Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

The new iMac graphics cards / an iMac without a screen

T

toonshorty

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 11, 2009
46
0
Well on the iMac thread I saw that the top iMac would feature a 9400m + 9800m. While that would be super great apple could just throw in something better.

Asus have just released a laptop, yes laptop with a quad core mobile CPU and an ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2

Yes, the second best graphics card available for gaming, now maybe that could go in the top iMac as an upgrade but if not why not the HD 4850 or HD 4870. I mean, if ASUS can put it in a laptop you must be able to put it in a desktop, even if it does get fatter, you don't see it so we won't care!

ATI said that a mac with an HD 4850 / 4870 would be coming "soon", but I can't seem to find any mac with those cards in using the 'what we already know' threads.

Another thing apple need to do is to stop using mobile parts in a desktop machine or atleast make a mac pro but without the pro. So a mac that sits between a mac mini and a mac pro, an iMac with no screen. So like a normal PC, and then give us options to customise it well. Upgrade CPU, RAM, Graphics.

If apple made that I would buy it 1000 times over. (well ok maybe 1000 - 999 but that's not important)

It's always something that's been missing, mac mini = too underpowered and mac pro = too expensive and not everyone wants a work station with 20 hard drives.

Thanks for reading,

~ Toonshorty

(PS: Tell me if this is the wrong section but I figured there was no other section for posts like this)
 
xMac?

What's that? (Sorry I'm new to all this mac stuff)

--

Edit: And of course heat is going to be a problem, but how did ASUS manage to make a notebook with an X2 inside without causing it's cheap plastic casing to melt?

It's also quite cold in Britain so free heating from a PC would be quite nice.
 
Ah, why does SJ hate it so much. I would have though it would be the big seller if they released it. I would die for an xMac!
 
toonshorty said:
Ah, why does SJ hate it so much. I would have though it would be the big seller if they released it. I would die for an xMac!
Click to expand...

History lesson: The original Macintosh 128k was an all-in-one design because Steve Jobs didn't want the "end-user to mess with his hardware".

Fast forward to 1996: iMac.

Integration of hardware and software has always been Apple's prerogative, and because ATI and nVidia refuse to make EFI drivers, we can't get any more graphics cards than what are commissioned to be supported by OS X.
 
And every updated Mac has nVidia GPU. Macs never meant to be gaming computers, they were made for graphic designers etc. (at least most of the commercial companys uses Macs nowadays)

8800GS which is used in current models is enough for gaming, it runs all games. If you want monstergaming Mac, build/buy a PC and turn it to a Hackintosh

And for the xMac thing, we'll not see that for years.
 
Annngel said:
Let's compile all this up into a proposal and send it to Apple Inc.
Click to expand...

Yes, because even though they haven't listened to the xMac crowd for the past five years, a proposal will change their minds. :(

Apple. Doesn't. Care.

They don't cater to the "mainstream" market because they have the iMac there.

"Oh, well, then I just won't buy a Mac!" "But the iMac isn't a desktop!"

They don't care. They make about a billion dollars profit every quarter, so they don't have to listen to the minority.
 
Well snow leopard is using OpenCL (or is it OpenGL)... whichever.

So surely a better graphics card is a better system speed and also for the few games I do play on my PC I would like to be able to play with as little lag as possible so perhaps an nVidia GTX295m, well ok... maybe not that far but a 9800m at least please!
 
Annngel said:
Besides, isn't the all in one factor nicer looking comparing to the bulky system tower.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's much nicer but it means apple have to use expensive mobile parts, it would be so much cheaper because they could have desktop parts.

Look at it this way:

iMac 2.66GHz
24" LCD Display
2GB Memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
320GB Hard Drive

---

£929

---------------

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHz
Samsung SM2433BW 24" LCD
Corsair 2GB (800MHz)
HiS ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
Samsung 320GB Hard Drive

---

£439

-------------

And there we have it... Apple make £490 per iMac. Would you pay £490 for some slightly better looks?

Ooops, I got a slightly bigger screen in their too, so they make even more!
 
toonshorty said:
Yes, it's much nicer but it means apple have to use expensive mobile parts, it would be so much cheaper because they could have desktop parts.

Look at it this way:

iMac 2.66GHz
24" LCD Display
2GB Memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
320GB Hard Drive

---

£929

---------------

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHz
Samsung SM2433BW 24" LCD
Corsair 2GB (800MHz)
HiS ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
Samsung 320GB Hard Drive

---

£439

-------------

And there we have it... Apple make £490 per iMac. Would you pay £490 for some slightly better looks?

Ooops, I got a slightly bigger screen in their too, so they make even more!
Click to expand...

High-end mobile parts are way more expensive than mid desktop parts. You can't compare 'em. If you are not happy for iMac don't buy it. xMac won't happen.

I also thought that I could build a monster quad-core gaming PC for same money as iMac, but I want OS X, not Windows and Hackintosh is quite annoying to update etc.
 
toonshorty said:
Yes, it's much nicer but it means apple have to use expensive mobile parts, it would be so much cheaper because they could have desktop parts.

Look at it this way:

iMac 2.66GHz
24" LCD Display
2GB Memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
320GB Hard Drive

---

£929

---------------

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHz
Samsung SM2433BW 24" LCD
Corsair 2GB (800MHz)
HiS ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
Samsung 320GB Hard Drive

---

£439

-------------

And there we have it... Apple make £490 per iMac. Would you pay £490 for some slightly better looks?

Ooops, I got a slightly bigger screen in their too, so they make even more!
Click to expand...

Samsung SM2433BW is a TN panel while the panel used in the 24" iMac is H-IPS, which is far more expensive and vastly superior. You'd need to do an :apple: to :apple: comparison.
 
That's the exact reason I'm getting an iMac.

I'm just suggesting that apple could save almost £500 by using desktop parts instead of mobile parts.

If the screen has to get fatter then so be it, we don't see that part anyway.

Then again... just update iMac soon please apple, mobile or desktop parts :(
 
toonshorty said:
Yes, it's much nicer but it means apple have to use expensive mobile parts, it would be so much cheaper because they could have desktop parts.

Look at it this way:

iMac 2.66GHz
24" LCD Display
2GB Memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
320GB Hard Drive

---

£929

---------------

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHz
Samsung SM2433BW 24" LCD
Corsair 2GB (800MHz)
HiS ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
Samsung 320GB Hard Drive

---

£439

-------------

And there we have it... Apple make £490 per iMac. Would you pay £490 for some slightly better looks?

Ooops, I got a slightly bigger screen in their too, so they make even more!
Click to expand...

Case?
PSU?
Optical Drive?
Bluetooth?
WiFi?
MotherBoard?
Case?
Keyboard?
Mouse?

You have missed alot of things from your home built 'iMac'
 
toonshorty said:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66GHz
Samsung SM2433BW 24" LCD
Corsair 2GB (800MHz)
HiS ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO
Samsung 320GB Hard Drive

£439
And there we have it... Apple make £490 per iMac. Would you pay £490 for some slightly better looks?
Click to expand...

Yes, especially since that price is only for a pile of non-working components that don't even have a case.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Yes, especially since that price is only for a pile of non-working components that don't even have a case.
Click to expand...

Yea, processor and GPU isn't everything :D

for toonshorty:

Do you want that new iMac would look like iMac G3? Big and ugly? I wouldn't buy that.
 
Oh my good! Take it away... PLEASE!

Ok, I take back every single post in this thread!!!

Although an xMac would be Epic Win
 
They could just resurrect the cube. I thought it was one of Steve's favorites?

By could, I don't mean that I'd expect it ;), Apple don't like to lose focus, and takes pride in their spartan product line. Who else boasts about scrapping products?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back