Apple predicted to release new iMacs, MacBooks in weeks - Page 8

Originally Posted by wizard69

The thing here is that the internals in the iMac are a mess. Truely disgusting especially when sitting side by side with the MBP internals. So yeah a bigger machine can help but what is really needed is a new approach. A clean layout of the components, and the PC board could dramatically impact user acceptance too.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

I think the bulk of buyers simply aren't interested in taking the guts out of their computers. I'm not saying I wouldn't want to see a user serviceable iMac, but I don't think it will be high on Apple's priority list unfortunately.

Originally Posted by mcarling

Dramatically??? I find it difficult to believe that even 1/10 of 1% of iMac owners have any idea* how the components are laid out internally.

Originally Posted by mcarling

Dramatically??? I find it difficult to believe that even 1/10 of 1% of iMac owners have any idea how the components are laid out internally.


Agreed, except for the "unfortunately" bit. I would not want Macs to be physically like PeeCees. The MacBook Air has exactly the level of user-serviceability that I want: zero.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

I think at a minimum it should have at least the same user upgrade options that a laptop has (memory, and hard drive, and possibly optical drive as some laptops do). This is easily done in a lapotp, there should be no reason not to work towards that goal on an iMac.

Originally Posted by Frank777

Yes, most people asking for a fully serviceable iMac are really objecting to the iMac's philosophy.

RAM and Hard Drive upgrades are the only necessity.

For the price point, I think Apple needs to do away with integrated graphics in the iMac entirely.
But the graphics card doesn't need to be accessible.

Originally Posted by solipsism

To say they should work toward that goal I agree with as I’m all for accessibility, but if you are suggesting that because it’s easy to do on a Mac laptop now means that it should as easy on an iMac then I have to disagree with you. A notebook lays flat and very little pressure on the bottom panel screws when in use, while the iMac is suspended by a single articulating arm in the back. This means that more pressure is being applied to the back panel in certain areas than with Mac notebooks. Going back to the G5 iMac’s real panel entry would be nice for us, but from a cost perspective compared to the number of iMac consumers that ever actually venture into the components of their iMac it may be worthy of Apple’s attention. Maybe they found this to be a problem so they changed it or they found they could save a lot money buy using this less than friendly front panel access.

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

What is the iMac's philosophy? It seems to change quite often. Its gone from an affordable machine (at times even under $1000) to a one size fits all machine that tops out over two grand that replaces all but the most high end PowerMacs as well. Its gone upmarket in what it does but has lost features since this form factor debuted with G5.



In other words since the majority of the newer Mac users are very low end and because Jobs and Ive hate towers, everybody with more than ordinary requirements much suffer. What a role reversal for the platform.

Originally Posted by Quadra 610

Agreed.

This thread looks like something you'd see at Winsupersite.

C'mon people, shape up.

The desktop market is DYING. It's in the basement. You honestly think shoving quad cores and big GPUs into iMacs will change anything? You honestly think shoving big specs in the consumer's face will do anything? It's hard enough for the generic box-makers to sell them at lower prices.

Desktops have got to get smaller, thinner, and even more portable. The future is in form and design. The whole "tower" paradigm is getting old, and it shows.

Originally Posted by Zoolook

Sorry, but this is just so backward (as in the wrong way around, I didn't mean retarded).

For desktops to thrive, they need to differentiate themselves further from notebooks, not make themselves indistinguishable. Most people probably think their Core 2 Duos are quite fast in their MBPs, or even their iMacs, but unless you've actually used an i7 or even a fairly modest Quad Core (say an Athlon II x4) coupled with a real GPU and RAID 0/RAID 5 drives, you're not really in a position to judge whether or not saving another 3mm is really worth it. Believe me, it's not - when you can convert say 30 mins of HD video from your kids birthday party and upload it to YouTube in 6 minutes (rather than 5 times that long) you'll get it... for the same price!

I love Macs as much as anyone here, and I'd sacrifice a little bit of performance to have a machine that isn't the size of an RV... but Apple you really stand in a corner and punch themselves in the face because we haven't seen a Quadcore in a machine costing less than $2,500. What's even more galling is the fact that OS X is far better suited to take advantage of more cores than Vista.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

Actually the Core 2 Duo (3.06 GHz) in the iMac stacks up decently against the CPU bench scores of a Quad Core Mac Pro. Given the huge price difference, the iMac is a good bang for the buck.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1395...acpro2009.html (scroll to the bottom to see the benchmark scores)

There comes a point where you get diminishing returns for the extra cash. The iMac seems to be in a good sweet spot between high cost and decent CPU performance.

Originally Posted by Zoolook

I think you need to look beyond Speedmark and a 5 year old version of Photoshop, with all due respect. An i7 is around 3x faster than even an E8600 C2D (3.33ghz, which you cannot get in an iMac) for Video encoding (usually important to Pro users)

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3641&p=4

And twice to three times as fast on Cinebench, and 4 - 5 times faster on POV Ray - even the Quad Core scales almost 100%

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3641&p=4

Again, this is pure CPU grunt... a decent GPU only makes the gap bigger and RAID HDs should be standard in any desktop. I think you're drinking the Cool Aid a little.

The only place where there is barely any performance gain is in gaming, not that Mac users should care about that. With Grand Central coming, the gap will only widen.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

You seem to think I implied that the iMac is outperforming the Mac Pro. I only indicated that it was good performance for the price. The vast majority of users won't need that kind of horsepower, which is why Apple even offers a Mac Pro at a substantially higher price. I do a lot of H.264 encoding on a 3.06 iMac. I find it's performance very acceptable.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

You seem to think I implied that the iMac is outperforming the Mac Pro. I only indicated that it was good performance for the price.

The vast majority of users won't need that kind of horsepower, which is why Apple even offers a Mac Pro at a substantially higher price.

I do a lot of H.264 encoding on a 3.06 iMac. I find it's performance very acceptable.

Originally Posted by Frank777

Yes, most people asking for a fully serviceable iMac are really objecting to the iMac's philosophy.

For the price point, I think Apple needs to do away with integrated graphics in the iMac entirely.

But the graphics card doesn't need to be accessible.

Originally Posted by solipsism

Again, accessibility is great and I hope the next iMacs go back to an easily removed back panel for those that want it, but we do have to keep in mind Apples PoV on this matter and not get caught up in our own desires and reasons.

Originally Posted by Outsider

*Or care, for that matter.

The internals are laid out to maximize cooling, not serviceability.

Not great for the consumer when they want to upgrade the inside, but great for the consumer when it comes to having a cool machine (this equals longer component life).

Originally Posted by Bregalad

...So when would a desktop Core i7 based Mac reach the same point of obsolescence? I think it's pretty fair to say 5 years after Apple introduces an iMac with equivalent performance since iMacs last 5 years...

Originally Posted by wizard69

But it isn't and this should be clear to anybody spending a dew minutes on the net or in a local computer store. At this point, for a desk top, iMacs performance is crap. Further it isn't a platform for running SL to it's full potential. Buying an iMac right now is a poor choice if you expect to leverage any of the improvements to SL or the improved apps for SL.

I can't make sense of the above statement!! What does the Mac Pros price have to do with the iMacs performance? Nothing that I can see.

In any event thanks for your overbearing attitude and arrogance in defining what an individual user needs performance wise. What next, are you going to tell me what type of vehicle I need to drive or where I should drive that vehicle to?


Hey great for you, but have you considered that the rest of the world doesn't support your point of view. Frankly I just don't understand this regressive attitude, it is like saying my gas mileage I get on my truck is good enough when clearly it isn't. If the whole country had this attitude we would be in a world of hurt. Which is sort of like a bag of hurt, except there is a wider impact.


Dave

Originally Posted by solipsism

People with requirements that exceed the normal usage will always have additional obstacles to face, but I think saying that they are suffering is an exaggeration. As much as I love my 13” MBP and iPhone I could rattle off hundreds of things that I wish Apple would change about the device to suit my specific needs and wants, but I don’t expect them to do so simply because I want them to. Some things I’ve written to Apple about because I feel it would benefit the majority o users.

Other things, like a double capacity battery that makes the phone millimeters thicker and several ounces heavier is something I don’t mind having but something that many iPhone users wouldn’t like and would likely hurt Apple’s sales and vision of a slim iPhone. MY solution was to buy the Mophie Juice Pack Air. I can keep it on while charging and syncing and get more than a full day or excessive internet use on 3G out of my iPhone. The only caveat is that Apple only licenses the male end of their 30-pin connector so a female mini-USB port is used on the Mophie. Those are just a bitch to connect. Another thing I’d like to have seen done away with years ago is the optical drive in notebooks. I haven’t used it in years, and while I am certain this will happen eventually I think the majority of people still need or want one at this point.

Again, accessibility is great and I hope the next iMacs go back to an easily removed back panel for those that want it, but we do have to keep in mind Apple’s PoV on this matter and not get caught up in our own desires and reasons.

Originally Posted by Bregalad

Apple should be remembering that they have to pay technicians to repair them and it costs Apple a lot less if it's a 1 labor unit job rather than a 2 labor unit job. A better layout would reduce basic labor costs and make it far less likely that something will get damaged in the process.

I worked in a service department a few years ago. We all hated the 12" Powerbook because they were a nightmare to work on. The technicians considered them punishment because jobs always took longer than Apple was willing to pay for. When something cuts into your pay check you get grumpy about it. I guarantee there were celebrations all over the world when the last AppleCare policy expired on that model.

I'm not saying the iMac is anywhere near that bad, but anything that's a royal pain to work on earns Apple no friends in the service department.

Originally Posted by wizard69

It doesn't matter what you think the layout is for as the two goals are not exclusive of each other. The new MBP pretty much proves this point.

That is starting to sound like making excuses. Really it does.

Dave

Originally Posted by hyperscribble

If anyone's forgotten, Snow Leopard is (as I think I remember reading) something like up to 2.5x faster than Leopard when performing certain tasks, which clues in to the importance of a powerful operating system.

Originally Posted by hyperscribble

I see what you mean about the longetivity of Apples, because apparently some people still use G4 computers! Obviously Apple drops support for a machine after so many years. Whether you buy a new machine or not, new features and improved design are also no doubt a tool used to attract new users as well as existing customers. Budget may be a concern for many people, but chances are that if one can buy a machine this year, you can buy one the year after next too; and let's face it: how can one resist a fresh Apple? Though expensive, it's a difficult entity to deny!

Originally Posted by backtomac

Put the cool aide down. You've had too much.

SL is faster than Leopard, but 2.5x faster at what? I've had both (SL and Leopard) and SL feels slightly faster than SL during everyday use. Its not like I got a new machine. And I've installed it on two Macs that had Leopard so I don't think my experience is unusual.

If Apple are looking to improve performance, they're going to need multicore (more than one and preferably more than two) processors. That''s how SL is designed to work faster.

Originally Posted by backtomac

Put the cool aide down. You've had too much.

SL is faster than Leopard, but 2.5x faster at what? I've had both (SL and Leopard) and SL feels slightly faster than SL during everyday use. Its not like I got a new machine. And I've installed it on two Macs that had Leopard so I don't think my experience is unusual.

If Apple are looking to improve performance, they're going to need multicore (more than one and preferably more than two) processors. That''s how SL is designed to work faster.

Originally Posted by hyperscribble

I'm not exactly sure what the "Cool Aide" thing refers to.

That aside, you'll notice that I posted that Snow Leopard is up to 2.5x faster while performing certain tasks. Make that 2.4x actually.

Quicktime X (a component of Snow Leopard I'd say) is up to 2.4x faster because of the OSs 64-bit performance, among other things. Safari 4 is up to 50% faster only when using Snow Leopard. When third party developers begin to write 64-bit Snow Leopard compatible software, significant performance boosts will be seen all around. Adobe AfterEffects CS4, for example, is supposed have a 250% performance gain on a 64-bit machine, which is extreme!

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/

So, there you have it. Software-based performance boosts (providing that there is a processor that supports 64-bits, which there is on all current Macs). Not to say that a pumped machine isn't important, but synergy among computer components and software is a massive factor, and it seems that Apple has introduced 64-bit performance and a Cocoa base into their OS shortly before the newly anticipated iMac release, not to mention the massive amounts of ram that Snow Leopard can now address (up to 16 billion GB, theoretically, that reads in the link above) which directly affects performance.

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

You can resist one if it can't do what you want it to do.



And that's the irony Snow Leopard, of all its advancements the only machine in Apple's lineup that can take real advantage of it is the Mac Pro. Dual core machines with lower end graphics and two SO-DIMM slots with real world maximum of 4GB of RAM (nobody is going to pay $650 for 8GB) are not going to take advantages of OpenCL, Grand Central Dispatch, or the 64-bit kernel.

Originally Posted by backtomac

Thew 'cool aid' refers to the Apple propaganda. We all drink it around here, but it helps sometimes to have a friend tell you to put it down.

Look I don't deny that SL is faster than Leopard. But every upgrade of OSX has been faster than the previous one. Apple have chosen to trump this feature as they had little user facing changes to discuss.

And OSX has been able to run 64 bit apps since at least Tiger. SL has made the kernel 64 bit and available to some existing machines, but not all with 64 bit cpus.

I'm not ragging on SL. I have it on both my Macs and I like it. But the cpus is important when it comes to general performance and I still see the beach ball so I'd really like to see a higher performance in my Macs. That's only going to come from quad core and better cpu Macs. Why do you think they developed Grand Central Dispatch?

Originally Posted by backtomac

Thew 'cool aid' refers to the Apple propaganda. We all drink it around here, but it helps sometimes to have a friend tell you to put it down.

Look I don't deny that SL is faster than Leopard. But every upgrade of OSX has been faster than the previous one. Apple have chosen to trump this feature as they had little user facing changes to discuss.

And OSX has been able to run 64 bit apps since at least Tiger. SL has made the kernel 64 bit and available to some existing machines, but not all with 64 bit cpus.

I'm not ragging on SL. I have it on both my Macs and I like it. But the cpus is important when it comes to general performance and I still see the beach ball so I'd really like to see a higher performance in my Macs. That's only going to come from quad core and better cpu Macs. Why do you think they developed Grand Central Dispatch?

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

You do realize that many of the advancements in SL won't be realized until the applications are written to take advantage of it.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

That said there are immediate differences in speed (yes some even 2.5 times faster than under leopard). The difference is very noticeable.

Originally Posted by backtomac

Sure I do. But my whole point is that SL is no panacea for performance improvements. Some would have you believe or at least imply that dual core on SL is better than 4 core machines on windows, or Leopard. I don't believe that to be true. The benefit of SL is its ability to utilize more than 2 core cpus. You know the kind only found on Mac Pros. Without multicore cpus, all the benefits of SL will never be realized.

I don't know where you guys are getting this. Are you only working in QuickTime X? And let's be honest. QuickTime X was rewritten from the ground up. It should be faster than the old QT which was an app that's been around with a few changes here and there for over a decade. Which apps haven't changed and run better under SL than they did under Leopard? Safari is the only one I've come across personally. It is much faster. SL is faster but it feels a lot like the difference in going from Tiger to Leopard IMO. Maybe a bit more, but no substantially different. Heck, CoD 4 actually has performed worse under SL than it did under Leopard for me.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

Third party benchmarks can be had all over the net:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/i...S&NewsID=27015
http://gizmodo.com/5345354/snow-leop...electedImage=1
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/17/s...ost-video-enc/

No one is saying (or I should say I'm not saying as i haven't read all of the replies..lol) that SL is noticeably faster.

I'm genuinely curious where this information is that SL will only really benefit quad core? This is the first I'm reading of it. Could you post a link I'd be interested in reading the technical details. From what I've ready, any multi-core processor will benefit, not just quad-core or an 8-core.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

No one is saying (or I should say I'm not saying as i haven't read all of the replies..lol) that SL is noticeably faster.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

Third party benchmarks can be had all over the net:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/i...S&NewsID=27015
http://gizmodo.com/5345354/snow-leop...electedImage=1
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/17/s...ost-video-enc/

Originally Posted by DJRumpy

...
I'm genuinely curious where this information is that SL will only really benefit quad core? This is the first I'm reading of it. Could you post a link I'd be interested in reading the technical details. From what I've ready, any multi-core processor will benefit, not just quad-core or an 8-core.

Originally Posted by solipsism

Im with you. The idea that more cores equals better performance is not so cut and dry. Sure MAc OS X, especially SL, is designed to take advantage of extra cores more effectively, but when you find a quad-core that has the same TDP as a dual-core CPU you then have each core running more slowly. Depending on the type of processing going on one or the other can be more beneficial.

For the iMac, there is now the new low voltage desktop CPUs that Intel designed specifically for AIOs, which to means specifically designed with the iMac in mind. They run at 65W while the current iMac CPUs run at 44W. ....

Originally Posted by backtomac

That's why many of us are fired up about Nehalem. When cores aren't being use the cores that are in use can run at a higher clock speed. That's the benefit of Turbo Boost, there isn't a compromise in having many cores. Cores turn on and off depending on use requirements and clock speed is maximized.

The low voltage desk top cpus are nice but at this point I think the Nehalems are a better choice.

Originally Posted by solipsism

Then I approve, but is the TDP low enough to be a good fit for Apples current line up? There was a patent awhile back regarding a special cooling unit, but the simplest answer seems that Apple will use chips in the iMacs that are about equal to the current wattage they use now. You know Apples obsession with thinness.

Originally Posted by solipsism


For the iMac, there is now the new low voltage desktop CPUs that Intel designed specifically for AIOs, which to means specifically designed with the iMac in mind. They run at 65W while the current iMac CPUs run at 44W. Apple would have to do some serious reworking of the iMac to make that work, but it would boost the performance quite bit while also being cheaper. However, that does not account for the fact that Apple uses the same CPUs for the iMac as they do for their notebooks so economics from bulk purchasing could be affected negatively, though I doubt that is really an issue.

For notebooks, it looks like dual-core is the way to go for the time being. The mobile i5s and i7s that are Quad-core are still at such low clock speeds. There will be some apps that can benefit from that but I think that most people will benefit from the faster dual-cores. There is also the marketing aspect of trying to sell a new Mac notebook with a clock speed at nearly half of what it was before and trying to get the average layperson to understand that it’s actually an improvement.

Originally Posted by backtomac

The MW UK link really validates what I am saying. SL shows a marked improvement in three benches, Time Machine, Java script and shut down. In the other tests they were pretty even. Time machine is a background process. I'm glad its faster but I don't notice it much because it works in the background. The JS improvement explains the Safari improvements and you can feel it in every day use. The improvement in Shutdown doesn't really affect my overall use. Sure it makes a difference when I turn my machine off, but I leave my iMac on and in sleep mode and my MBP usually only gets shut down once or twice a day. Overall SL has some areas that improve performance a lot but in every day use it doesn't feel *OMG* faster and the benches show why.




When I say multicore, I mean anything four core or MORE.