all family on Apple's "ecosystem", blah, blah). Perhaps I'd pass him my iMac if new models tempt me.
But, mmm, everything is too expensive, just now, to make a change! MacMini would need lots of things to reach a teenager needing...
I don't know, but I feel getting him a Windows PC is the reasonable answer. I wouldn't mind working with Windows, and can override possible complications.
But, giving Windows to a boy, who is going (I know my son) to mess things for sure, scares me.
I'm not against Windows, at all. And I thank "best wishes" given on this, as I suspect the situation could go itchy at home, living with Windows...
Not sure what I'm going to do, anyhow.
Which side am I on??? ;)
 
Plutonius said:
I don't think the iMac or any other (non Mac Pro) Apple computer should get an update until Apple finally updates the Mac Pro.
[doublepost=1548681655][/doublepost]

I've read and re-read this, and just cannot see any logic in the above comment.
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[doublepost=1550482999][/doublepost]
Plutonius said:
I don't think the iMac or any other (non Mac Pro) Apple computer should get an update until Apple finally updates the Mac Pro.
[doublepost=1548681655][/doublepost]

Owners of an iMac (not iMac Pro) should be very happy the iMac hasn't been updated with a T2 chip until Apple solves all the problems. Why would anyone want to spend a lot of money on a computer to be a beta tester.
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I totally agree with your 2nd statement. I'd be very tempted to get an 'as new' 27" 2017 iMac in a year's time, but no way fork out on a new iMac with T2 chip. You can bet your bottom dollar that a new iMac will be problematic for one reason or another - just wait and see........
 
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I’ll probably be pulling the trigger on a 2017 in next 2-3 weeks (waiting on tax refund).

I’d rather skip the T2 chip myself. The new Mini seems plagued with issues (Bluetooth, audio dropouts, coil whine, and T2 panics), so it’s a 2017 iMac which will be a massive step up for me (Screen, better dGPU, SSD inside, more RAM).

The current design doesn’t bother me save for the charging the Magic Mouse 2 which is rather impractical.
 
kazmac said:
I’ll probably be pulling the trigger on a 2017 in next 2-3 weeks (waiting on tax refund).

I’d rather skip the T2 chip myself. The new Mini seems plagued with issues (Bluetooth, audio dropouts, coil whine, and T2 panics), so it’s a 2017 iMac which will be a massive step up for me (Screen, better dGPU, SSD inside, more RAM).

The current design doesn’t bother me save for the charging the Magic Mouse 2 which is rather impractical.
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Get a refurb 2017 then. Good deals. Some of the retailers have been discounting the 2017 models too from time to time.
 
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EugW said:
Uh, what? 2018 saw the release of mainstream 6-core CPUs that would be a drop in update to the 2017 models.

It's one of the biggest CPU speed upgrades in a decade.




You could say that. :cool:

2010 on the left, and 2017 on the right (and MacBook 2017 in the middle)

View attachment 818655

BTW, in that picture, the 2010 iMac is powered by a FireWire 800 SSD, which you can see on the far left. The internal HD is slow by today's standards, but I didn't want to disassemble the iMac to get at it. A FireWire 800 SSD works surprisingly well actually.

View attachment 818653

However, once I got the appropriate cables, I just use the 2010 as an external monitor, as above. No more need for an external boot drive. So, in my case it's actually good that Apple didn't update the design for 2017. I have a dual-screen 27" iMac setup with perfectly matching fronts.
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What a shame there’s no target display mode.
 
Everyone seems to be scared to buy a 2019 iMac with a T2 chip.

I finally ended up buying an iMac Pro as I was tired of waiting a new iMac Mac which is still not out and after one month of use I have never experienced any issue, kernel panic, Bluetooth or any other problem.

Had a 2012 iMac with a ****** Fusion Drive and the speed of the flash storage in the iMac Pro is just amazing comparing to the Fusion Drive.

I do not regret to pass on the 2019 iMac. I am pretty sure that my iMac Pro will still be more powerful than the future iMac 5K
 
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kazmac said:
The current design doesn’t bother me save for the charging the Magic Mouse 2 which is rather impractical.
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Actually, the charging is not that impractical. In a couple minutes, you have enough charge for a couple of hours work.
And one complete charge lasts you several days.
 
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redheeler said:
There's simply no excuse for the long delay between Mac refreshes. Four years for the Mac mini, five years for the Mac Pro, the iMac going eight months with outdated hardware, a nearly four-year-old MacBook Air being sold alongside a new one, etc.

Before Steve Jobs passed away this would've been almost unthinkable. Now it's basically the norm for Apple.
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The outrage if Apple would update their Mac lineup every year for 2-5 % of performance gains, the outrage of over-the-top nerds who absolutely have to have the newest and bestest shiny thing. TEH OUTRAGE!
 
There's been some scuttlebutt about a new 31.5" display (perhaps intended for the Mac Pro).

I wonder if we could see the same display panel in a new iMac?

I'm -guessing- that when the Mac Pro is introduced, the "iMac Pro" will become unnecessary as "a pro model". Folks will buy the modular model instead.

But... perhaps we could see a high end [non "pro"] 31.5" iMac to fill "the space between" the 27" iMacs and the new Mac Pro...?
 
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JoSch said:
Actually, the charging is not that impractical. In a couple minutes, you have enough charge for a couple of hours work.
And one complete charge lasts you several days.
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My inability to use trackpads (arthritis) means I am without a mouse for however long the full charge takes. So for me, it’s impractical.
 
As long as the actual size gets non bigger having a twin display set up at 27 is hard enough to get on a desk as it is lol!
 
Fishrrman said:
There's been some scuttlebutt about a new 31.5" display (perhaps intended for the Mac Pro).

I wonder if we could see the same display panel in a new iMac?

I'm -guessing- that when the Mac Pro is introduced, the "iMac Pro" will become unnecessary as "a pro model". Folks will buy the modular model instead.

But... perhaps we could see a high end [non "pro"] 31.5" iMac to fill "the space between" the 27" iMacs and the new Mac Pro...?
Click to expand...
Yeah. That 31.5" display seems to be real (?) , one of the most detailed rumour about new hardware.
The easy and logical thing to do, for Apple (as it goes) is to offer this display for MacPro and MacMini. It would give them both some extra appeal. Now, when you make a plan around MacMini to get a decent system, you end up turning to iMac, as you get a pretty nice 27" screen with it.
Keeping iMac & iMacPro in 27" makes sense, giving added value to the new monitor, to new MacPro, and to MacMni.
IMHO.
 
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