AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Future Apple Hardware › iMac refresh soon??
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

iMac refresh soon??

post #1 of 31
3/12/12 at 8:59am
Thread Starter 
Hi,
I have considering updating my 2006 single core iMac 20" for a new 21.5" with Intel QuadCore i7, 8Gb memory, etc.... But I wondered if I should wait a couple of months for a new update/refresh if there is one likely to be coming up... (I probably can't wait until the summer though...).
Is it more likely to be at the same time as the Mountain Lion OS? (I guess if I go for a top of the range one, it should last many years and future OS updates will work OK, won't they?)

All thoughts and ideas welcome...
Thanks a lot.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 31
3/12/12 at 9:14am
Ivy Bridge. Late spring. We can't know any more than that. I doubt it'll be at the same time as Mountain Lion; likely prior to the OS' launch.

You should wait if you can.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
post #3 of 31
3/12/12 at 11:03am
My wife and I just got our tax returns and wanting an iMac. Right now we just have a 2009 mac mini, and we really like the idea of a 27" iMac gracing our apartment. It looks like I'll be waiting for both the iMac and Mountain Lion to be released.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 31
3/12/12 at 11:48am
Basically, every single Mac update is dependent on Intel's release schedule. So, for Mac mini (8 months old), iMac (10 months old), MBP (12 months old, I don't consider the Fall update as significant enough), & MBA (8 months old), they won't be updated no earlier then when Intel ships Ivy Bridge chips and chipsets in Apple suitable volumes.

That's late spring. Apple may hold some of the Mac lines for when Mountain Lion ships in late Summer. It's going to be a log jam for late Spring or early Summer, whenever Intel ships these 22 nm Ivy Bridge parts. iMac & MBA will probably be first up.

The only model that can be shipped this month or in April is the Mac Pro as the Sandy Bridge-E Xeons are finally shipping.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 31
3/13/12 at 4:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackkilby View Post

How "future-proof" would this iMac be? (Specs included)?

IMO, an iMac is never much future-proof because hdd and memory are the only parts you can upgrade. On the graphics part of the equation it gets worse: it's a laptop graphics card with lower performance than the desktop version. Those cons are the reasons I've been holding my money because I like to play games (SWTOR these days, I'm leaving WoW) which aren't not very demanding but the system requirements improve overtime. I'm waiting to see how's the new entry level MacPro is going to be (if it really is going to be) before I decide which Mac desktop I'm going to purchase. The Mac Mini is out of question for me.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 31
3/13/12 at 10:22am
  • hmm
  • Keylogger
Quote:
Originally Posted by LoganHunter View Post

IMO, an iMac is never much future-proof because hdd and memory are the only parts you can upgrade. On the graphics part of the equation it gets worse: it's a laptop graphics card with lower performance than the desktop version. Those cons are the reasons I've been holding my money because I like to play games (SWTOR these days, I'm leaving WoW) which aren't not very demanding but the system requirements improve overtime. I'm waiting to see how's the new entry level MacPro is going to be (if it really is going to be) before I decide which Mac desktop I'm going to purchase. The Mac Mini is out of question for me.

You'd be better off with a Windows box for gaming. Buying a mac pro seems quite expensive unless you actually require the features of one. MMO games look way too addictive.

For the OP, even the Ivy Bridge one is a softer update, so not exactly "future proof". If you were hoping to update on a major revision, you'd be looking at 2013 rather than 2012, so up to a year and a half away.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 31
3/13/12 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm View Post

You'd be better off with a Windows box for gaming. Buying a mac pro seems quite expensive unless you actually require the features of one. MMO games look way too addictive.

My only Mac is late 2008 Macbook Pro and I want to replace my desktop pc with a Mac. The iMac should be enough to play the game the first couple of years. Still, I'm curious to see how things are going to be with the Mac Pro or something that might replace it. Further down the road maybe I'll get a new Windows box for games if I feel the need but this time I really want a desktop Mac for everything else. I'm tired of Windows.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 31
3/20/12 at 4:59pm
Looks like they could have been pushed back to 2013.

Anyone know if this is true?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ivy-B...3-259346.shtml

I am also looking at buy a top spec iMac, and cannot decided if its worth waiting it out or not.....
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 31
3/20/12 at 5:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by aphex View Post

Looks like they could have been pushed back to 2013.

Anyone know if this is true?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ivy-B...3-259346.shtml

Those don't go in iMacs, though, do they
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
post #10 of 31
3/20/12 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shrike View Post

Basically, every single Mac update is dependent on Intel's release schedule. So, for Mac mini (8 months old), iMac (10 months old), MBP (12 months old, I don't consider the Fall update as significant enough), & MBA (8 months old), they won't be updated no earlier then when Intel ships Ivy Bridge chips and chipsets in Apple suitable volumes.

That's late spring. Apple may hold some of the Mac lines for when Mountain Lion ships in late Summer. It's going to be a log jam for late Spring or early Summer, whenever Intel ships these 22 nm Ivy Bridge parts. iMac & MBA will probably be first up.

The only model that can be shipped this month or in April is the Mac Pro as the Sandy Bridge-E Xeons are finally shipping.

What he said.

Maybe Apple will do their own desktop/laptop cpus one day. *Looks admiringly at the iPad's soc. But for now, they're dependent on Intel's schedule. With luck we may get a jump start on the Wintel crowd. Who knows.

It's not like they're selling any less Macs. Given most Macs have shifted to a yearly update schedule are we surprised? It's like this most years now?

Spring. Fall. Spring. Fall. Baddabing. Baddabing. Tik Tok.

If you can wait for an iMac update. Do. I'd guess it's imminent if you can wait for a month or so.

Get the top of the line 27 incher or last year's top of the line in a sale as soon as the new models hit.

Pack it with ram not bought from Apple. Get the internal SSD.

Be happy.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #11 of 31
3/20/12 at 6:08pm
Quote:
The mightiest Ivy Bridge-E chip will be called Core i7-3980X and will replace the Sandy Bridge Core i7-3960X. That means that it could have higher clock frequencies or the seventh and eighth cores enabled, along with the remaining 5 MB of L3 cache.

Hmm. But I wonder if they'll finally give us an iMac 'Pro' that replaces the Mac Pro and put one of these Xeon babies in there with a Quadro. Meet the new iMac Pro...now with Sandy Bridge. I guess the iMac Pro would be thicker? That HP Z AIO really piqued my interest.... (*says provocatively...)

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #12 of 31
3/20/12 at 6:10pm
...with an even bigger monitor size than 27 inches?!

Ok. I'll behave now.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #13 of 31
3/21/12 at 6:35am
  • hmm
  • Keylogger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon. View Post

...with an even bigger monitor size than 27 inches?!

Ok. I'll behave now.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I don't see this as highly probable. The current 27" panels are marketing to a degree. They took 25.5" panels that were previously marketed as 26", and widened them slightly.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 31
3/21/12 at 7:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm View Post

I don't see this as highly probable. The current 27" panels are marketing to a degree. They took 25.5" panels that were previously marketed as 26", and widened them slightly.

Er, no It's a 27" display, period. It's not a 27 inch "class" (pile of worthless lying nonsense), nor a 26" being marketed as a 27", it's a 27".

Twenty-seven viewable inches. WYSIWYG.

The old 30" Cinema Display, on the other hand, was 29.7" viewable.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
post #15 of 31
3/21/12 at 11:10am
  • hmm
  • Keylogger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Er, no It's a 27" display, period. It's not a 27 inch "class" (pile of worthless lying nonsense), nor a 26" being marketed as a 27", it's a 27".

Twenty-seven viewable inches. WYSIWYG.

The old 30" Cinema Display, on the other hand, was 29.7" viewable.

You missed my point . They're using off the shelf panels. I mentioned that LG who makes these panels widened their previous model to a 16:9. It measures 27" that way. They could come out with new ones at 28", 29", 30", but I doubt we'll see another major size increase on the imac.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 31
3/21/12 at 3:40pm
seriously with suitable pixel density one could run a Videp/TV channel PiP style to good effect. Plus tha additional functionality would make the iMacs price easier to accept.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm View Post

You missed my point . They're using off the shelf panels. I mentioned that LG who makes these panels widened their previous model to a 16:9. It measures 27" that way. They could come out with new ones at 28", 29", 30", but I doubt we'll see another major size increase on the imac.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 31
3/22/12 at 6:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by brian002 View Post

You'd be better off with a Windows box for gaming.

No, he wouldn't. Please don't perpetrate a lie that stopped being true over half a decade ago.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
Reply
post #18 of 31
3/22/12 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

No, he wouldn't. Please don't perpetrate a lie that stopped being true over half a decade ago.

The iMac is a respectable gaming machine. It's gaming chic. 21 or 27 inch gorgeous built in display with plenty of ram, powerful cpu and 'decent' gpu with the world's best operating system at its core.

I realised when my 24 inch Core 2 duo could run the Resident Evil 5 demo in native resolution at 30 fps that mac gaming arrived sometime time back. Half Life 2 looks great on it and runs brilliantly.

It's not sli GPu water cooled over clocked CPU bleeding edge gaming. But it's respectable. I love playing City of Heroes on it. But I bet the current i7 radeon top end puts mine well and truly in the shade.

Between steam, boot camp, mac app store, iOS...macs and apple are resurgent in gaming. In fact, they now lead in portable gaming leaving Sony and nintendo reeling on the floor after the iOS juggernaut ran them over.

The gaming engines seem pretty standardised over the consoles and pcs anyhow. I don't see a drastic shift in visual quality until 2013 onward when he next gen consoles hit.

Sure, the latest GPus are powerful but apple doesn't sell them and how many games are truly jaw dropping or take advantage of them? I'm more impressed by Batman, Heavy Rain and La Noire on a dirt cheap and ageing ps3.

All told... Apple are leading the gaming revolution right where it's happening. Portability.

Pc cheap tower gaming like a cheap hooker.

iMac gaming like a high class escort.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #19 of 31
3/24/12 at 3:41pm
For the record, I still don't think the imac display is quite big enough even at 27 inches. I still want more denser DPI/higher resolutions.

HiDPI.

I can't wait.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #20 of 31
3/26/12 at 2:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon. View Post

The iMac is a respectable gaming machine. It's gaming chic. 21 or 27 inch gorgeous built in display with plenty of ram, powerful cpu and 'decent' gpu with the world's best operating system at its core.

I realised when my 24 inch Core 2 duo could run the Resident Evil 5 demo in native resolution at 30 fps that mac gaming arrived sometime time back. Half Life 2 looks great on it and runs brilliantly.

It's not sli GPu water cooled over clocked CPU bleeding edge gaming. But it's respectable. I love playing City of Heroes on it. But I bet the current i7 radeon top end puts mine well and truly in the shade.

Between steam, boot camp, mac app store, iOS...macs and apple are resurgent in gaming. In fact, they now lead in portable gaming leaving Sony and nintendo reeling on the floor after the iOS juggernaut ran them over.

The gaming engines seem pretty standardised over the consoles and pcs anyhow. I don't see a drastic shift in visual quality until 2013 onward when he next gen consoles hit.

Sure, the latest GPus are powerful but apple doesn't sell them and how many games are truly jaw dropping or take advantage of them? I'm more impressed by Batman, Heavy Rain and La Noire on a dirt cheap and ageing ps3.

All told... Apple are leading the gaming revolution right where it's happening. Portability.

Pc cheap tower gaming like a cheap hooker.

iMac gaming like a high class escort.

Lemon Bon Bon.

Tell that to BioWare... A lot of Mac users are asking for a OS X version of SW:TOR and many that already play through bootcamp are quitting the game because they can't stand running Windows on their Mac just to play that one game. Also I believe many more Mac users would play the game if a native version was available.
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 31
3/26/12 at 8:01am
SWTOR.

That's up to the publishers.

Well done to Valve for embracing the Mac. That we have Steam on the Mac is wonder enough. We even have a Mac version of CoX now. And it's got much better than the buggy initial version.

I know at least one girl that bought a 4k Sterling (convert into dollars...) rig and a 2K on TV, gaming chair etc complete with controllers. The game she got all excited about? Republic.

She's hooked. From what I've seen it looks quite compelling for a Morg.

I guess Mac fans may or not get their version in time. 5 million Macs a quarter is a lot of business to turn down.

This isn't 1997 any longer. I believe that was the point being made.

Momentum is with Mac and iOS is capturing the lightning bolt.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #22 of 31
3/26/12 at 8:03am
Quote:
Also I believe many more Mac users would play the game if a native version was available.

Sure. WoW is popular. There's even a few CoX players. (*waves...)

Republic has a decent change of coming over. Mac fans just need to bombard Bioware. The Cider Transgamer engine did an ok job with CoX. It's got better over time.

Lemon Bon Bon.
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...[/
Reply
post #23 of 31
3/28/12 at 5:05am
So going back to the OP question... When you guys think there will be a refresh?

I'm ready to buy a 27" iMac now but I could wait a month or so for a newer one

cheers,
C
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 31
3/28/12 at 6:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mastersonics View Post

So going back to the OP question... When you guys think there will be a refresh?

I'm ready to buy a 27" iMac now but I could wait a month or so for a newer one

cheers,
C

Based on hardware that's coming (Ivy Bridge processors), they'll update the iMac. I just don't know if it's coming within a month or if it's coming later. Also, some changes on the design may be coming. Current design it's been around since 2007 (I think) with small changes during that time span.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 31
3/28/12 at 11:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mastersonics View Post

So going back to the OP question... When you guys think there will be a refresh?

It could be days or several weeks after Intel starts to ship suitable hardware.
Quote:


I'm ready to buy a 27" iMac now but I could wait a month or so for a newer one

Normally I would say buy when you need it. If you are into the iMac design the current ones are not that bad. Today though I think it would be wise to hold off for as long as possible. Ivy Bridge and a number of other new technologies could make for a very interesting iMac re-release.
Quote:

cheers,
C

The problem you got is that nobody in this forum has inside knowledge, so we really don't know wHen the new hardware will come. What we do know is that new chips from Intel are very near and that if they live up to the performance rumors should provide for a nice update. Beyond that we can see that Apple isn t afraid of new technologies to boost the performance of its machines, so we could see other improvements in the iMac.

So again the advice is, that if you can, wait for the refresh!
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 31
3/28/12 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LoganHunter View Post

Based on hardware that's coming (Ivy Bridge processors), they'll update the iMac. I just don't know if it's coming within a month or if it's coming later. Also, some changes on the design may be coming. Current design it's been around since 2007 (I think) with small changes during that time span.

The chassis is a little old in the tooth, but honestly it isn't hard on the eyes. What it is hard on is my sensibilities as to what a PC should be access wise. I have no idea why on earth they would put the things most likely to need servicing or replacement into the hardest to get to locations. I'm talking the HD here. I firmly believe Apple could come up with a new design if they wanted too that would not raise the objections of so many potential owners.

Let's face it they did an excellent job with the MBP Unibodies so they have the engineering talent to do it. Compared to the models that came before them the Unibodies are a revolution in access. So there is no excuse for the iMac.

They one factor that leads me to be reluctant to express any sort of surety with respect to the new iMacs debut is HiDPI screens. If the come this year they could very well wait a long time to get the hardware and software ready. HIDPI is a little fly in the ointment if you will. I have a hard time believing they would wait for WWDC in June but it is possible. It is an outlier but for practicle reasons I need to throw out the idea that new iMacs could take as limping as June/July to come.
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 31
3/28/12 at 1:31pm
Just got a 27" so let's hope for the best...

I'm not sure if the upgraded iMacs will be revolutionary but from what I read the new processors are not like a night and day difference...

cheers,
C
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 31
3/28/12 at 1:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

The chassis is a little old in the tooth, but honestly it isn't hard on the eyes. What it is hard on is my sensibilities as to what a PC should be access wise. I have no idea why on earth they would put the things most likely to need servicing or replacement into the hardest to get to locations. I'm talking the HD here. I firmly believe Apple could come up with a new design if they wanted too that would not raise the objections of so many potential owners.

Let's face it they did an excellent job with the MBP Unibodies so they have the engineering talent to do it. Compared to the models that came before them the Unibodies are a revolution in access. So there is no excuse for the iMac.

They one factor that leads me to be reluctant to express any sort of surety with respect to the new iMacs debut is HiDPI screens. If the come this year they could very well wait a long time to get the hardware and software ready. HIDPI is a little fly in the ointment if you will. I have a hard time believing they would wait for WWDC in June but it is possible. It is an outlier but for practicle reasons I need to throw out the idea that new iMacs could take as limping as June/July to come.

Beware with your wishes. HiDPI on a display the size of the iMac is very very GPU intensive. If they keep using laptop graphics cards on the iMac the computer becomes good only for office use and nothing more. Everything else needs much more GPU power.
You'll have your HiDPI on laptops, on a 27" I'm not seeing it coming any time soon.
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 31
3/28/12 at 2:52pm
If they double current resolution I'm not sure that would qualify them as retina screens. In the end the GPU performance hit wont be any worst than is seen on something like the iPad. While there certainly will be a hit if using the same GPU hardware, both AMD and NVIdia now have 28nm GPUs that should deal with this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LoganHunter View Post

Beware with your wishes. HiDPI on a display the size of the
iMac is very very GPU intensive. If they keep using laptop graphics cards on the iMac the computer becomes good only for office use and nothing more. Everything else needs much more GPU power.
You'll have your HiDPI on laptops, on a 27" I'm not seeing it coming any time soon.

I really don't see a problem GPU wise though I suspect manufacturing such panels might be an issue. Remember the idea is to simply double the resolution not to go to retina level densities. The other issue is getting the data to the display. I suspect this would require something faster than Displayport over TB that we currently have.

So yeah there are challenges but these can be overcomed.
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 31
3/29/12 at 2:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

If they double current resolution I'm not sure that would qualify them as retina screens. In the end the GPU performance hit wont be any worst than is seen on something like the iPad. While there certainly will be a hit if using the same GPU hardware, both AMD and NVIdia now have 28nm GPUs that should deal with this.



I really don't see a problem GPU wise though I suspect manufacturing such panels might be an issue. Remember the idea is to simply double the resolution not to go to retina level densities. The other issue is getting the data to the display. I suspect this would require something faster than Displayport over TB that we currently have.

So yeah there are challenges but these can be overcomed.

Remember that Apple had to put a quadcore GPU on the iPad in order to manage all those pixels. The Displayport should be enough. It was thought from the beginning to handle high resolutions. The GPU performance required is really what's getting me concerned about that move. You will have a crisp image but if you try to play a game, even not being very demanding on common resolutions, will require much more performance GPU wise. With this I still think you're only getting HiDPI screens on smaller form factors like the one on laptops.

Oh! And yes, manufacturing the panels would be an issue at the beginning. There's always yield issues on shrinking processes.
Reply
Reply
post #31 of 31
3/29/12 at 2:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post

The chassis is a little old in the tooth, but honestly it isn't hard on the eyes. What it is hard on is my sensibilities as to what a PC should be access wise. I have no idea why on earth they would put the things most likely to need servicing or replacement into the hardest to get to locations. I'm talking the HD here. I firmly believe Apple could come up with a new design if they wanted too that would not raise the objections of so many potential owners.

Let's face it they did an excellent job with the MBP Unibodies so they have the engineering talent to do it. Compared to the models that came before them the Unibodies are a revolution in access. So there is no excuse for the iMac.

They one factor that leads me to be reluctant to express any sort of surety with respect to the new iMacs debut is HiDPI screens. If the come this year they could very well wait a long time to get the hardware and software ready. HIDPI is a little fly in the ointment if you will. I have a hard time believing they would wait for WWDC in June but it is possible. It is an outlier but for practicle reasons I need to throw out the idea that new iMacs could take as limping as June/July to come.

From what we saw last year and if this sets a tendency, WWDC will stay as more software related event and they'll do separate events to announce new or redesigned products. However, in the end, we never know. They can push some new Macs to pair with Mountain Lion.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Future Apple Hardware
AppleInsider › Forums › Mac Hardware › Future Apple Hardware › iMac refresh soon??