No 2018 iMac?!

[fathergll]

There's nothing absurd about the Surface Studio pricing. For $200 more you get an adjustable touch screen. In that price range it's hard to justify that the iMac is somehow a better value.

iMac is a better value even it being a year old unless you need the touch screen. Buy a 4.2GHz 8GB 2TB SSD Radeon 580 for $3800. Add in 32GB of your own ram and then you have a 40GB iMac for $700 less than the Studio. Also at that price you are in iMac Pro territory.





Does anyone actually know all of the configurations for the Studio? Can you configure a 1TB SSD with a 8GB video card for example? Or is MicroSoft just allowing a few configs and upsells you on everything.

 

[craigrusse11]

iMac is a better value even it being a year old unless you need the touch screen. Buy a 4.2GHz 8GB 2TB SSD Radeon 580 for $3800. Add in 32GB of your own ram and then you have a 40GB iMac for $700 less than the Studio. Also at that price you are in iMac Pro territory.


Does anyone actually know all of the configurations for the Studio? Can you configure a 1TB SSD with a 8GB video card for example? Or is MicroSoft just allowing a few configs and upsells you on everything.

I understand your sentiment here, but a core i7 with non-raid m.2 ssd and non-ECC ram is nowhere near an iMac Pro. A geekbench score isnt the be-all of a system.

 

[fathergll]

I understand your sentiment here, but a core i7 with non-raid m.2 ssd and non-ECC ram is nowhere near an iMac Pro. A geekbench score isnt the be-all of a system.

Hmm....I'm not suggesting it is. I am saying the price point of iMac or a Surface once above $4k is close to the price of a base iMac Pro(on sale)

 

[Jorbanead]

#1 The new iMac Hex will be a lot more powerful. It will be so close to the iMac Pro performance wise, that they will lose many future iMac Pro customers unless they bump the iMac Pro specs as well.

Not necessarily. The iMP features server-grade cpu's, vega graphics, PCIe SSD and ECC ram. It has professional parts, features and ports. A 6-core iMac may get a little closer to the baseline iMP in theory, but will come with consumer parts, and less features/ports. IMO, there's still many reasons for a pro to get the baseline iMP over a potential 6-core iMac. Plus, the iMP is over 9 months old anyways.

On a separate note...

The 7700K is really pushing the thermals in the current design as it is. I'd guess their cooling solution is rated for a 85-90W TDP (which was fine back in 2013 when the top i7 TDP was 84W), but with 8th and 9th gen CPU's coming in at 95W, they'd at least need to add a second fan. The 8th & 9th gen chips also have a new socket, so they'd have to design a new motherboard. I wouldn't be surprised to see them rid the HDD to make room for more cooling, and go exclusively to SSD going forwards.

 

[hydr]

Apple would have known about the 85-90W TDP a long long time ago. Do you really think "adding a second fan" is their type of pre-planning for their second biggest Mac line?

New motherboard will mean a new iMac design refresh that takes all of that into account, although I expect them to release 8th gen chip and within a few months update to 9th gen chip. Across the board there are a lot of advancements in reducing the bezel, if they can slim the bezel down they will. It will reduce the footprint, packaging, etc - which is a huge deal for a big volume company like Apple. They will easily cannibalise their iMP market for a stellar iMac and or update the iMP line.

And the timing of a new design?
2007 iMac Aluminium
2009 iMac Aluminium Unibody
2012 iMac Slim
2015 iMac Retina
2018 ?

 

[iZeljko]

Apple would have known about the 85-90W TDP a long long time ago. Do you really think "adding a second fan" is their type of pre-planning for their second biggest Mac line?

New motherboard will mean a new iMac design refresh that takes all of that into account, although I expect them to release 8th gen chip and within a few months update to 9th gen chip. Across the board there are a lot of advancements in reducing the bezel, if they can slim the bezel down they will. It will reduce the footprint, packaging, etc - which is a huge deal for a big volume company like Apple. They will easily cannibalise their iMP market for a stellar iMac and or update the iMP line.

And the timing of a new design?
2007 iMac Aluminium
2009 iMac Aluminium Unibody
2012 iMac Slim
2015 iMac Retina
2018 ?

According to this chap an additional fan is not required:

I'd do the same with that iMac if I would have it.

 

[Zdigital2015]

iMac is a better value even it being a year old unless you need the touch screen. Buy a 4.2GHz 8GB 2TB SSD Radeon 580 for $3800. Add in 32GB of your own ram and then you have a 40GB iMac for $700 less than the Studio. Also at that price you are in iMac Pro territory.

Does anyone actually know all of the configurations for the Studio? Can you configure a 1TB SSD with a 8GB video card for example? Or is MicroSoft just allowing a few configs and upsells you on everything.

In the case of the Surface Studio, I just cannot see anyone actually using the touch screen on a day in, day out basis unless the screen is down in the drawing position due to its rather large size. The experience of using a Surface Pro or an iPad Pro can be tiring enough when you are switching between the keyboard and the screen constantly. I have a Surface RT and its touch screen is rarely used, as the touch targets are rather small and fiddly, but the mouse pointer obviates the need for the touch screen for the most part.

There are 3 configurations of the Surface Studio for sale:

* For $3,499 you get a Core i7-7820HQ (Kaby Lake), 16 GB DRAM, 1TB SSD and NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB VRAM.

* For $4,199, you get a Core i7-7820HQ (Kaby Lake), 32 GB DRAM, 1TB SSD and NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB VRAM.

* For $4,799, you get a Core i7-7820HQ (Kaby Lake), 32 GB DRAM, 2TB SSD and NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB VRAM.

There are no BTO options, these are all fixed configurations. I do not know if you can add DRAM to the 16GB version yourself to get it 32GB or not, but I suspect the answer is no.

Although I like the Surface Pen (my mom has a Surface Pro) and the Surface Dial, the premium for just that touch screen and the hinge is far too high considering you are getting a Kaby Lake mobile CPU in the age of 6-core CPUs. The GPU is less bothersome to me considering the GTX 20x0-series has just been released and its prowess is yet to be demonstrated until devs begin taking advantage of ray-tracing tech.

Considering the complaints I read on these forums almost daily about Apple's Mac pricing, I find it ironic to see anyone defend Microsoft's Surface Studio (I or II) pricing.
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Really hope an update comes soon. My desktop machine is a 2011 MBP. After 2 years with a new logic board, I think the GPU is dying again. I used to use a BookArc but switched to the mStand for dual monitors and also some better airflow. Was a little slow lately so I formatted the SSD and reinstalled High Sierra, but now I'm getting constant display glitches and kernel panics. If it completely dies I have my tbMBP but the storage isn't enough on it for my iTunes Library and I haven't migrated it to my NAS just yet. Even if it's just a processor bump, I'll take an 8700K as that's plenty for my needs and I'll throw in more RAM myself as long as the door is still there.

EDIT: 2011 MBP is now dead - external monitor activating the dGPU kills it. Need an iMac soon-ish.

There are ways to force the Late 2011 MacBook Pro to use only the iGPU via boot args on post. Here's the thread on MacRumors - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ntel-integrated-gpu-efi-variable-fix.2037591/ - hope this helps get you through until the new iMac is introduced.
[doublepost=1538839633][/doublepost]

If they introduce the new iMac in Oktober (as I voted on) there is this questions here, that I want to ask:

#1 The new iMac Hex will be a lot more powerful. It will be so close to the iMac Pro performance wise, that they will lose many future iMac Pro customers unless they bump the iMac Pro specs as well. I am wondering how fast an iMac Pro 2 will come up?

@hydr: This is what I call excellent timing!

Should Apple give the iMac 6c/6t, 8c/8t and 8c/16t CPUs, the only update that we can expect to the iMac Pro will be for Apple to move the 10-core Xeon CPU to the base model and introduce a 22-core version of the Xeon W to the top end of the iMac once Intel introduces a Xeon variant of the Core X-Series version this month or next month as rumored - https://www.techradar.com/news/intel-cascade-lake-x

Beyond a 22-core upgrade, there is nothing else suitable for the iMac Pro in Intel's roadmap currently.

Apple does not care about overlap between the iMac or the iMac Pro, you either need an iMac Pro or you don't and if you don't know the answer, then you don't need the iMac Pro. This is a general statement, not a specific one.

 

[Lammers]

New motherboard will mean a new iMac design refresh

The iMac Pro is clearly evidence to the contrary. If Apple doesn’t believe there is a need to change the design then it won’t - it will quite happily ship a new iMac with a new motherboard and the existing physical design.

 

[MaxMike]

There are ways to force the Late 2011 MacBook Pro to use only the iGPU via boot args on post. Here's the thread on MacRumors - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ntel-integrated-gpu-efi-variable-fix.2037591/ - hope this helps get you through until the new iMac is introduced.

I'll look through it more than I have, but I can barely get it to turn on anymore (shuts down after login). Going to try and reflow the board to see if there's any improvement (maybe trade it in for something when we get an iMac update), or I'll put the HDD in an enclosure for any recent files since it's in an OptiBay. Turns out I put more than I thought on my NAS so I'm running my tbMBP with iTunes off the network and things are working fine.

 

[klatox]

I'm guessing (hoping) that Apple is going to skip the 8th generation Coffee Lake and just go for the 9000 series at this point. News is leaking out about the chipset/processors already...it would be pretty lame for them to release a Coffee Lake refresh and then the 9000 series drops the next day...one can hope...

 

[iZeljko]

I'm guessing (hoping) that Apple is going to skip the 8th generation Coffee Lake and just go for the 9000 series at this point. News is leaking out about the chipset/processors already...it would be pretty lame for them to release a Coffee Lake refresh and then the 9000 series drops the next day...one can hope...

The only chip that they need to skip is the T2 chip.

 

[Holmenlund]

IMO, there's still many reasons for a pro to get the baseline iMP over a potential 6-core iMac. Plus, the iMP is over 9 months old anyways.

Would you reconsider the iMP being almost a year old? Or dosent it really matter? I’m not sure to buy the iMac 2018 (If it releases) or the iMP 10 core/64gb/vega64

 

[Dave245]

Any idea how much faster the 2018 iMac's will be against the 2017 versions? also it will be interesting to see what the display upgrade is going to be thats been reported from Ming Chi Kuo.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Domino #1 - https://newsroom.intel.com/articles/learn-about-intels-latest-pc-developments/ - tomorrow at 10:00 AM EDT

Domino #0 - https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/Intel-Z390

ASRock and MSI have also started releasing details about their new Z390 motherboards.

I think that invites could possibly go out this week or next for sure to an Apple Event.

 

[EugW]

Any idea how much faster the 2018 iMac's will be against the 2017 versions?

25% - 50% faster.

That is, if they actually release those 2018 models we've all been predicting...

 

[fokmik]

The iMac Pro is clearly evidence to the contrary. If Apple doesn’t believe there is a need to change the design then it won’t - it will quite happily ship a new iMac with a new motherboard and the existing physical design.

why the imac pro is an evidence?? in 2015 we had no macbook pro redesign, but we had 12" Macbook new design...so not every time the "pro" is an evidence of a redesign. For pro, a better specs is always an welcome note, but for usual/consumer level, a redesign is a better seller

 

[ThisBougieLife]

Hope we hear something soon Getting kind of pessimistic about this. They could just decide to not realize iPads or iMacs until next spring.

 

[SkiHound2]

Any idea how much faster the 2018 iMac's will be against the 2017 versions? also it will be interesting to see what the display upgrade is going to be thats been reported from Ming Chi Kuo.

I think it'll depend a lot on the application(s) being used. The i5s go to 6 core, the i7s add hyperthreading. For applications that can make use of multiple cores/threads, the 8th generation cpus benchmark quite a bit faster. Benchmarks I've looked at for single core processing are more dependent on clock speed. My take is that for most of the things most of us do most of the time, any of the the cpus will be more than adequate and perceived speed will be more influenced by things like ssds.

 

[EugW]

I think it'll depend a lot on the application(s) being used. The i5s go to 6 core, the i7s add hyperthreading. For applications that can make use of multiple cores/threads, the 8th generation cpus benchmark quite a bit faster. Benchmarks I've looked at for single core processing are more dependent on clock speed. My take is that for most of the things most of us do most of the time, any of the the cpus will be more than adequate and perceived speed will be more influenced by things like ssds.

Where speed actually matters, the 6-core models will usually be a big improvement. For other stuff where speed doesn't matter, you'd be fine with a 2014 iMac.

 

[MathewM]

Hope we hear something soon Getting kind of pessimistic about this. They could just decide to not realize iPads or iMacs until next spring.

I guarantee that Apple will not update the iMac to anywhere near the specs many people are clamoring for. They won't because it will make the standard iMac that much closer in performance to the iMac Pro. If anything they will do a re-design slimming down the size and stripping away ports to make it more consumer centric. But hey that will get the slimmer bezels all the fanbois are desiring.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

Reading these forums will make you pessimistic. I guarantee that Apple will not update the iMac to anywhere near the specs many people are clamoring for. They won't because it will make the standard iMac that much closer in performance to the iMac Pro. If anything they will do a re-design slimming down the size and stripping away ports to make it more consumer centric. But hey that will get the slimmer bezels all the fanbois are desiring.

Honestly I'd be okay with a bump to Coffee Lake and thinner bezels. I'm not asking for much else. It's not that I have a problem with the current iMac, it's just that I want an iMac now and don't want to buy last year's. When I used last year's model, I thought it was plenty powerful.

 

[fokmik]

We will know more this Monday - Wednesday . If the event its on 16/17 October, then the invites will be out this upcoming week

 

[Dave245]

I think it'll depend a lot on the application(s) being used. The i5s go to 6 core, the i7s add hyperthreading. For applications that can make use of multiple cores/threads, the 8th generation cpus benchmark quite a bit faster. Benchmarks I've looked at for single core processing are more dependent on clock speed. My take is that for most of the things most of us do most of the time, any of the the cpus will be more than adequate and perceived speed will be more influenced by things like ssds.

So are we talking 6 cores the same as this years MacBook Pro’s? Be interesting to see. I wonder if the graphics card will also get a big update this year? 2017 high end version has an 8GB card, for everyday stuff that seems more than enough. My guess is in fact the middle range with 4GB is probably enough, of course it will probably depend on if people are also gaming and what games, the most I play is a game called Two Point Hospital, that plays on my current 2012 iMac so it can’t be that much of a power hungry game.

Video editing in Final Cut Pro will probably be the biggiest draw and possibly photo editing in Photoshop. I’m interested to see if Apple redesign the iMac this year or just give it a spec update. My guess is invites will go out for an October event soon, if indeed there is going to be one!

 

[hassel]

Apple should've had a refresh ready for WWDC.

When Apple do refresh the line they will also refresh the price, ie bump it up like have done with the macbooks last time. so there's nothing wrong with buying now.

 

[Jorbanead]

I guarantee that Apple will not update the iMac to anywhere near the specs many people are clamoring for. They won't because it will make the standard iMac that much closer in performance to the iMac Pro.

I disagree. The iMP will always have an edge. Xeon, Vega, ECC, 10gb Ethernet, 128gb Ram, 4 USB-c & 4 USB-3 will trump any high end iMac configuration for professional use. The iMP is targeting professionals ($5k and up), whereas a high-end iMac would target the prosumer customers (under $3k), and baseline iMac for the regular consumer (under $1.5k)

Also keep in mind the standard iMac is typically an i5 processor. Only the high end, built-to-order options would have the i7 or i9, and still would not have anywehre near the pro features found in the iMP.