Apple releases new iMac desktops with Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, Thunderbolt ports - Page 8

Apple did adjust the Cdn prices for the iMac this time, I'm not sure why they didn't do it for Europe (or even Asia for that matter).

That's a good point - with lots of free RAM there is no need for swapping. In that case, upgrading to 12GB in the new iMacs sounds like a no brainer.


My thoughts exactly!

I think my mind is made up - I'm going to pick up a base 21.5" iMac on my next visit to the US. As much as I want a 27" iMac, unfortunately it will not fit in standard luggage with the original packaging.

Yep, no dice in Australia where our dollar is streaming ahead of the greenback. Then again I noticed a guitar pedal that retails $150 in the US is marked up by several retailers here to an astonishing $749. And it's a piece of rubbish to boot. Nothing to do with our GST, or import duties, it's just a goldmine that will rapidly dwindle as people get more and more savvy to online purchasing. Good riddance.

I noticed the $200 price difference between the US and Australian Apple stores for the 21.5". Is it possible to order from the US store in Australia? Or don't the US models run on 240v AC?

Whoops, let's try this one again.

And you sound like a bitter little piss who apparently was flowing heavily this afternoon. I don't announce in every forum that I have vision problems and if you'd bothered to read the rest of my post, you would have noticed that I apologized for being cranky that day

As for me having the ability to warp space and time, I guess I left my sonic screwdriver in the Tardis. But hey, thanks for setting me straight sonny

Not true.

Look at:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/intel-sa...ance-review/3/

Now, look at the i5 and i7 Sandy bridge processors (2500 and 2600). The i7 is much faster in many of the tests - and that underestimates the difference in the iMac because Hardcore's test uses a 3.3 GHz i5 vs a 3.4 GHz i7 while the iMac uses a 3.1 GHz i5 vs a 3.4 GHz i7.

Depending on what you're doing, the speed difference could be significant.

No, don't think so on the ordering bit, but as far as the voltage I'm pretty sure it's merely a plug head difference, most high end electronics are switchable. We're not likely to be treated as well as Canada by Apple in this instance and in any case Customs will sting you enough on an iMac to make it irrelevant - however if it were a Mac Pro the diff between a US ordered and a locally bought is immense and might be worth your while to go down a 3rd party seller line. We're talking over a grand tacked on here.

Actually I was referring to RAW image (format) processing - I'm not aware of any photo processors that can efficiently make use of more than 4 cores. But you are right, the clock speed difference could be noticeable here.

Anyways, thanks for pointing out that review as I hadn't realized there was such a large performance gain in the Sandy Bridge over the previous series.

The new iMacs aren't bad at all. But some of the things on them are a couple of years over due.

eg a decent GPU at all price points. Quad core at all price points. This could have been done last year at least. (If not the year before. Quad core had been out ages at all prices points for years on the PC side...) But they clung to death to that Core 2 duo.

The 6970...with a 2 gig GPU option? *Are my eyes deceiving me? Mind you, it's not like on the PC side that 2 gig cards haven't been fairly popular for some time now. But none the less, it's a welcome addition. It's a very decent card that stacks up to the desktop competition very well. It's the kind of card you need to run a 2500x1400 display.

The Sandy bridge platform finally sees the iMac coming of age. It welcome, if (I feel) long over due.

The iMac is now a workstation in all but name. Yesterday's workstation? Today. The 27 inch iMac with quad core i7s (Speedboost.2 upto 3.8 gig?) is something yesteryear's Power Mac could only dream of.

I'd quibble that the top of the line iMac should have the 2 gig gpu, i7 and 8 gig of ram standard. As optional extras it takes the price up to £2045.

What next for the iMac? 6-8 cores next year? When Ivy comes to town? Can monitor sizes get any bigger? Now that it packs some gpu muscle (at last...) will it push further with the next update? Will the 'i7s' come as standard on the top two modesl (as they should be presently...)

Apple 'almost' gave it everything they got. (But you still have to pay for some of those as extras...) It's a worthy update. But as the Mac Pro heads off to 8 cores x 2 for 32 threads...maybe the iMac has one surprise left for us. We may just have to wait until next year for it.

Lemon Bon Bon.

...AND it has Thunderbolt. I wonder what the possibilities are for the iMac now...

Lemon Bon Bon.

Indeed Lemon Bon Bon, indeed! Ah well, Apple gives with one hand and takes with the other (ya have to love the upsell tactics, they're very effective) Who could resist the i7 with all its speedy goodness?

Its good to know that ThunderButt will keep these machines fairly future proof for a while.

It's the same screen as before, and as a result of glare + inability to color calibrate [engineering doesn't know what brightness you should calibrate from] meant I sent it back to replace with a Mini + Dell matte display. It's incredibly bright [and hard on most eyes] if you crank it up anywhere close to max brightness, unlike previous matte LCD cinema displays. And it is like having a big mirror, so even lowlight backgrounds will bounce off it in a distracting way to me.

Can't understand why Apple acts like it's impossible to deliver a reasonable matte option, when they have a number of BTO options for other things.

Right, after berating mstone for not being blind you kinda sorta apologize for offending folks but don't really care if you do because your sorry excuse is you're old and blind. What? Still cranky today?

Of course you don't announce in every forum that you're blind. No one cares that you have vision problems, on the internet everyone is equal. But it appears that you feel it entitles you to be obnoxious. When folks posted that you can move the screen position to reduce glare they meant for folks with normal vision. You called that idiotic because lo and behold (or not in your case) you're partially blind. So what? It wasn't about you or folks with vision problems.

And frankly, if what you have is tunnel vision you don't know what it's like to be completely blind either and neither do I. There is a world of difference between legally blind and the real thing.

Which is better than an iMac + Dell display? I guess from a size standpoint but certainly not from a performance standpoint. I have the mini combo at the moment and might just go the 21" iMac instead unless we see a good mini bump in the nearish future.

Not a world of difference nht. In my case, I was pitch-black blind-period. I can see better than shadows now after three operations. And glare for me, and folks that have the same problems I have, is a real problem. But as I stated previously to another member, I hope you never have to experience vision problems.

There is software installed on my computer that I sometimes use to read on-screen text to me. It doesn't always get everything which might explain the three hour lag between my posts. As I stated before, if I offended you, or anyone else, I am sorry. There is a level of frustration here that's hard for others to comprehend.

It's a LOT cheaper to go with a mini [I did a refurb], as well as the obvious space issue. It's also a problem going back & forth between a glossy/matte display, so I have my old 20" cinema display next to the 24" Dell.

Who knows when they'll update the mini - but they're overdue, and I suspect it won't be too long considering everything else has gone SandyBridge.

I'm curious about this too. Is there a six-core option in the current or planned CPU lineup? Would Apple be able to retain their margins in the iMac if they went octo-core? Will Ivy Bridge bring significant improvements in the lineup?

Edit: Good grief. 3346 days since I registered and I'm one short of 400 posts...

Would like to see an IMAC with a few more options. A good start would be Gloss or Matte screen, 64GB SSD to be used as a Boot Drive with a HDD etc.
While the IMAC is a dynamic piece of equipment Apple seems to be paying less attention to it as sales are flat to down at around 750000 per year.

Where did you get this number for ANNUAL iMac sales from? The below quote from this past quarter's conference call notes at Macworld stated, that while desktop sales are a lower percentage of total Mac sales, they were still over 1,000,000 LAST QUARTER. It doesn't break out how many Mini's and MacPro's were in the total, but I doubt they made up over three quarters of that total.

"Mac Sales

Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the second quarter, an increase of 28 percent over the 2.9 million Macs sold during the year-ago period. That set a record for Mac sales during the March quarter, Oppenheimer said. In particular, Mac sales compared favorably with the overall PC market, which contracted at a rate of 3 percent during the quarter, according to figures from IDC. That marks the twentieth consecutive quarter that Apple has outgrown the PC market, although sales numbers were*below those posted by Apple for the last two quarters.

Laptops continue to be the big driver for Mac sales, with the 2.7 million portables making up 73 percent of the Macs sold during the quarter. In addition to the February revamp of the MacBook Pro line, Apple also reaped the benefits of last years MacBook Air updates. The 1 million desktops sold were only more than during one of the last five quarters."

You can also purchase iMacs with a 256GB SSD + 1TB (or 2 TB) HD today if you want to use an SSD for your startup volume, and the traditional hard drive just for data (go to Apple Store online).

I thought I'd come back and see how this "conversation" went. Wow. I see what you did there.

I think it takes a mature person to understand that other people aren't stupid for not having the same opinion. But maybe you're unwilling to accept such a thought.

I think we understand that SAS is a middle ground in terms of price/performance, you don't even seem to try to understand there might be several reasons why it's not compatible with the the iMac ethos. You also need to understand that an iMac isn't intended to compete with a purpose-built game PC on the same turf, you're trying to make it be something it isn't.