Apple releases new iMac desktops with Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, Thunderbolt ports - Page 7

And the key phrase here is "I know just about everything there is to know about blindness except what it feels like to be blind."

I've been blind; still am legally. Three operations later and I'm blessed with seeing better than I ever have. Still have to use a cane, and still get annoyed with people like you who make flippant comments about how I expect special treatment or for Apple to accommodate folks like me who have vision difficulties. You dug your own hole with that remark. I'm just filling in the dirt.

And if I offend anyone on this forum, my apologies. I'm old, crotchety, and I don't see very well. They wouldn't have sent me to get Bin Laden that's for sure

Oh, God! Another matte-screen complainathon!

I wish Apple would offer the option, just to forestall these discussions at every new product announcement. At least most of the complaints this time are from people bothered by reflections, which are a real thing. The usual ticket is "True Professionals can't possibly do Real Work on a computer screen unless it's covered in cheesecloth." I assume the "Glossy screens are for idiots" guy was the only one of those in this thread.

I can't understand how anyone can claim to see a screen better when it's covered with an obscuring, resolution-reducing semi-opaque coating. And even on the subject of reflectionswith a glossy screen you have some chance of turning the screen so as to minimize the problem. With the matte overlay, any light hitting the screen is going to diffuse and obscure the screen worse than it's already obscured.

It wasn't so many years ago that professional graphics work was done on a $10,000 computer connected to a $10,000 (shiny glass!) monitor, in a darkened room, wearing black clothing. I guess a lot of people made so much money at that that they were able to buy a beach house, and now they're pissed that they can't sit on the deck and do the same work on a $1200 all-in-one. Times change!

Both Macrumors and 9to5mac claim that the 27 inch iMac can be used as a secondary display in the "Target Display Mode" via the new Thunderbolt ports.

Yea, I'd like some input on this i5/i7 debate specifically in relation to photo app performance. I want to move from a MBP to MBA + iMac, but would like to not have to spend another $200 to upgrade to the i7 machine unless it'd make a large difference in speed when I'm dealing with RAW files. My '06 MBP is really having trouble in Aperture. I'm removing RAM benefits to the equation since the iMac's have 4 slots so you add 2 more slots of 4GB each if you want more RAM later.

Can Photo Booth take pictures at the full resolution of the new camera?

Wired Keyboard With Keypad Is Still An Option.

The reason iMacs don't come with a matte option is that they make up a small percentage of sales for Apple. In situations like these, Apple has given people the big finger simply because the financial penalty is irrelevant to them; they'll just sell a few more white iPhones.

Now being a "mobile devices company", MBPs do constitute the majority of their PC sales. So they have no option but to live the contradiction, and pony up a matte screen. If there was no matte option on the MBPs, Apple would lose serious income (relative to their % of laptop sales). Still the ego is there, and they refuse the option on the 13" because they've made the same calculated "up yours" to that user group.

It's not difficult to understand.

It's one of the things I'm hoping will change when the current CEO leaves.

Tried to order a BTO 2011 Imac with an SSD + HDD. I called 3 different times and spoke to 3 different associates, each one told me that if I add a SSD the shipping time is 4-6 weeks.
So while this option is available online, its going to be a long wait till you get it. I'm surprised as the 2010 Imacs were available in a few days with an SSD.
In any event this IMAC looks really nice and has tons of power. An I5 processor for most peoples needs would probably be ample. Wish they had included an HDMI port, oh well.

lol. great :P

true also, not bothered about usb3. thunderbolt will handle my audio needs aptly. looking forward to ditching the usb/firewire bag or hurt. bye bye cable mess.

I would say that for RAW processing there won't be a huge difference between quad-core i5 and i7.

I've been looking to get an iMac ever since the 27" iMacs came out. With the refresh of having quad-core across the line (as well as the better GPU), I am debating if I even need to spend the extra $ to get the 27". It's looking like the base 21.5" will serve me just fine (I have a bunch of external HDs). The $ would probably be better spent towards adding an SSD, to use for OS/app installs and swap file.

I think Apple is going to sell a ton of these new iMacs.

Not to me and to many people in Europe. Apple this time did not adjust prices to the new currency balance like they did many times in the past.

Example: high end iMac, 27". It costs 2000 USD. In Belgium, without VAT it is 1570 euros. This makes today 2335 USD. Yep, $335 more to start with. Including tax the equivalent is 2825 USD. Tax is not Apple's fault but this time Apple has a share to this because the computer is overpriced from the beginning with respect to the USA prices by $335.

It is not a top level GPU...far from it. It is a mobile GPU which is good but not bloody good. Plus, it is already a couple of gens behind what is currently/imminently going into laptop PC's (which is all the iMac is really...a glorified laptop computer with a fabulous but cumbersome monitor).

Are you also completely unaware of OpenCL, (CUDA) GCD and other technologies that utilise multiple processors and which scientific community apps could exploit.

The new iMac's don't even support SATAIII. FPS!

Both these options could have been made BTO or fitted as standard at very little manufacturing cost.

Even if one were to consider gaming as a reason for increasing GPU's alone, hasn't the iPhone and iPad opened SJ's eyes to the indisputable fact that gaming helps sell computers?

Isn't everything (except for beer) in Europe expensive?

I've been meaning to ask, but I assumed that the Radeon GPUs do in fact support OpenCL?

Certainly more expensive than in the US with some glaring exceptions like French cheese and wine, and fine quality Belgian chocolate and beer.

But as I said, in the past Apple often tried to align the prices after updates according to currency balance. Of course, even then, the computers were still more expensive before considering tax but not as much as this time. Probably they are right, in the bigger scheme of things, to do so from their own perspective as a company in an unstable financial climate, but I believe that the iMac sales are going to suffer in Europe.

Apparently you can.


Probably no point, it's not a high end chip as you say. Double a not so good chip doesnt make it a best in class gaming computer.


I think it's a questionable intermediate stage, cost per performance, heat and noise issues don't seem to be in the favor of a SAS drive in a consumer computer, especially an all-in-one. I know nothing about the cheap controllers, I hope they're reliable.


I call it a false dichotomy. All along, I've been asking for a good optical anti-glare coating, most people don't seem to notice or know what I'm talking about. Matte isn't good, but that doesn't mean I want the shine either. I know it is possible to do on a large panel as it is on my 50" TV, one of the reasons I chose it over a glossy or matte TV. Apple's pre-glass "glossy" notebooks had such a coating too, just milder.

I googled 'Radeon 8xxxM and Radeon 7xxxM'. They don't exist. It's hard to refute my point when you're just making crap up.


With a desktop processor and hard drive. Just stop talking about things you don't understand.


Of course not. Could you show me any actual implementations of real-world software that would use CrossFire for this purpose?


Link? The newest MacBook Pros have a SATA III port.

2011 iMacs: No SATA 6Gb/s, Yes to Multiple Drives.

There is apparently a bug with it and this may explain why Apple left it out.

I wish that I could say the same on the service issue. My first Mac was a 2008 Mac Pro, and I have had the logic board go out and the video card go out. Fortunately, both of these occurred before the warranty expired. Currently I'm having two other issues that I believe are software related and this is that the system shuts down whenever it goes to sleep, and the keyboard detection pops up on every boot. Once Lion comes out I'll start over with a clean install and that will hopefully resolve those issues.

The RAM issue seems a bit of an odd complaint to me. I mean, how many people really need 16GB of RAM? For those that could use 16GB of RAM, how many of those can do just fine with 12GB? Personally, if I'm ever able to get a new iMac I would simply bump it up to 12GB as this is more than I would need but a very practical upgrade. I would also be very inclined to toss in an after market 256GB SSD. That would make for one screaming machine.

For those considering the switch, I made the switch with an early 27" and love the machine. The new one sounds awesome so I'll start by saying I'm jealous.....but on to my information.

1) I have 8 gig of ram in my machine and normally operate with 2-3 gig free and unallocated. If I also have parallels (windows emulator) running, then I'm using all 8 gig. Order the machine with 8 gig if you can or upgrade it to at least 8 gig.

2) The SSD option sounds nice but boot time on the mac is so much faster than a PC it is crazy. With my 8 gig of ram I'm never swapping so the SSD option IMHO is better left for MAC books. If money was no object, I would love to have a 512 SSD so I'm not knocking it.

3) I have no idea what the 2gig option does for the video card. Mine has a lowly 512 and that doesn't seem to be an issue except for a few games which I cannot run at max-max-max resolution. I would probably stick with the 1gig and faster GPU and be completely happy.

4) with the money I saved above, I would try to get a couple of 1TB thunderbolt external drives. They sound crazy good.

I know that the argument here was getting 8GB of RAM, but... If you were going to upgrade to 8GB, it would really be pretty foolish not to go ahead and go to 12GB. Right now you can get the 4GB upgrade for just under $50 and the 8GB upgrade for $95. More importantly though is the fact that if you decide later you need/want more than 8GB you now have to toss RAM if you go with only the 4GB upgrade. To make it even worse, if you went with the 4GB upgrade and decided to max the system you would have to toss not only the original 4GB in the system, but also the 4GB you bought as an upgrade.

Just a little food for thought.

This does sound like it would be the way to go to me too. Since Apple is limited to using a mobile chipset due to heat concerns, this option would seriously up the ante on the iMac being a gaming capable system that can actually be gamer friendly for the entire 3+ year lifespan of the system. Maybe next time, but somehow I doubt it.

The 6970M that is found in the top end 27" is the current top end mobile GPU from AMD. So no it isn't 2 generations behind and yes it is a top end card. Not as good as the desktop version maybe, but one of the fastest mobile GPUs w/o going into SLI or Crossfire options.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...D_6xxxM_Series

I'm not sure what the original poster's intent may have been, but I would agree that this refresh was very predictable. That said, this appears to be a very smokin' refresh.


Actually, if you are going to be adding RAM, you can get an 8GB upgrade for $100 and this is absolutely the option I would go for.


Now I really LIKE this idea. If only I had the funds to buy the new iMac, RAID box, and SSD drives that would be something very cool to play around with. Launching apps would be like don't blink.

At least give us something to compare to...

WD Velociraptor 10k 300GB = $104.99

Pretty much the fastest drive you can find that will drop straight into an iMac or Mac Pro. Yeah, the guy touting the SAS drives apparently has money to burn.

What are these people going to say when holographic displays come out? "Umm, Steve, the light goes right through the images to my eyes. Can we not have matte hologram options?"

Great points here, but I would argue that Apple has an even bigger reason for not using SAS drives. GREEN. Spinning these things up at 15k has got to take a LOT more juice than spinning a disk at less that half that speed. This is the reason that they offer the SSD drives for those with the money, they are very green in terms of power consumption.

Whatever, my gaming PC I built which puts the iMac to shame cost a hell of a lot less. And yes, I use both PC's and Macs - been using Macs since the SE.

The point I was trying to make is that Apple should offer SAS as a middle range option instead of forcing consumers to choose between slower SATA and fast but expensive SSD. But apparently people on here are just to stupid to understand.

The rebutlle: Sounds like you are too stupid to understand that Apple isn't forcing you to buy any of their products.

Seriously, if you don't like what a company offers then don't buy it. If they are the least objectionable of the imperfect options then buy it. It's really that simple.

"Announcing the new Apple product. It comes in blue."

Yay! I love blue! Blue is awesome!

I wish it came in red.

What? How dare you! If you don't like blue you can
go elsewhere simple as that.

But isn't this a discussion of Apple products?

No! It's a um, er, well, sputter, oh just go away!

If you are stilling using your previous argument then you think Apple is forcing you to buy in blue and everyone is just to stupid to understand that you want red.

You seriously dont understand what choice is, do you?

This whole Pro versus Consumer is so dumb. Its as simple as this:

Pros have very specific specifications for their tools. Often that means they must use custom made equipment. This is why Pro tools are expensive. Small audience that requires something 'just-so'.

Consumers are willing to temper their expectations to reach a price-point and lowest-common-denominator interface, aesthetic, whatever other characteristic.

The situation becomes more complex when this happens: Sometimes a Consumer device just happens to fulfill one person's Professional requirements. A second person takes notice and thinks, wow, that would be great if I didn't need to spend so much on a professional tool! Upon reflection (pun fully intended) the second person determines the Consumer device won't meet their requirement.

Then the situation becomes nasty when the second person publicly insults the first person as 'not professional' since they can make due with their Consumer device as a professional tool.

This happens in lots of businesses. My girlfriend is a jeweler. A lot of her tools are custom made from rough blanks to fit her hands and working style precisely. She couldn't buy them at any price, she must custom make them for herself. Still, many other tools can be had very cheap at the local Home Depot (consumer stuff, nothing high-end)

In the Pro Mac User business, whatever the fuck that means anyway, it's different for everyone...There is a perfectly good Mac Pro that you can attach to any screen you like to suit your Professional requirements. Yeah, its more expensive...but suck it up, Pro!

Full disclosure: I am a Pro Mac User who is very pleased with my 27" iMac at home. I build websites, do graphic design and photography work on this machine and I couldn't be happier. In my case the Consumer device fits my needs perfectly well! Don't hate on my or belittle me because the iMac works for me. It's just chance that the machine fits the task.

Now, photographing my girlfriend's jewelry has required me to build a custom jewelry photography studio in the back of her shop. Should I cry because some people can make due with a studio-in-a-box they buy off the internet? I suppose I could, but that's not my style.

I do understand what choice is. You don't understand what a discussion is. In your world all conversations on Apple Insider would go like this:

"I wish Apple would fix the bug so that permissions don't get corrupt when I export pictures from iPhoto"

"If you don't like it then don't use a Mac!"

No we aren't stupid, we've given you any number of perfectly good reasons why Apple doesn't use SAS drives. Excessive heat, noise and energy usage are the first part, costing generally triple what the same storage space costs in SATA form is another. I'll let other people get into the debates about the quality of various SAS controllers b/c I don't feel the discussion needs to even go that far. 1TB SATS drives are $80 these days. Why pay 3 times that for something that would change the iMac from being a very power efficient and quiet machine into something loud and far less effecient?

Some have yes. That's great. In this case I'm responding to the 'if you don't like it then don't use a Mac' crowd.

That said, I'd be curious to see some numbers on how awful SAS drives are in terms of heat and power. The 2.5" models are hugely more efficient than the older 3.5" ones.

Yes this is a possible workaround.

Reference this video from an older model:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy0o2WdrN3M

In the beginning frames the glare is extreme, and the guy removes the glass panel with some tape. The glare is significantly reduced. I know if you want to use an iMac with antiglare adhesive, you'd probably want to put it on this bottom layer and keep the top glass panel off entirely.

Anyone know of a replacement bezel?

Yes, I've tried to be a bit more reasonable than that and give actual reasons

I don't spend any time looking at reviews of products that are typically used in enterprise fashion so I don't know if reviews of those products typically go into sound levels, heat production and power usage. They probably do talk about power usage. Those kind of products aren't typically reviews at places like tomshardware, arstechnica or anandtech tho, so I'm not sure where to go looking for those reviews. Would be interesting to see how they stack up currently, but the price difference for the same amount of storage alone is probably enough to make Apple not consider them. If you do find any reviews for some of these SAS drives feel free to post them, b/c we can easily find reviews of the kind of hard drives that would be found in Apple's products on sites that account for heat, power and noise.

No the key phrase is that the comment happened 3 hours before you posted you had vision problems. Unless you believe your blindness also provides the ability to warp space and time. In which case I feel pretty ripped off. You aren't the only one with vision problems.

Or you could attach a Eizo 27" CG275W to the iMac and relegate the "sub-par" glossy screen to email, twitter and tool palette duty. The Eizo even comes with a hood and self-calibrates.

Funny, it happens to be 16:9 (2560x1440)..I guess Eizo doesn't know pro needs either...

Found this from Seagate's website, comparing their enterprise SAS drive to their Sata offering.

SAS - 4.58W Idle, 8.32W Average, 3.0 bels (Idle) (whatever a bel is)
SATA - 3.84W Idle, 6.35W Average, 2.2 bels (Idle)

To me 2W doesn't seem like it would matter in a desktop - but in such a tight enclosure maybe it does.