Apple updates iMac line with Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors - Page 7

Not the kind of thing Apple support would enjoy saying when their customers call to complain about a Blu-Ray movie causing all sorts of random problems. Imagine the YouTube rants.

To paraphrase the above title: Good companies fix whatever problems they create. Great companies avoid them altogether.

As for Blu-ray, I would rather have it on a MacBook so I can take my Blu-ray discs on the go... it would be really nice if Apple would support it, but at the same time, my PS3 does a wonderful job of playing my Blu-ray discs on my big-screen TV with beautiful surround sound...

One wouldn't think that Blu-ray would not make much difference on a 27" screen, but I did an experiment with a 24" LCD tv I bought, played the same movie via DVD and via Blu-ray and the Blu-ray was significantly sharper and more colorful (I used Disney's UP and and Liongate's Crank as test discs).

So, yeah, Blu-ray would make a difference on the 27" iMac, but isn't necessary.

I think it's just 45nm i7-870. The 32nm statement is just referring to the machines that have changed CPUs. Sloppy writing yes, big deal, no.

That's a mistake on the Apple site. Unless they got some early process-shrunk chips from Intel that haven't been announced yet, which is always possible. Arrandale mobile chips and the i7-980X are the only 32nm i7's to date. More likely it is the recently released i7-875k, which costs about $200 less than the 870, but has all the same basic stats.



Nah, if Apple sticks with Intel, Sandy Bridge has a minimum of 4 cores. So early next year we could well see a complete refresh of most of Apple's products (probably barring the Mac Pro) to the new processors. The mobile chip is expected to be released at teh same time as the rest of the processors and it is supposed to be 20% faster than Arrandale and more power efficient. In theory we will see Intel supporting USB3 and SATA6 both with the new systems and possibly Lightpeak too. We'll have to wait for more info to be sure.

W7 Ultimate? (WHY??), i5? What's wrong with the i7??? and the specs are there.. it's not 'missing' anything, sure the features don't line up 100% but to be honest some of the things you are talking about don't interest me in the slightest. Firewire? Want to know when I've used that? Never. Optical Audio? No need for it. If I did I could easily upgrade to a creative labs card and have it though. Card Reader? From personal experience those are good for collecting dust and not much else (We use card readers at work..but that's taken care of if needed, we have 10 dollar usb card readers for the task). The SLI setup, extra ram and beefy processor are more than worth the price difference IMHO. I guess some of that comes from being a gamer and Apple certainly doesn't cater to people like me. If Apple did offer better cards, and pushed their drivers to mature havinga mac to play games on would be a no brainer for me. As it is I have a mac for Obj C work and a PC for when I want to play games.

I dont understand the all-in-one brag though.. that is a huge turn off to a lot of people. One of the nice freedoms of component systems is just buying a new monitor, video card, processor (insert whatever you want here) if something happens to the old one or you just want something bigger/better. All-in-one is a concept that I don't see as a massive benefit unless there is a lifetime warranty involved with free repairs. It certainly doesn't make the Mac a 'better' product just because it's all-in-one.

I actually meant to comment on it maybe being the 875k VS 870 and got distracted My question about the 875k would be they're nominally unlocked since they seem to have a good amount of overhead. Won't matter in an iMac as no one will be OC'ing them, and I wondered if Intel would have made an Apple-specific run, etc. Be interesting once iFixit or somebody does an i7 teardown.

Either wasy, I think it'll be screaming fast, and I plan to blow the money on one, as I'm due.

Sounds like a fair trade off. Part of Apple's design philosophy is in building products that are low energy consumption devices and also quite and no obtrusive to the user. When I was building my own top of the line, over-clocked behemoths for gaming, I recall them being loud (do to the multiple fans) and hot enough heat my entire room. So while a part of me does wish for the latest and greatest video cards for playing games on my Mac, I prefer the compromises that Apple makes in order to provide the beautiful computers that it does.

I'd take one as a gift. Sell it. Buy another computer.

What random problems? You initial message didn't include random problems, they were things that are written into the Blu-ray spec, and to which some of which are in the DVD spec (but they had no issue with supporting DVD).



The issue with that statement is Apple has created a problem for which I blame them, in that I can't enjoy Blu-ray movies when travelling, yet they haven't fixed this problem.

To which they avoid the problem, and that is the reason why Apple doesn't sell (or let their customers enjoy) 1080p video with lossless sound.

I slapped an Apple sticker on my tower so it's compliant, besides having paid for SL so I don't have an issue with it, thank you very much.

I understand...but you must have missed the part about having zero issues with this hardware since it's 100% Apple compliant with the exception of the GB ports, for which I have a separate GB card. I did not have to do any hacking to get anything working_just install the Chameleon bootloader and that's it. I can run Win7 x64 and any version of Linux I want to run beside OS X.
It's all about getting the right hardware...I know some people just buy random hardware and expect it to work and they are stupid for doing it, but that's not the case here.

I am here because this is still a free country and I happen to run OS X and I also own several Apple products. And you?

A good part of the time my ISP speed is > 20mb . Usually during the day when people at my condo are at work. At night it is slower.

Also, I have appletv and there is no stuttering with n-protocol ... With g-protocol it is iffy. I have found that steaming works much better with the newer router.

My time is worth more than the 200 dollars differencw. When young I did a lot pf tinkering. Now I just want ease of use. I have more money than time.

That's the right answer!

Just rented and watched the Green Zone. There were no forced previews on it, I skipped past everything that came up. I got the NZ Rental copy, which is distributed by Universal (the same as the US release)

Drop the screen, price by $500 change the case to a smaller mac pro case add two pci slots and gamers, audio, video ProSumers will buy like hotcakes

learn by Avid/Digi. The saw computers were getting faster
so they bought M-Audio so they could get a chunk of gamers and ProSumers. Read that gaming alone us bigger than music and movies combined. I really think Apple is missing out. To worried that the pro line won't sell. It will. When NBC, Bravo etc are pricing out, they are getting the server
Make something for the up and coming artists, otherwise osx86 will continue to
grow. They worry for no reason andnow pitted themselves agaist Adobe. Crazy. They could make so much more $$$. The iMac is a consumer
machinen no way to place adons
PS. I think it will happen just need jobs to step down maybe. ?

So, YOU are going to give Apple and Jobs an education on how to make money?

You mean having a successful lemonade stand for an afternoon as a kid isn't enough qualification!?

Thanks. I double-checked mine, also marked "rental" and confirmed there was no way past the previews no matter what I did. Perhaps a non-"rental" BD would behave differently. Are you using an Oppo?

I've had other problematic movies, don't remember which though. I haven't tried disconnecting from the network yet.

It would appear your experience indicates an inconsistent implementation of the standard, perhaps from one region to another, certainly from one master to another, and probably from one player to another. In time there may be movement toward a more consistent standard, but at present - in my opinion - it's a mess.

Good movie though

Begs the question, why would you want to watch something like it on an iMac, when DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD is more than half the experience? Blu-Ray is pointless on anything less than a home theater. I surmise Apple may have concluded DVD is more than adequate for desktops and laptops for now.

Not having the money for a home theater setup, plus having a 2 and 4 yr old who like to monopolize the TV as it is, I've pondered dropping $70 on a BD drive for my desktop PC. I would just like to watch some of my BD movies (my PS3 is acting up and won't read discs) and I have good speakers and a good set of headphones on my computer. 22" screen from just a couple of feet away gives a good picture. *shrug* It isn't optimal, but it certainly works well enough.

ok Avid bought m-audio as they knew computer were getting faster and people would not buy full HD pro toos rigs so they bought maudio. ProSumers also cosist f gamers which last year alone sold more than music and games combined.

A pro Sumer won't buy an iMac as you can't ad fx pci card and the likes and they dint have the cash for a mac pro so they get a 4/8 core windows 7 machine. Also last year I went to avid video symphony in Burbank CA, largest school in theworld to learn avid and FCP and was shocked to find out that they now use windows servers as it's cheaper and easier to scale.

The point is, musicians, gamers, editors would buy up these machines in a heart beat. Not you Bravo editor but you home bedroom musician/editor. They would make millions. They dint sell that many mac pros anyway and instead if a muducianmaybe buying an iMac and complaining they can't upgrade to a phatso pci card, (just one example), prosumers would be all over theses machines and it would also make Apple look good and VERY PROFITABLE.

No, I am using a PS3. Maybe a non-rental would be different, but I didn't enjoy the movie enough to go purchase it.


It is possible they have a different release between regions, being a Universal release it it a little strange though.

The thing is, there is a consistant standard, it is just that different studios implement different "features" in the standard with their releases.

This is no different to the digital downloads, there is region coding with them. Some have that iTunes Extras, some don't (including releases on different platforms). It isn't consistant across releases.

All I know is, I can purchase a Blu-ray player from a number of different manufactures that enable me to watch movies, I am not forced to purchase one player from one company.


Because if I am travelling, I don't take my TV etc with me, but sometimes I would like to watch a movie. Managed copy with have helped here, but that hasn't gone anywhere. Some of the stuff I have read blamed Apple for this, as they could have used iTunes to manage it, but you know Apple and their licencing.

Funny....when you update the GPU on the 27" i5 dual core imac it's actually MORE than the equally spec'd 27" Quad core i5 imac! $1,914 vs $1,899 with the student discount.

I know the dual core has "hyperthreading" while the quad core doesn't....BUT....the Quad core has 4 REAL cores while the Dual only has 2 REAL and 2 "virtual" cores. The Quad core also has 8MB of level 3 cache compared to the dual's 4MB.

Personally I'd rather have the 4 "REAL" cores.

I plan to do HD video editing, photoshop, web design and animation.

At first I was going to go with the 21.5" i5.....but after looking at the 27" screen, I got screen lust and took a closer look at them. Thats when I noticed this price discrepancy.

What are your thoughts? I've got some time to decide, since I am waiting to see if the new "ilife" on August 7th pans out.

Cheers

I have both the 21" and 27" iMacs at my business. I would go for a 27" iMac if I were you and had the space.

I would check out the Apple refurbs. Last gen i5s are $1500 and last gen i7s are $1700. That's pretty attractive value to me. The dual core i3s, especially the 3.2 ghz models, perform surprising well but not as well as the true quads.

There is nothing wrong with the i7, I just threw in the i5 to show that even with inferior specs the Dell/Alienware is STILL more expensive. Also, the other stuff the iMac has was in the post to show the "features" M$ sheep think they have extra, that you DO get something more for the price you are paying. If you will find them useful or not, that depends on you.

It's just to contradict the "Mac users are being ripped off" myth.


For a gamer, yes, but that's why there are people (like me) who want an "xMac"


The All-In-One brag was there to further ridicule the "Mac users are being ripped off" myth, as they are more expensive to produce than component systems. And those "freedoms of component systems" you talk about are only appreciated by 1) Pros 2) Gamers

Pros already got their machine, that's why we are waiting for the xMac (in theory kinda like a Mac Pro but using only consumer-grade parts to decrease price to iMac-levels)

Edit: The Ultimate Windows 7 was thrown in because OS X has only ONE version with all the features (aside from Snow Leopard Server), so having Home Premium wouldn't be fair.