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No 2018 iMac?!
- Thread starter Internet Enzyme
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- 2018 2019 configuration imac
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There is zero consensus in this thread. Have you read the amount of ideas that have littered through the last 550+ posts? No one will know for sure until it is released. There is speculation that if they do A or B, then the RAM door will be gone.
As cwanja replied, there is zero consensus. I outlined three scenarios, but just like everyone else, I have no more of a clue than anyone else here, no special insight. It could literally go either way.
In order for Apple to move the iMac to Coffee Lake CPUs (8th-Gen or 9th-Gen, doesn't matter), Apple has to design a new motherboard to replace the outgoing 2017 iMac, because Coffee Lake CPUs only work with 300-Series PCH and the 2017 iMac is using either a 100-Series or 200-Series PCH. Also, Intel discontinued the Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller a while ago (although I cannot find that article), in favor of the new Titan Ridge TB3 controller - https://www.anandtech.com/show/12228/intel-titan-ridge-thunderbolt-3
Now designing a motherboard for a new PCH, controller and CPU is not a trivial thing, but it is not a hard thing for Apple's engineers. I am assuming that since this effort needs to be put in anyways, that engineering time would also be allocated to thermal management give that the TDP for the CPUs has climbed to 95w for the unlocked CPUs.
Therein lies the rub. If Apple needs to spend time on the iMac's thermals, did Apple decide it was time to move the iMac over to the same chassis as the iMac Pro, which is machined differently? This would save time and money, I would think. One is painted Silver, the other Space Grey. There are no longer two production lines, which means iMac Pro can ramp down if needed to keep up with iMac orders during the holiday season. NOTE: I am inferring a lot and I could be all wet as I have no clue exactly how Apple supply chain works.
On the other hand, Apple may not care to make a changeover and took bits and piece of what it learned with the iMac Pro to make a few tiny changes internally that do not require anything more than different fan placement and a larger top exhaust vent that can be changed relatively easily.
Honestly, it's a quarter toss at this point. I do hope that they leave the RAM access doors. It is not a dealbreaker for me, but it will make it hard to justify upgrading any time soon.
If it is just a CPU spec bump, plus true tone then the iMac will be in one of the worst positions it has been in, in a long time. True tone on a desktop is irrelevant to me, and in my opinion the feature doesn't really do much on my iPhone X and iPad anyway.
The iMac really needs at least a redesign and better cooling. I'm sceptical it will get either given how new 6 core CPUs were crammed into the MBPs which have terrible cooling.
If the custom 8 core Xeon that Apple have specified coincidentally fits into a lower TDP envelope it might be an irrelevance as the fans have to be designed to cool the highest SKU as well. A half way house fan solution in the regular iMac may well allow use of 2.5" hard drives while cooling the hotter 6 (or 8) core machines better and retaining the RAM door. I'd say that the cooler running 65w Intel CPUs are a better option while spending that budget saved on a VEGA GPU in the regular iMac though.
As for the 21.5" iMac...
Apple will probably get great discounts on the common desktop CPUs and add GPUs to the mix - there's enough room on the motherboard in a desktop unit and staying with desktop CPUs in the 21.5" model is a good cost cutting measure rather than trying to go custom with a mobile chipset unless a change in form factor is on the horizon - Apple's use of mobile CPUs in the base 21.5" iMac has been about segmentation - making the middle SKU look more appealing - rather than cost cutting.
If the base model 21.5" is to get 4k screen then Apple will have to decide on the minimum spec to drive that screen - and it could end up being something like a 28w CPU with Iris Graphics rather than something like the 15w i5-8250U with discrete GPU. It completely depends on how they wish to spec out that range.
Kaby Lake G would be an interesting project for use in the 21.5" range - the top two SKUs for example - but would it be as cost effective as buying in a cheap desktop CPU and adding discrete GPU? There's no restriction on motherboard size, the TDP limit on the 21.5" iMac is probably more like 100w (65w CPU plus discrete GPU). There's no reason why Apple wouldn't continue this arrangement unless they were planning on making the iMac 21.5" range even thinner to fit into a 65w TDP but they could still use T series CPUs which only need 35w TDP and still add their own discrete GPU.
I read an interesting article about the lack of Kaby Lake G proliferation in PCs and laptops this year. The long and short of it appears to be based around Intel's use of last year's quad core CPUs tied to decent if unremarkable graphics with the curio of HBM on top. Apple's iMac 21.5" might be equally served by sticking to their traditional use of desktop 6 core CPU and adding a GPU which would perform higher for cheaper.
The unit cost of the Kaby Lake + G might not be a strong advantage over a cheaper desktop CPU plus discrete graphics while an iMac 21.5" - unless a redesign to use a lower 65w heat envelope is on the cards - doesn't need. The same 65w heat envelope won't fit into the existing Mac Mini case unless Apple re-engineer that too but then we're into the realm of a Mini that would be immensely popular for professional users on a budget - where does that leave the iMac 21.5"?.
The Kaby Lake G would have been an interesting unit to insert into a laptop but Apple haven't chosen to use it - preferring the rather more obvious benchmarking benefits of 6 cores 12 threads over 4 cores, 8 threads. I did moot that Apple could introduce a MacBook 15" line with the 65w variant of this CPU but it would strongly depend on the cost of it versus the i7-8750H used in the base MacBook Pro 15" for example.
The 15" MacBook Pro would need to add the discrete GPU whereas the Kaby Lake G would have to be significantly cheaper and more compact to allow for a thinner and cheaper Macbook offering. Interestingly, the Kaby Lake G persists with DDR4 2400 RAM only (up to 64Gb of it) which the 15" MacBook Pro adopts for the 'pro' user.
If HP can make a Spectre x360 with the Kaby Lake G for reasonable money could Apple use it too? There's a review out there that makes a note of heat and noise which might have killed it for an Apple product though. An alternate view of a Dell product with this in it seems to concur.
Therefore for these reasons Apple is much more sensitive to heat and noise from fan cooling so may have decided to ignore the Kaby Lake G in favour of sticking with Intel's Iris Graphics variants or a discrete GPU in most use cases. I'd therefore imagine an i5-8269U in a 15" MacBook before the Kaby Lake G - the ARK site lists it at $320 before any Apple discount is applied - and in a 15" bodyshell Apple could switch to 32Gb of DDR4 RAM too if they weren't segmenting.
The same i5-8269U CPU would go down a treat in the existing Mac Mini case but the design budget limits there would eliminate the low end SKU which might be tied to a shareholder requirement to hit $499.
Finally, Apple will have knowledge of Intel's future road map concerning the Kaby Lake G - if that CPU is a one off stunt SKU they ought not to be interested and stick with the traditional CPU configurations, especially since other PC manufacturers will be showing off their own 6 core PCs which own them in many benchmarks.
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I've always been of the view that the iMac Pro is the next gen iMac in waiting - any other redesign of the iMac will make the iMac Pro look dated. You have to remember that they've already done it with the 21.5" iMac, the laptops went that way ages ago as well as the Mac Mini. It's Apple's way of raising the average selling price - a nice easy profit there.
Apple would have to figure out some way of squeezing hard drives in there though.
The 27" iMac is the last bastion of replaceable RAM in the Mac range - I say replaceable in the event that a stick goes bad - short of buying a Mac Pro.
The other way that Apple could go is to raise minimum RAM spec to 16Gb and price the 27" iMac accordingly to get their higher average selling price while 'allowing' users to upgrade themselves to 64Gb.
Now, perhaps Apple from their own testing know that the 95w i5 and i7 CPUs run hotter (and secondarily with years of reports of inadequate cooling for power users) and created the design currently in use with the iMac Pro. They could just as easily make it business as usual and carry on with the existing design and professionals who use video editing apps will moan about the excessive heat (not much changes there).
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For professional photographers and anyone else needing colour accuracy True Tone is an irrelevance. 'Better' cooling is something professional users have been levelling at Apple for years but it now seems to have arrived on the iMac Pro at the expense of hard drives.
A possible candidate is ProMotion from the iPad Pros (i.e., up to 120Mz screens). DisplayPort 1.2a added AdaptiveSync. A specific implementation and certification of that is foundation for Freesync. Smoother scrolling, less 'ripping' if the GPU gets out of sync with the screen refresh.
They may pick up some official HDR classification branding, but that is probably more labeling than change.
I'm not sure I'd classify that as performance. Advance controls could tweak the white balance before. This is somewhat more so an automation of those controls.
Probably aligned with the question of whether every new iMac ( or perhaps limited to the iMac 27" ) has a SSD present. if SSD is always present then modern Apple SSDs are implemented in part with a T2 chip.
Similarly if there were base configurations that were lower end HDD only ( to maximally shave costs ), then probably not.
10.14 adds APFS support to Fusion drives so if Apple chose that as the entry/basic floor storage configuration then SSDs would be present in every configuration.
Since this is an anniversary year for iMac, it would be odd to have queued up something.
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Optane using Intel's "native' drive tech ( ? Rapid Storage Technology)? Probably not coming.
16GB is a bit small for Apple's Fusion drive ( if keep the current objective of putting sleep memory mirror/backing store on the SSD. the Cache needs to be substantively bigger than the memory footprint ). So if have on average a 16GB iMac then 16GB is 'gone' right there. Min working store is closer to 32GB with that kind of footprint.
It would be nice if someone built a "make your own SSHD" thunderbolt enclosure. A slot for M2. ( Optane ) and 2.5' or 3.5" drive and some simple logic in front of those that presents as two drives on shared PCI-e switch ( Optane and SATA-PCIe bridge ) for APFS to 'fuse'.
It is unlikely though that Apple is going to try to expand their SSD controller technology to cover Xpoint/Optane type storage. And I don't see Apple letting any non Apple SSDs into the iMac going forward. (except if selling ' last years tech ' at lower prices ). For better or worse Apple is pragmatically in the SSD drive making business now and I don't think they are going to leave tons of options for 3rd parties to play a role in booth drives.
Optane could have a role in a Mac that had 2nd (or more) SSD drive. I suspect that will be filled by the Mac Pro in the future.
Spinning hard disks are probably more trouble than they're worth for Apple to support (internally) going forward. They're huge compared to most other components in a Mac (even 2.5" drives are biggish, but iMacs actually support 3.5" drives, which are much larger than anything except a screen), and they're the most unreliable component in a computer - the only moving part other than a fan.
They are also easy to connect externally. Any reasonable modern interface (USB 3.0 or better) can connect any single spinning drive (even corner cases like the rare VelociRaptor drives) without loss of performance. USB 3.1 can handle small and medium sized RAIDs, even of fast drives, and it takes a huge RAID to cause Thunderbolt 3 to bottleneck. There is no reason to put something like this on a faster internal bus, when any possible (non-stupid) external connection can handle it.
Depending on the timing of an iMac redesign, I'd expect at least the 27" to lose internal spinners (whether it uses mobile chips, or gains more cores and better cooling). If they go for a mobile chip based design, they'll be cutting internal volume to eliminate bezels and/or the chin. If they go for more cooling to keep up with the 8700K or 9700K, it'll be related to the iMac Pro, and at least some of the space the hard drive took up will go to fans and ductwork.
The 21.5" may keep the spinners, because the lowest-end models are extremely cost-sensitive. It's unlikely to see a redesign that keeps them, but it could skip a redesign the 27" got, or it might get split (e.g 13" MBP, which now exists in a quad-core version with the touch bar and an economy model that lacks the controversial touch bar, but is dual-core). I could easily see Apple introducing a new design - but the lowest 21.5" configurations not getting it. This is already partially true, as the cheapest 21.5" iMac is both dual-core and non-Retina. It is not a stretch to see spinning drive added to that list of anomalies.
They are also easy to connect externally. Any reasonable modern interface (USB 3.0 or better) can connect any single spinning drive (even corner cases like the rare VelociRaptor drives) without loss of performance. USB 3.1 can handle small and medium sized RAIDs, even of fast drives, and it takes a huge RAID to cause Thunderbolt 3 to bottleneck. There is no reason to put something like this on a faster internal bus, when any possible (non-stupid) external connection can handle it.
Depending on the timing of an iMac redesign, I'd expect at least the 27" to lose internal spinners (whether it uses mobile chips, or gains more cores and better cooling). If they go for a mobile chip based design, they'll be cutting internal volume to eliminate bezels and/or the chin. If they go for more cooling to keep up with the 8700K or 9700K, it'll be related to the iMac Pro, and at least some of the space the hard drive took up will go to fans and ductwork.
The 21.5" may keep the spinners, because the lowest-end models are extremely cost-sensitive. It's unlikely to see a redesign that keeps them, but it could skip a redesign the 27" got, or it might get split (e.g 13" MBP, which now exists in a quad-core version with the touch bar and an economy model that lacks the controversial touch bar, but is dual-core). I could easily see Apple introducing a new design - but the lowest 21.5" configurations not getting it. This is already partially true, as the cheapest 21.5" iMac is both dual-core and non-Retina. It is not a stretch to see spinning drive added to that list of anomalies.
I made that suggestion in a previous post. It would not surprise me and others feel the same way.
If it is, you’ll get a nice deal with the 2017 models once the new one hits.
I don’t think so....I still think the iMac Pro would outsell the new Mac Pro. As long as Apple remains diligent in refreshing the iMac Pro often, there will be a place for it. But I feel that the entry price ought to be lowered a bit as to fit comfortably between an iMac and a Mac Pro.
Apple's current Fusion Drives already use 24GB of PCIe (AHCI) based storage while working with the 1TB HDD and 128GB of PCIe (AHCI) based storage while working with the 2TB and 3TB HDDs. The only real moves I can see Apple making is to reinstate the 128GB of PCIe storage on the 1TB HDD tier, move the PCIe storage from AHCI to NVMe and also convert the Fusion drives to APFS in any updated iMacs, which would mean they are shipping them with macOS Mojave from the factory.
No disrespect to Intel, but I am not sure exactly what Optane would bring to the table that PCIe (NVMe) storage does not already with respect to Apple's Fusion Drives. Any further speed increases for Apple would be from moving to NVMe for the storage itself and moving the SSD Controller to the T2 chip. The fly in the ointment is that whole disk encryption without a performance penalty is not realistic using a spinning HDD and a small amount of flash storage, although Apple would have to be the final word on that.
I'm sure some folks wish that was true. But probably will not happen; at least as long as folks buy the iMac Pro in reasonably large enough numbers to justify Apple to continue to make them.
No, it isn't.
"...
Notebooks are by far and away our most popular systems used by pros.
Second on the list is iMacs — used by pros, again by the people who use professional software day in, day out, not just casually.
Third on the list is Mac Pro. Now, Mac Pro is actually a small percentage of our CPUs — just a single digit percent. However, we don’t look at it that way. ..."
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/t...-john-ternus-on-the-state-of-apples-pro-macs/
So iMacs is the second biggest "Pro" category they have. So having a "Pro" specific machine in that class is exactly why the iMac Pro had development priority resources and the Mac Pro did not. That isn't out of 'thin air'..... some more quotes
"... a huge fraction of what would’ve traditionally required the Mac Pros of old and are being well addressed by iMac — whether its audio editing, video editing, graphics, arts and so forth. But there’s still even further we can take iMac as a high performance, pro system, and we think that form factor can address even more of the pro market. ...
...
At the same time, so many of our customers were moving to iMac that we saw a path to address many, many more of those that were finding themselves limited by Mac Pro through a next generation iMac. And really put a lot of our energy behind that."
The "lot of our energy" is the time , effort, and resources. It was a priority. That trend to iMac is Apple following what folks are buying. Not everyone from Mac Pro space was moving, but it probably enough of a growth market to be worth the time and effort.
However, the iMac Pro has several of the same constraints that Apple said in that same session got the Mac Pro 2013 "designed into a corner". Limitations on how powerful a single GPU can put into the system. ( iMac Pro has about the same upper limit on system power supply).. The thermal system on iMac Pro is 100% overlapped for the CPU and GPU , but exit point is close enough for some overlap (and transfer if heat workloads are way too far apart. ). Even more limited upgrades path for users. The iMac Pro is a better iteration on several of the things the Mac Pro 2013 tried to do ( literal desktop system. Power optimized for the space. only a single GPU this time. more decoupled thermals. etc. ). Many of the folks who were OK with a Mac Pro 2013 will probably be happen with the iMac Pro. It will probably remain the cleaner, powerful enough, desktop solution. There is also separation from regular iMac is get past fixation on simple core counts. Double/Triple digit RAM capacity then ECC has benefits. More bandwidth.
But that isn't the same space as most of the folks 'circling the airport' in Mac Pro 2010-2012 models are in. That is actually another system which Apple started to work on much later (like 2017). There won't be absolutely perfect segmentation between new Mac Pro and the iMac Pro, but there are definitely folks in the "never, ever" buy an integrated monitor camp, have to be able to open the case, need more than just 500W of power, etc. camp. Apple could sell both up in this much less price sensitive space ( people will buy more on requirements fit than on 'cheaper').
Some folks were leaving Mac Pro space for iMacs anyway. A new Mac Pro won't necessarily completely negate that trend. That trend probably didn't suddenly pop up in 2013 either. The notion that a new Mac Pro will completely implode the iMac Pro market is a bit overblown. Apple will have to carefully position them, but they are separate segments.
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Lower latency ( they already are NVMe but the Flash chips have latency that Optane/XPoint doesn't ). Random or multiple, concurrent streams ( which pragmatically can present at random to the drive ) are faster. Wear is also less of the problem. 24GB-32GB writing all of it, every day in non trivial/predictable workloads will work better with XPoint over time. With a Flash caching system the algorithm is likely going to be highly selective in what it chooses to cache. It will pick certain things and try to stick with that for longer periods of time.
Apple SSD though will probably be cheaper ( at least for Apple. Since T2 is somewhat expensive for a SSD drive controller it probably will cost more if Apple went that route, but the sub-function of drive controller... actually probably not if broken out separate. ).
HDD isn't a problem if can ask the T2 to do the work directly. For example pass to the T2 a command to "get block 22 from the HDD at this PCI-e address and send me back the decrypted stuff". Yeah the data/command has to travel to the T2 then to HDD to T2 and then to memory but the HDD is relatively so glacially slow ( compared to x4 PCI-e data rate ) that it is miniscule. If throw any kind of random access sequence at the HDD that overhead is just noise.
Even if have to toss the retrieved block from memory to T2 and back ( "decrypt this block please" ) compared to a random HDD access time it also pretty close to noise. the decrypt time is close to nothing and it is really the time to and back from the T2 on a x4 PCI-e v3 connection. The latter isn't slow.
Think of a hardware RAID controller where the computer asks for a block the RAID controller gets that request goes out and finds it from HDD and passes it back. That to T2 and back for decryption is basically the same thing on a faster much faster bus than the HDD is hooked to.
It isn't going to be any slower then if encrypt an HDD that isn't Fusion (if have to toss all the blocks to T2 for decryption).
I'll be following this thread now after having many problems with my 2018 MacBook Pro. I have a replacement on its way but if I have the same issues then I'll be going for a refund and rethinking my Mac situation. I'd love an iMac but, personally, I refuse to buy an iMac in its current form. It's a great machine but it's desperate for a redesign, both for cooling and to make it look like it's a relatively modern machine (which matters to some). It already feels like a redesign is overdue but if it remains the same for another year or so it's being stretched a little far, especially as Apple have a much better cooling solution in the iMac Pro. Anyway, we'll see, I guess. That said, you'd think the iMac Pro would get the new design (at least visual) first. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
One thing I'm not excited about is when they say it has the revolutionary T2 chip that's been a pain for many iMac Pro users and is a current issue with the new MacBook Pros. Hopefully it's software, though.
One thing I'm not excited about is when they say it has the revolutionary T2 chip that's been a pain for many iMac Pro users and is a current issue with the new MacBook Pros. Hopefully it's software, though.
A huge fraction of what would have traditionally required the Mac Pro is now being well addressed by HP and Dell workstations running MacOS because the trashcan was a train wreck from start to finish and should have been superseded in 2016.
i had 3 windows laptop and 1 mac. I do hope mac can overlast 3 windows year like people here. I do want macbook before but upon advise from my colig i take imac. For most my demanding task, base imac 2017 done it well.For me external ssd and no keyboard issue main priority. If future i want to do video editing i just may get external gpu and using with da vinci. I have try imovie and final cut pro for 30 days. It just dam weird for me. Da vinci with match adobe premier layout make me on home again.
Re "the future" of the iMac Pro...
I'm going to take a -guess- (ONLY "a guess") that the "iMac Pro" was pretty much a one-off design to fill the gap left by there having been no Mac Pro update for four+ years.
I will also guess that the "innards" of the Pro design (in particular, the new cooling assembly) will end up being migrated to the "regular" iMac line, which become substantially faster but not be labeled as the iMac "Pro" any longer.
I could be wrong.
I'm going to take a -guess- (ONLY "a guess") that the "iMac Pro" was pretty much a one-off design to fill the gap left by there having been no Mac Pro update for four+ years.
I will also guess that the "innards" of the Pro design (in particular, the new cooling assembly) will end up being migrated to the "regular" iMac line, which become substantially faster but not be labeled as the iMac "Pro" any longer.
I could be wrong.
The context that quote was taken from was about the whole Mac market. It wasn't about the 2015-2017 Mac Pro market only. It is also about overall trends in the personal computer industry.
In that context, it is not a huge fraction. That quote is over a substantial amount of time over the whole Mac market. By 2009-2010 Apple was selling far more laptops than they sold desktops. Over this century overall, most Mac users have moved from "box wtih slots" to some sort of "all-in-one" Mac device ( whether laptop or iMac). Many folks didn't have a choice if wanted a Mac with a desktop processor capabilities in the pre 2008 timeframe iMacs were not an option. Similar for entry-mid desktop range GPU capabilities, pre 2015 iMacs were not an option. Over the last 9 years the context of the overall market has change ( not just for Apple, the whole classic personal computer market. )
Of what was left after most of those folks went to the "lower" options in the product line up, sure a decent chunk of that has gone Windows workstation because couldn't wait. But a huge fraction of 1% is still small (less than 1%). A 25% bolt rate of 1% is 0.75% left. It doesn't really move the needle for Apple's revenues , unit numbers , or profits significantly. In the context of the overall Mac market, it is not a huge fraction.
Several Mac products should have been superseded ( seen substantive upgrades ) in 2016-2017 timeframe, but were not. A decent fraction of the Mac line up was ( and still is) in comatose zone. Part of that is Apple under resourcing the Mac products, but I suspect part of that is a trend of users buying upgrades more slowly ( the computers are "fast enough" for a growing number of users ) with Apple taking their foot off the gas to match that rate. ( I don't think that slow down is extremely well matched. And it conflicts with their corporate policy of only talking about finished products; so they have to "do something" to communicate. Doing nothing means stop talking and that can't be for too long. )
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Probably wrong. The iMac Pro innards cost substantially more than classic iMac innards. Apple is not going to 'give' those away for free. It is quite unlikely Apple is going to push the standard iMac prices up $800-1000 ( or higher). Many people will stop buying them.
Technology does change over time. So as the mainstream CPU and GPU get better, a future ( 3-4 years ) down the road iMac covering the performance range the current iMac Pro does? A decent subset of that, yes. However, similar improvements would be available to the iMac Pro also. That future one would be able to do even "bigger" jobs. As long as the iMac Pro can "move farther" and there are enough folks who want to pay to go farther, then it has a solid position.
( The bigger issue is how many users' workloads are plateauing relative to available performance at the mainstream level. Some new workloads or applications will have to appear over time. 5-10 years down the road exactly what that is hard to tell, but new stuff has tended to appear historically. )
iMac Pro having only SSD drives. That's coming to all Macs within the next 5 years ( if Apple keeps the current pricing levels across the board).
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I just keep thinking back to the complaints about the lack of any new mac pro which I really believe led to the imac pro just to have something out there that didn't take too much redesigning. The only reason I see to have the imac pro continue after mac pro comes out is the 5k screen for those that like the form factor. The rest of it is already compromised and for the same price you should be able to eventually get a much more flexible "pro" box of some sort I would think.
Server parts like error checking ram etc, are only going to appeal to a select few either way. I think the imac pro sales will start trailing from the release year sales, especially if they bump the imac again. I'd also be surprised if spinners survive into 2019 in any imacs.
Server parts like error checking ram etc, are only going to appeal to a select few either way. I think the imac pro sales will start trailing from the release year sales, especially if they bump the imac again. I'd also be surprised if spinners survive into 2019 in any imacs.
Didn’t take too much engineering?
My thoughts are the opposite. Even though the case outer dimensions remained the same it must have been quite a lot of work to design completely new motherboard and squeeze an 18 core Xeon + Vega in that case with decent cooling.
My thoughts are the opposite. Even though the case outer dimensions remained the same it must have been quite a lot of work to design completely new motherboard and squeeze an 18 core Xeon + Vega in that case with decent cooling.
Uh, please clarify what you mean? That the iMac Pro loses the Pro moniker and people will be able to specify a 27” iMac with a Xeon CPU? And that Apple will not update the current iMac (Silver) to Core i7-8xxx or i7/i9-9xxx CPUs? That makes zero sense.
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I expect spinning HDDs to make it in the iMac until Apple does a full redesign, which I would bet will not happen until the A-Series CPUs can match the current Core CPUs currently in the iMac, unless Apple considers the iMac a “truck” and then it will probably stay Intel until 2022-2024.
FWIW, I suspect the 2019 Mac Pro to start at either 22c/44t or 28c/56t (Purley/LGA-3467) and the base model w/o monitor to start at $6999.
EDIT: Depending on the “modular” nature of the 2019 Mac Pro, I would concede that the base models may use the Xeon W-series and start at $4999. The "Base" module might start with a 10-Core, 32GB of DRAM and 1TB Storage and 2-3x PCIe slots. I am pretty convinced that the GPU will be a separate module that you BTO, starting with a Vega 56, up to Vega 64, then a WX9100...maybe higher once AMD introduces the Radeon Instinct "Vega" 7nm on a PCIe 4.0 bus.
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Interesting. I did not know they'd have to change the motherboard for the new processor. Perhaps that's why we didn't see new models at the time of the MB Pro release.
The 27 inch regular iMac is the only Mac with upgradeable RAM I believe, or at least that is currently being sold by Apple. Would be a shame if they solder it on for the 2018 (and going forward) models.
Well, Apple could do away with the RAM door, but still socket the RAM, as it does in the iMac Pro, making it difficult to expand the RAM after purchase, but possible.
I see that possibility. Sort of a compromise. Still ends up being more expensive to change the RAM, because I don’t think you can bring your own RAM to Apple for service. Maybe to the authorized service provider...