Will there ever be a new large iMac (Pro)?

[sublunar]

True, but not sure how often CPUs are operating at Base Clock - chances are they are either below that (between Minimum and Base Clock) or in Turbo Boost and the Turbo Boost speeds are pretty close to the 125W models, but likely with fairly lower TDPs so they may be able to get closer to Max Clock.


And the Comet Lake H i9-10980HK is 2.4GHz vs. 2.8GHz Base Clock for the i9-10900 so arguably it is better to stay with a 65W Comet Lake S desktop CPU than a 65W Comet Lake H mobile CPU.

Comet Lake H i9-10980HK has a TDP-up 65w mode which has a base clock of 3.1GHz. Added to that it's also a BGA chip which would be perfect for a Mac mini and would give it an amazing 8 cores, 16 threads.

The only downside is the price from Intel, but what if Apple were moving all iMacs and all Mac minis to the same CPU as the Macbook PPro 16"? Economies of scale could come in as could sharing motherboard chipsets etc.

For the mini an i9-10900 65w CPU is around $140 cheaper and has 2 extra cores (4 extra threads) but isn't guaranteed to come in a BGA package and each core has a slower base clock and marginally lower turbo frequency.

Of course, we know that these CPUs could be space heaters and going for a 45w TDP CPU all round gives more heat headroom in a Mini - and maybe a smaller enclosure of a future iMac.

If you think about it, AMD's RDNA2 Big Navi could help fill some of that performance gap for video editors next year.

Let's not forget that this redesign that everyone is clinging onto 'smaller bezels' for could be a serious enough change to get the iMac renamed so it can come with all SSD in a smaller enclosure. And at that point Comet Lake H might well be adequate if Apple allow 'Pro Mode' to spin up a cooling fan for more performance at the cost of noise.

That's all moot of course, if Apple decide that the iMac must have 4 RAM slots in the 27" iMac.

 

[gusping]

Comet Lake H i9-10980HK has a TDP-up 65w mode which has a base clock of 3.1GHz. Added to that it's also a BGA chip which would be perfect for a Mac mini and would give it an amazing 8 cores, 16 threads.

The only downside is the price from Intel, but what if Apple were moving all iMacs and all Mac minis to the same CPU as the Macbook PPro 16"? Economies of scale could come in as could sharing motherboard chipsets etc.

For the mini an i9-10900 65w CPU is around $140 cheaper and has 2 extra cores (4 extra threads) but isn't guaranteed to come in a BGA package and each core has a slower base clock and marginally lower turbo frequency.

Of course, we know that these CPUs could be space heaters and going for a 45w TDP CPU all round gives more heat headroom in a Mini - and maybe a smaller enclosure of a future iMac.

If you think about it, AMD's RDNA2 Big Navi could help fill some of that performance gap for video editors next year.

Let's not forget that this redesign that everyone is clinging onto 'smaller bezels' for could be a serious enough change to get the iMac renamed so it can come with all SSD in a smaller enclosure. And at that point Comet Lake H might well be adequate if Apple allow 'Pro Mode' to spin up a cooling fan for more performance at the cost of noise.

That's all moot of course, if Apple decide that the iMac must have 4 RAM slots in the 27" iMac.

Warning - bit of a rant.

65W parts in a supposedly proper desktop would kill the iMac for me. The main point of a desktop, or one of them, is being able to use the biggest and best parts. I don't care if it helps with economies of scale (I know Tim Cook will be getting all excited at the thought of it). Apple already make the iMac operate too much like a laptop with it's **** cooling. If they put lower end CPUs in the 27in version then it's the nail in the coffin for me (I think it's rather unlikely, but Apple is Apple, so that chance is still north of 25%).

A full fat 125W 10 core i9 and a 5700 XT (hopefully not underclocked much) should be possible in the 27in version (even if expensive options). There is absolutely no excuse. Desktop computers must be desktop, and not reshuffled laptop parts, or thermally throttled desktop parts. If I didn't have an iPad, iPhone and Watch, I'd be long gone to the 3900X/RTX 2080 Ti world... probably... he says...

Late night rant over, sorry. I am just sick of Apple screwing up and abandoning desktop computers.

 

[Icaras]

Not holding my breath until WWDC.

 

[_Skyfire_]

Warning - bit of a rant.

65W parts in a supposedly proper desktop would kill the iMac for me. The main point of a desktop, or one of them, is being able to use the biggest and best parts. I don't care if it helps with economies of scale (I know Tim Cook will be getting all excited at the thought of it). Apple already make the iMac operate too much like a laptop with it's **** cooling. If they put lower end CPUs in the 27in version then it's the nail in the coffin for me.

A full fat 125W 10 core i9 and a 5700 XT (hopefully not underclocked much) should be possible in the 27in version (even if expensive options). There is absolutely no excuse. Desktop computers must be desktop, and not reshuffled laptop parts, or thermally throttled desktop parts. If I didn't have an iPad, iPhone and Watch, I'd be long gone to the 3900X/RTX 2080 Ti world... probably... he says...

Late night rant over, sorry. I am just sick of Apple screwing up and abandoning desktop computers.

Yeah and to properly cool those desktop parts, they need to finally bring the 3-year old iMP thermals to regular iMacs. Otherwise it's just dead in the water

 

[sublunar]

65W parts in a supposedly proper desktop would kill the iMac for me. The main point of a desktop, or one of them, is being able to use the biggest and best parts. I don't care if it helps with economies of scale (I know Tim Cook will be getting all excited at the thought of it). Apple already make the iMac operate too much like a laptop with it's **** cooling. If they put lower end CPUs in the 27in version then it's the nail in the coffin for me.

You do know that the majority of the iMac SKUs actually use the 65w Intel CPUs don't you? Very few SKUs in the current iMac use the 95w parts. It's not Apple 'cheaping out' by going for parts - such as a lower clocked AMD GPU - that won't melt the machine, or sound like a jet engine taking off perpetually, or burn out the attached monitor (literally). I'm typing this in silence on an old MacBook Pro connected to an external monitor. Doubtless an iMac by definition would also be doing it virtually silently too.

A full fat 125W 10 core i9 and a 5700 XT (hopefully not underclocked much) should be possible in the 27in version (even if expensive options). There is absolutely no excuse. Desktop computers must be desktop, and not reshuffled laptop parts, or thermally throttled desktop parts. If I didn't have an iPad, iPhone and Watch, I'd be long gone to the 3900X/RTX 2080 Ti world... probably... he says...

Show me the Dell or HP AIO that has those parts glued to a monitor with a reasonable quality of life in front of the screen. If you were wanting a PC with those kind of specs you'd put it in a proper desktop case and add the monitor separately.

What exactly are you doing with the 125w i9 and 5700XT in a Mac anyway? I doubt that you'd be playing games. Are you editing videos on FCPX or Adobe Premier? Doing some mathematical modelling or rendering? I'd suggest it was music production but there's bo chance of that lot being whisper quiet in an iMac case, what with your 2Tb of SSD that cost $200.

Or are you just wanting to browse Facebook with a couple extra Safari tabs open?

 

[macpro2000]

I guess I just don't understand the point of Apple waiting to present stuff at WWDC. Are we just giving them more time to make commercials and animations on how it's made? I mean there is nothing special about a 'date' for WWDC anyway since there is no physical location.

 

[pldelisle]

What exactly are you doing with the 125w i9 and 5700XT in a Mac anyway?

Crunching data that cannot be crunched on a GPU.

Experiencing Metal Compute API.

Video, audio recording/editing.

Plenty of stuff can be done with better hardware. I do things that would be only possible on a Mac Pro maxed out in memory (yeah, 1.5 TB of RAM). I have servers with 256 GB of RAM. But I can't have this in my computer. So I have to take time to deal with hardware constraint, modify algorithms to trade of on RAM at expense of slower I/O, things like that... Yeah, iMac Pro is there, but it's outdated.

 

[CWallace]

I guess I just don't understand the point of Apple waiting to present stuff at WWDC. Are we just giving them more time to make commercials and animations on how it's made? I mean there is nothing special about a 'date' for WWDC anyway since there is no physical location.

As someone else noted, the Comet Lake S CPUs will not be formally launched until, perhaps coincidentally, next Wednesday (20 May). So Apple might very well be under an embargo and cannot formally announce an iMac using those CPUs until that date.

 

[Mike The Soundguy]

Just buy your iMac on a Saturday! Absolutely zero chance Apple will introduce a new iMac on a Sunday. But at this stage it's better to wait until WWDC.

What if I just put one in a cart ? Maybe that would push a release over for us ? If my 2013 iMac shuts off a few more times that might make me do it sooner . I don't think I feel like doing power supply surgery . lol So tempting ...

 

[pldelisle]

What if I just put one in a cart ? Maybe that would push a release over for us ? If my 2013 iMac shuts off a few more times that might make me do it sooner . I don't think I feel like doing power supply surgery . lol So tempting ...

Get an iPad for the little wait. And you can still use it after getting the new iMac I'm still impressed by the amount of work my iPad can do.

 

[iPadified]

I

Warning - bit of a rant.

65W parts in a supposedly proper desktop would kill the iMac for me. The main point of a desktop, or one of them, is being able to use the biggest and best parts. I don't care if it helps with economies of scale (I know Tim Cook will be getting all excited at the thought of it). Apple already make the iMac operate too much like a laptop with it's **** cooling. If they put lower end CPUs in the 27in version then it's the nail in the coffin for me (I think it's rather unlikely, but Apple is Apple, so that chance is still north of 25%).

A full fat 125W 10 core i9 and a 5700 XT (hopefully not underclocked much) should be possible in the 27in version (even if expensive options). There is absolutely no excuse. Desktop computers must be desktop, and not reshuffled laptop parts, or thermally throttled desktop parts. If I didn't have an iPad, iPhone and Watch, I'd be long gone to the 3900X/RTX 2080 Ti world... probably... he says...

Late night rant over, sorry. I am just sick of Apple screwing up and abandoning desktop computers.

What you are asking for is the MP filled with cheaper GPU and CPU. AIO concept will never be able to cope with top of the line parts and it is about physics not Apple incompetence or willingness. The idea with AIO was never a "tower on a stick" but something between a MP and a laptop. The segment of a PC tower (gaming tower), which would be a step up from AIO, has not been on Apple agenda for a long time.

The G4 Mac redesigned with a base similar to MP2013, which could cool 500W and probably much more if they bothered to put cooling fins on the GPU and CPU, would be able cope reasonably with your demands. The MP2013 was thermally restraint for power hungry part used in current MP , but not for a single i9 and one GPU.

 

[MacFather]

Deleted.

 

[iPadified]

While we’re all waiting, let’s get into some iMac statistics:

2760 days of the same exterior design

3859 days of the same screen sizes and bezels

5735 days of the same aluminum stand with no height adjustment

1825 days of a 14nm process from intel.

 

[askunk]

Wanna have a look at miniLED tech on a screen? It's the first Linus reviews in this video:

4.000$ (I think he talks about Canadian dollars)

 

[sublunar]

Wanna have a look at miniLED tech on a screen? It's the first Linus reviews in this video:

4.000$ (I think he talks about Canadian dollars)

He's quoting US dollars - the top one is a ProART display and justifies the price tag.

I'm looking forward to what Apple makes of these - they will find their own solution somewhere between top and bottom example and benefit from scale. And remember at the time of the original launch, Dell would sell you a 5k monitor for the around the same price that Apple were selling the Retina 5k iMac in 2014. Apple front load the costs so upon launch a mini LED iMac will retain the same price throughout its lifetime - therefore for the first few months a mini LED iMac will be stunning value for money once people have picked themselves off the floor at the price tag.

I'm not looking forward to those people who will come out of the woodwork and claim they can get a HDR monitor for $150 in due course though.

 

[Patchwork]

There's been critism of both the Asus Proart and the Apple XDR (also mini led) for off axis viewing. You can think of the Asus as a 4K cut price XDR, though oddly it has a lot more local dimming zones. Both are really designed for high end workflows which is reflected in their price, though you are still going to rely on Sony's reference OLED for color critical work.

On a more general point both these monitors run quite warm, which isn't an ideal solution for the already thermal limited iMac. As it is relatively new technology, it is also quite expensive at the moment, which might be why the rumours only mention the iMac Pro. This has the added advatage of moving the iMac Pro away from the high end normal iMac, though to incorporate the XDR screeen, you are proably looking for something in the $8K-$10K, which is getting dangerously close to a Mac Pro with and XDR monitor.

 

[sublunar]

There's been critism of both the Asus Proart and the Apple XDR (also mini led) for off axis viewing. You can think of the Asus as a 4K cut price XDR, though oddly it has a lot more local dimming zones. Both are really designed for high end workflows which is reflected in their price, though you are still going to rely on Sony's reference OLED for color critical work.

On a more general point both these monitors run quite warm, which isn't an ideal solution for the already thermal limited iMac. As it is relatively new technology, it is also quite expensive at the moment, which might be why the rumours only mention the iMac Pro. This has the added advatage of moving the iMac Pro away from the high end normal iMac, though to incorporate the XDR screeen, you are proably looking for something in the $8K-$10K, which is getting dangerously close to a Mac Pro with and XDR monitor.

Apple's XDR display appears to have display fans but compromise on the heat to improve the user experience by having 'inaudible' fans (16db). The cheesegrater design at the back is to help with cooling efficiency - people have already pointed at the styling as a design cue for the next iMacs.

This plays directly into Apple's priority to have a good user experience rather than have a space heater or jet engine on the desk.

An iMac would, of course, come with some sort of active fan cooling which might help with keeping the heat down overall. And if Apple went with an 'iMac Air' type arrangement they could lower the performance expectations by putting H-class CPUs and cooler running RDNA graphics* into the new enclosure while they were also going all SSD with a T2 CPU.

* I could easily see Apple choosing RDNA2 SKUs based on a presumed ability to get a desired level of performance without breaking the pre-planned heat/power consumption envelope.

In other words - forget the 5700XT guys. [and give me a second to get the flame retardant coat on ]

 

[sigamy]

Warning - bit of a rant.

Late night rant over, sorry. I am just sick of Apple screwing up and abandoning desktop computers.

While I hear what you are saying, the whole "abandoning desktops" feels like a 5 years ago argument. I know the current iMac design is long in the tooth. But this "version" of Apple has given us the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro. I know we live in a "what have you done for me lately" world, but I'm hopeful that Apple got the message, the Pro Workflow team continues to listen to a broad range of "Pros" and "Prosumers", and Apple will continue to give us good options for the desktop.

As others have said, they are never going to build a mid-range mini-tower or xMac. We need to move on from that one...

 

[gusping]

While I hear what you are saying, the whole "abandoning desktops" feels like a 5 years ago argument. I know the current iMac design is long in the tooth. But this "version" of Apple has given us the iMac Pro and new Mac Pro. I know we live in a "what have you done for me lately" world, but I'm hopeful that Apple got the message, the Pro Workflow team continues to listen to a broad range of "Pros" and "Prosumers", and Apple will continue to give us good options for the desktop.

As others have said, they are never going to build a mid-range mini-tower or xMac. We need to move on from that one...

I know i know, i was being an unrealistic moaning muppet (something i excel at). They’ve done a decent job on the desktop side of things, but there is certainly room for improvement. There is definitely scope for the iMac to step up and include some of the higher end/latest components i suggested. A cooling system update would solve so many issues with the current iMac. The Mac mini is close to a great desktop, but simply saying ‘buy an eGPU’ for those who need any graphics horsepower is not a good solution.

As you’ve said, they are starting to listen more and turn things around (at least on the ’pro’ side). Lets hope they continue with the momentum they have. An updated and redesigned iMac would be a great first step.
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I

What you are asking for is the MP filled with cheaper GPU and CPU. AIO concept will never be able to cope with top of the line parts and it is about physics not Apple incompetence or willingness. The idea with AIO was never a "tower on a stick" but something between a MP and a laptop. The segment of a PC tower (gaming tower), which would be a step up from AIO, has not been on Apple agenda for a long time.

The G4 Mac redesigned with a base similar to MP2013, which could cool 500W and probably much more if they bothered to put cooling fins on the GPU and CPU, would be able cope reasonably with your demands. The MP2013 was thermally restraint for power hungry part used in current MP , but not for a single i9 and one GPU.

i know an iMac will never contain an 2080 Ti level of GPU etc, but the latest i9 CPU and a much improved AMD GPU should not be a problem with a revised cooling system. There is no excuse.

 

[pldelisle]

A 2080 Ti has a TDP of 225w I think. This is doable with the current iMac Pro design.

There will never be another Nvidia in a Mac thought, because they both disagree on the driver, and too much energy has been spent on doing the AMD GPU driver, but the equivalent GPU at AMD can still be put in an iMac form factor. And pretty sure the cooling of the iMac Pro can even be increased further with Pro XDR design which acts like a giant heatsink.

 

[dcmontgomery]

So if there is no announcement/update before WWDC, does that mean a redesign announcement is more likely for WWDC than a spec bump? Or it could be anything then? Or who the hell really knows at this point?

 

[pldelisle]

The next target is on May 20, date on which Intel officially release Comet Lake S into the wild.

If nothing happen on this day, it will be more than likely an announce at WWDC.

 

[dn325ci]

So if there is no announcement/update before WWDC, does that mean a redesign announcement is more likely for WWDC than a spec bump? Or it could be anything then? Or who the hell really knows at this point?

Who knows is accurate, of course. None of us really know. But that logic stands to reason. If it were just a spec bump, Apple probably would have launched it like the recent Mac mini or the recent MacBook Pro 13, and not spend time on it at WWDC. And there were clues in the invitation, etc. But who knows. At this point the longer it takes to come out, the more likely it is for a significant redesign.

 

[pldelisle]

Which clues are in the invitation ?

 

[dcmontgomery]

Which clues are in the invitation ?

I believe the "Hello" text, which has a history tied to the iMac.