No 2018 iMac?!

[krazzix]

I'm also waiting for a new iMac.

But there are no new graphics cards which they can use:

• AMD Vega? Already in pro and normal iMac won't handle. Especially when they change the form factor to be even slimmer.
• Nvidia? Don't think so. Apple lets AMD create GPU's for them now, like they did with the Pro. And even if they did switch to Nvidia, I doubt that they would put an >2 year old card in a new iMac. New Nvidia cards are far away still.
• No new GPU? Doubt that, never happened before.

So the only alternative is waiting for AMD's new Navi GPU, which won't be available before Q1 2019. Even with a special deal with Apple, they probably won't be earlier than that.

So my guess is WWDC 2019

 

[stillcrazyman]

I'm hopeful there will be something worth upgrading to. My Late 2012 27" iMac still runs fine, but it's a matter of how long it will last... previous Macs I've had lasted 7-8 years, so I might have a bit more time.

Learning to be patient.....

 

[mreg376]

I'm hopeful there will be something worth upgrading to. My Late 2012 27" iMac still runs fine, but it's a matter of how long it will last... previous Macs I've had lasted 7-8 years, so I might have a bit more time.

Learning to be patient.....

Yeah, I gave up waiting and bought my 2017 a few months ago. Of course I was running a 2007 iMac, so I had even more patience than you. Apple could of course surprise later this year but I'm afraid you may have to wait until sometime in 2019 for new models.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

Yeah, I gave up waiting and bought my 2017 a few months ago. Of course I was running a 2007 iMac, so I had even more patience than you. Apple could of course surprise later this year but I'm afraid you may have to wait until sometime in 2019 for new models.

See, I’ve never had a desktop mac. Im just sick and tired of my 2015 macbook pro and its awful cpu and gpu and am eyeing that 2017 5k 4.2ghz 580 sku. But i cant get myself to drop $3000 on year old hardware. At this point, 2019 seems more likely, leaving a packed wwdc with a new mac pro, imac, and possibky even a mac mini. This is kind of frustrating, but i guess i have to deal with it if i want something thats bleeding edge.

 

[mreg376]

See, I’ve never had a desktop mac. Im just sick and tired of my 2015 macbook pro and its awful cpu and gpu and am eyeing that 2017 5k 4.2ghz 580 sku. But i cant get myself to drop $3000 on year old hardware. At this point, 2019 seems more likely, leaving a packed wwdc with a new mac pro, imac, and possibky even a mac mini. This is kind of frustrating, but i guess i have to deal with it if i want something thats bleeding edge.

Haha yes. But time flies you know. After you get your 2019 iMac, quickly enough it will be a year old and no longer bleeding edge (if Apple is ever bleeding edge). But you will have tortured yourself for maybe another year waiting for it. That's why I pulled the trigger, and I enjoy every time I sit down at my new iMac. Them's the choices we have to make!

 

[Internet Enzyme]

Haha yes. But time flies you know. After you get your 2019 iMac, quickly enough it will be a year old and no longer bleeding edge (if Apple is ever bleeding edge). But you will have tortured yourself for maybe another year waiting for it. That's why I pulled the trigger, and I enjoy every time I sit down at my new iMac. Them's the choices we have to make!

It’s a very interesting masochistic ritual, isn’t it?

*See he makes a good point but what if they release a coffee lake imac in october?

*Or even worse, what if they release some insane face id redesign touchbar keyboard imac ~without ram expandability~?

*or what if they dont release any imac until wwdc next year and it sucks ass because all of the nice legacy ports and expandable ram are gone and it costs like $500 more across all skus?

It makes for a good game. Maybe I could have used this time on my current expensive devices on other, perhaps more productive things. Nah. It’s the thrill of the hunt

 

[alien3dx]

See, I’ve never had a desktop mac. Im just sick and tired of my 2015 macbook pro and its awful cpu and gpu and am eyeing that 2017 5k 4.2ghz 580 sku. But i cant get myself to drop $3000 on year old hardware. At this point, 2019 seems more likely, leaving a packed wwdc with a new mac pro, imac, and possibky even a mac mini. This is kind of frustrating, but i guess i have to deal with it if i want something thats bleeding edge.

Waiting is annoying.. but you still have a laptop.For me spending 1000 dollar just for same product as 300 laptop output specification is dam annoying, but the choice is none. If you are allready adopt to apple eco-system no choice.

 

[klatox]

There's a rumor of another AMD Polaris GPU by Q4. Perhaps a variant of this will make its way into the next iMac.

 

[DQ11]

Yeah, I gave up waiting and bought my 2017 a few months ago. Of course I was running a 2007 iMac, so I had even more patience than you. Apple could of course surprise later this year but I'm afraid you may have to wait until sometime in 2019 for new models.

That was my worry as well. I'm still using a 2007 MBP.....I'm done waiting...I'm getting something in 2018 so hopefully they upgrade in Sep/Oct...if not I'm buying a 27" with i7.

 

[Appleaker]

I'm also waiting for a new iMac.

But there are no new graphics cards which they can use:

• AMD Vega? Already in pro and normal iMac won't handle. Especially when they change the form factor to be even slimmer.
• Nvidia? Don't think so. Apple lets AMD create GPU's for them now, like they did with the Pro. And even if they did switch to Nvidia, I doubt that they would put an >2 year old card in a new iMac. New Nvidia cards are far away still.
• No new GPU? Doubt that, never happened before.

So the only alternative is waiting for AMD's new Navi GPU, which won't be available before Q1 2019. Even with a special deal with Apple, they probably won't be earlier than that.

So my guess is WWDC 2019

As you've just said, AMD creates GPUs for them, so graphics being ready isn't really an issue, especially given that the polcaris and Vega refresh are sheduled for around the same period anyway.

As for using Nvidia, the new cards are actually scheduled for release later this year. And even if they included the 10-series cards, they would still be a massive improvement over AMD. And AMD cards are just refreshed versions of the same architecture, leading to minor benefits. The 500 series was literally a rebadge of the 400 series.
The 580 is comparable to a 1060, I imagine that an 680 will be comparable to between an 1150 and an 1160. I'm just speculating but it wouldn't be surprising and is beyond ridiculous. Even though there are some benefits with using AMD, Macs are missing out on serious graphical performance.

I wouldn't mind if Apple used Vega in the standard iMacs, since Vega 56 and 64 are designed to compete with the 1070 and 1080 respectively. Quite ridiculous since had Apple stuck with Nvidia, we would be seeing beyond iMac Pro graphical performance in regular iMacs. Pair that with the 9th gen consumer i9, and Apple will have met the demands of those wishing for more performance in the iMac form factor. That's why it's hard to see a future for the iMac Pro, despite there being potentially more differentiation through the display, etc.

Anyway, this has seemingly turned into a rant but the answer is, graphics aren't an issue.

 

[Lammers]

It’s a very interesting masochistic ritual, isn’t it?

*See he makes a good point but what if they release a coffee lake imac in october?

*Or even worse, what if they release some insane face id redesign touchbar keyboard imac ~without ram expandability~?

*or what if they dont release any imac until wwdc next year and it sucks ass because all of the nice legacy ports and expandable ram are gone and it costs like $500 more across all skus?

It makes for a good game. Maybe I could have used this time on my current expensive devices on other, perhaps more productive things. Nah. It’s the thrill of the hunt

Well under any scenario if you buy an iMac now you have an option to sell it in the future and replace it with another, paying the difference. So you'd be paying the deprecation on that iMac in exchange for the value you get from using it over that period. And you would surely find it to be a very enjoyable machine to use, making that arguably a pretty decent trade-off given that iMacs hold their value pretty well!

Regret can work both ways. You can buy an iMac now, Apple release a new one, and you regret not waiting. But you can also wait for a new one, they don't release one (or they do release one but it's not what you would want), and you regret waiting. But at least in the first scenario you have a 2017 iMac on your desk now instead of a 2015 MacBook Pro.

The only way in which you "win" the game is to buy an iMac now and enjoy it now, and still preserve your optionality for making other decisions in the future.

But I'm sure that doesn't help, LOL.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

Well under any scenario if you buy an iMac now you have an option to sell it in the future and replace it with another, paying the difference. So you'd be paying the deprecation on that iMac in exchange for the value you get from using it over that period. And you would surely find it to be a very enjoyable machine to use, making that arguably a pretty decent trade-off given that iMacs hold their value pretty well!

Regret can work both ways. You can buy an iMac now, Apple release a new one, and you regret not waiting. But you can also wait for a new one, they don't release one (or they do release one but it's not what you would want), and you regret waiting. But at least in the first scenario you have a 2017 iMac on your desk now instead of a 2015 MacBook Pro.

The only way in which you "win" the game is to buy an iMac now and enjoy it now, and still preserve your optionality for making other decisions in the future.

But I'm sure that doesn't help, LOL.

I ordered my 2017 27” iMac w/ 4.2GHz
i7, Radeon 580 8GB, 8GB of RAM with a 32GB kit for 40GB total on July 7, slated for delivery on the 17–19.


I agree with everything you’ve said.

 

[DQ11]

I ordered my 2017 27” iMac w/ 4.2GHz
i7, Radeon 580 8GB, 8GB of RAM with a 32GB kit for 40GB total on July 7, slated for delivery on the 17–19.


I agree with everything you’ve said.

That is the one I'm thinking of getting. Hopefully it does what you need it to.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

That is the one I'm thinking of getting. Hopefully it does what you need it to.

Some may say it’s overkill (definitely if you look at price) but I figure if you buy a computer you better not be assing around. I edit 4K video and process RAW images in Lightroom, with some gaming on the side. This seems to require the Mac with the best grahics card. Might as well upgrade the cpu while you’re at it. And miss me with that fusion drive nonsense

 

[DQ11]

Some may say it’s overkill (definitely if you look at price) but I figure if you buy a computer you better not be assing around. I edit 4K video and process RAW images in Lightroom, with some gaming on the side. This seems to require the Mac with the best grahics card. Might as well upgrade the cpu while you’re at it. And miss me with that fusion drive nonsense

Makes sense. I wouldn't want to pay thousands and still have issues. Mine will be for Logic Pro X.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

Makes sense. I wouldn't want to pay thousands and still have issues. Mine will be for Logic Pro X.

I have logic pro x with that education bundle but i havent bothered to begin figuring that one out. Its language is completely counter to anything ive ever had to deal with in an app. I dont understand the workflow at all. Would be cool to dabble with some music creation. I just like Final Cut and Motion. Makes me sad that they tossed Aperture to the curb because i would dump Lightroom in a heartbeat if Apple still developed Aperture.

 

[DQ11]

I have logic pro x with that education bundle but i havent bothered to begin figuring that one out. Its language is completely counter to anything ive ever had to deal with in an app. I dont understand the workflow at all. Would be cool to dabble with some music creation. I just like Final Cut and Motion. Makes me sad that they tossed Aperture to the curb because i would dump Lightroom in a heartbeat if Apple still developed Aperture.

I love Logic, although I've been using Logic Pro 7 since 2007, so learning all the updates in Logic Pro X will take me some time but the workflow seems to be the same from videos I've watched.

 

[Lammers]

I ordered my 2017 27” iMac w/ 4.2GHz
i7, Radeon 580 8GB, 8GB of RAM with a 32GB kit for 40GB total on July 7, slated for delivery on the 17–19.


I agree with everything you’ve said.

Congrats. Hope you enjoy it!

 

[Dr_Billingsgate]

I ordered my 2017 27” iMac w/ 4.2GHz
i7, Radeon 580 8GB, 8GB of RAM with a 32GB kit for 40GB total on July 7, slated for delivery on the 17–19.


I agree with everything you’ve said.

I"m chomping at the bit to order one too with similar config. What drive did you get? I'll have to get the 1TB SSD, I don't think I could ever go back to a mechanical drive, but geesh $600 over and above what comes with it standard? ouch!

 

[DQ11]

I"m chomping at the bit to order one too with similar config. What drive did you get? I'll have to get the 1TB SSD, I don't think I could ever go back to a mechanical drive, but geesh $600 over and above what comes with it standard? ouch!

For my config and all I would need it will be $3,500. If I upgrade to 1TB that is even more and at that point, I might as well save for the imac Pro for $5,000

 

[Glmnet1]

I don't think buying an internal 1tb SSD in the iMac is a reasonable choice for most people. An external one over tb3 would be much cheaper and fast enough for most situations.

 

[kazmac]

I'll happily pay $3000 for a computer that I like, runs well, and does what I need it to do for a reasonable period of time.

Considering that was close to what I paid for every iMac except my last two, I agree with this. Curious to see what they launch. Personally, I hope they release the desktops Macs before the end of the Summer, but October seems more likely. I'd love a 6 core machine with a solid graphics card and SSD for that price.

 

[EugW]

I don't think buying an internal 1tb SSD in the iMac is a reasonable choice for most people. An external one over tb3 would be much cheaper and fast enough for most situations.

Nah. IMO, if you want a 1 TB SSD, the better solution is internal SSD from Apple.

The price premium of a 1 TB SSD over the 2 TB Fusion drive is US$540 for edu buyers.

OWC's cheapest 1 TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD is $500. Sonnet's 1 TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD is $900! These are both bus powered which on paper sounds great, but until I have reports of 100% reliability on bus power, I view these with suspicion. I say this because I know from experience that bus powered Firewire SSDs can have catastrophic issues that only appear rarely, probably due to the less than perfect reliability of bus power, despite the fact that on paper FW800 bus power is way more than enough for consumer SSDs. Add external power and all these issues disappear completely.

I may be biased though, since I went with the 1 TB internal SSD. OTOH, if I want to expand the iMac's storage, I'm happy to go with USB 3 SSD. In fact, I bought Samsung T5 for that purpose, and backups. As for what is best for most people, I think the sweet spot would be 512 GB internal SSD, and additional USB 3 external (SSD or HD).

 

[Internet Enzyme]

I"m chomping at the bit to order one too with similar config. What drive did you get? I'll have to get the 1TB SSD, I don't think I could ever go back to a mechanical drive, but geesh $600 over and above what comes with it standard? ouch!

I got the 512 GB one because it was only an upcharge of a hundred bucks and I find that 512GB is enough for the OS startup disk. External thunderbolt nvme drives are where its at. It’s kinda like the RAM thing. I got the 8GB variant but I’m installing my own 32Gb of RAM
[doublepost=1531276419][/doublepost]

Congrats. Hope you enjoy it!

Thanks. I figure that an October release is unlikely and even if they do release one this year I will have had this overkill machine in that timespan until october
[doublepost=1531276518][/doublepost]

Nah. IMO, if you want a 1 TB SSD, the better solution is internal SSD from Apple.

The price premium of a 1 TB SSD over the 2 TB Fusion drive is US$540 for edu buyers.

OWC's cheapest 1 TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD is $500. Sonnet's 1 TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD is $900! These are both bus powered which on paper sounds great, but until I have reports of 100% reliability on bus power, I view these with suspicion. I say this because I know from experience that bus powered Firewire SSDs can have catastrophic issues that only appear rarely, probably due to the less than perfect reliability of bus power, despite the fact that on paper FW800 bus power is way more than enough for consumer SSDs. Add external power and all these issues disappear completely.

I may be biased though, since I went with the 1 TB internal SSD. OTOH, if I want to expand the iMac's storage, I'm happy to go with USB 3 SSD. In fact, I bought Samsung T5 for that purpose, and backups. As for what is best for most people, I think the sweet spot would be 512 GB internal SSD, and additional USB 3 external (SSD or HD).

External drives are generally not ideal. Especially for laptops. That is, if you buy a usb 3.0 sata enclosure. Getting an nvme thunderbolt 3 enabled enclosure can actually bring you better speeds than the internal drive from what ive seen. Sure, that’s expensive. But 512GB is enough for me now

 

[mreg376]

Nah. IMO, if you want a 1 TB SSD, the better solution is internal SSD from Apple.

I agree. I did the same thing. While expensive, Apple's price is in line with other quality 1TB SSD's and the speed of Apple's internal SSD's in the 2017 iMacs is phenomenal. It's almost like a RAM drive.