Now, I realize 5750 is a better GPU than 5670 (AnandTech's review shows around 10 fps improvement across the board) and having double the L3 and true quad may possibly outweigh faster clock on BTO $1899 iMac. But it is a confusing matrix nevertheless. I wish someone were to compare them head on.
The 3.6GHz dual core i5 has a list price that's $89 higher than the 2.8GHz quad core i5.
So blame Intel for pricing a dual core above a quad or or blame Apple for trying to pass off a lower priced part as better.
ROTFLMAO. So Snow Leopard isn't used in production environments? Maybe I'd better tell our graphics studio - along with many thousands more out there.
As for the rest, who pi$$ed in your cheerios? Snow Leopard is a great OS - no matter how much you whine about it. It can be improved, no doubt, but it's still the best thing out there for general purpose use.
Well not just for general purpose, It's being used for music production, graphic design, 3D animation and rendering, web design, bioinformatics, .... you name it, and not just by me and my friends. There are the best production studios being perfectly comfortable with SL. In my personal experience be it private or in my research lab, SL is doing an amazing job. I feel so sorry for mr. rain.
Good review but how did the Quad-Core i5 (2.8Ghz) ($1999 pricepoint) stack up in the benchmarks? Would have been nice to see some hard numbers for that.
Good review but how did the Quad-Core i5 (2.8Ghz) ($1999 pricepoint) stack up in the benchmarks? Would have been nice to see some hard numbers for that.
Just where you'd expect. Usually faster than the dual core i5 and slower than the quad core i7, but that varies with the benchmark you choose.
There are lots of benchmarks out there. Google is your friend.
To the guy whining about Apple not supporting better graphics in SL - you have a point - even Valve is warning people that 10.6.4 is worse for graphics card than 10.6.3.
But Apple's not turning a blind eye. They seeded a SL Graphics Update to Developers this week:
And regarding USB 3.0 --> Blame Intel. Apple's now stuck using Intel Chipsets with the Core-iX processors (due to the NVidia legal Snafu) and Intel won't have any USB 3.0 compatible chipsets till at least 2011:
And regarding USB 3.0 --> Blame Intel. Apple's now stuck using Intel Chipsets with the Core-iX processors (due to the NVidia legal Snafu) and Intel won't have any USB 3.0 compatible chipsets till at least 2011:
There are USB3.0 controllers on the market that appear to be well tested and in selling in droves now. Apple could have gone that route and flipped to Intel?s controller in the future. They?ve bypassed Intel?s built-in options plenty of times in the past. Of course, there are certainly reasons not to jump at including a new tech simply because it?s new.
To the guy whining about Apple not supporting better graphics in SL - you have a point - even Valve is warning people that 10.6.4 is worse for graphics card than 10.6.3.
But Apple's not turning a blind eye. They seeded a SL Graphics Update to Developers this week:
Apple has already made some driver improvements. barefeats.com booted a 2009 iMac from a clone of a 2010 iMac's hard drive and got dramatically better results from some games.
Thought I'd answer the possibly rhetorical question about why one would choose the smaller keyboard when they could have a number pad and additional function keys. I thought the same thing the first time I used this keyboard, but after trying it a year or two later, I've come to appreciate how much less travel I need to move my right hand to get to the mouse. I'd imagine it'd be the same or more of a benefit with the Magic Trackpad. I also find it's quicker to get to the arrow keys or use them in combination with modifier keys. The return key is easier to hit, although many apps used the enter key to do the same thing.
You don't know what your talking about. Your basing your counter points purely on emotion and not experience. SL has not been adopted for production in design studio's.
SL isn't by any means perfect but you forget just what a mess Leopard was. SL immediately fixed a number of nagging issues with Leopard and frankly has been acceptable as a primary OS. Recent SL updates have just made the OS even better.
Quote:
The graphic drivers are a joke. Printer and RIP drivers are even worse. 3rd party software is barely functional and crashes lots. You can't have that in a professional environment.
I won't dismiss these issues, especially the graphics driver issues. Apple certainly has to step up to the plate and do a decent job with GPU drivers. However your issues with third party apps seems to be overblown, many work better than Apple apps.
By the way the single biggest failing that I've seen seems to be related to Quicktime and the graphics drivers. This is something that doesn't get enough press time if you ask me.
Quote:
If you think that Apple had given their desktop ecosystem any love at all in the last year in regards to osx... Dude...? The updates they have released make SL just barely capable of doing the simplest tasks.
In this regard I think you are way off base. SL does a lot of things really well. Better than any other system I use on a regular basis.
Quote:
Apple needs to give OSX some attention - not multi-touch - and I don't think I'm the only one here who feels that way.
IOS has pretty much all the eggs in it's basket... Would be nice if some talent was focused back on SL.
You see I sit here thinking that something has you wound up. Is SL perfect - NO. There are significant shortcomings but it is a better platform than Leopard by a long shot. Do things like Quicktime and the graphics drivers need fixing - most certainly - but these fixes don't happen overnight. I sit here with an early 2008 MBP and have to wonder do you realize just how bad Leopard was?
Once your review is sponsored by a company that sells the products you are reviewing (virtually exclusively), there is a huge conflict of interest and the contents of the review invalid.
Don't get me wrong, I will buy the new 27" iMac as soon as I can afford it, but still, it would be a good idea to get a neutral sponsor...
By the way the single biggest failing that I've seen seems to be related to Quicktime and the graphics drivers. This is something that doesn't get enough press time if you ask me.
Dave
Could you elaborate a little more on this? Are you talking about playback or editing in QT X ( trim only ) or 7 Pro?
I like to use QT7 Pro to edit. Does hyper-threading help with using QT for editing larger 500MB files? Will the highest end i7 give me some advantages for QT or does it only help iMovie or Final Cut? If you have anything additional you would like to add because I am real close to deciding on getting the iMac i7 or waiting an extra month for the new Mac Pro.
Even though it's been said in a number of previous posts/replies, have any corrections been made? How can you get even the basic model information wrong, and how is someone supposed to make an informed decision based on misinformation? Sure, I could go verify the specs myself via another site, so if I do then what's the point of visiting AppleInsider?
Previous Core i5 and i7 iMacs were clocked at 2.8GHz or below, but still outpaced the 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo, thanks to the Nehalem QuickPath memory architecture, which includes a direct memory controller on the CPU rather than having the processor talk to RAM via its external chipset. Quad Cores and more onboard CPU cache RAM also speed up the performance of the chips independent of their clock rate.
And yet again. QuickPath is not a memory architecture, does not include an on-die memory controller and is not a feature of Lynnfield and other Socket H processors. It supposes many of these things, however, and the quad-cores do have on-die memory controllers in spite of not having any QPI links.
Just where you'd expect. Usually faster than the dual core i5 and slower than the quad core i7, but that varies with the benchmark you choose.
There are lots of benchmarks out there. Google is your friend.
Thanks, I'll look around.
I own a early 2008 MBP and it has been my only computer for most of the time since then. Then I got an iPad and a funny thing happened, I anchored my MBP down to my desk and haven't moved it since (I never take it out the house). So now that I'm pretty much attached to my desk I might as well get all the benefits of a desktop and these new iMacs are looking sweet!
Yea nothing to do with anything really, just my personal story that I just forced down your throat. Thanks for reading.
Just an observation. I played with the 21" i3 at Best Buy. I opened Photo Booth, snapped a pix then sent it to iPhoto and it popped open in about 1 second.
Granted, there were very few photos in iPhoto but it was screaming fast.
How come there's no matte, anti-glare screen? The 1,100+ petitions at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com/comment-page-1/#comments shows there are a substantial percentage - around 20-40% depending on which survey you look at - that need matte screens.
Generally, these are:
- the percentage of the population that is susceptible to eye-strain and migraine headaches from the glossy screen;
- graphic artists
- photographers
- people who use their Macs in bright sun-lit areas
We're not saying matte screens are for everyone -- but there should be a choice.
This is not a dead issue where, if we see Apple is stubborn, we just roll over and accept Apple's dictatorship. Why? Because, even though life carries on, the eye continue to hurt from glossy screens (for some people), and professionals and photographers continue to need non-reflective surfaces.
This is not a case like Apple removing the Firewire 400 port, or killing the floppy. Eventually, as those technologies grow irrelevant, protest dies down. Whereas, if you consider the reasons given for the need matte screens (by a certain percentage of the population - not everyone), those reasons are not going away.
Once your review is sponsored by a company that sells the products you are reviewing (virtually exclusively), there is a huge conflict of interest and the contents of the review invalid.
Don't get me wrong, I will buy the new 27" iMac as soon as I can afford it, but still, it would be a good idea to get a neutral sponsor...
Just go to another website. I like appleinisder but it's clearly biased towards apple. I've been coming here a few years and it's clear to see. But you kind of expect it, afterall it's called "appleinsider".
How come there's no matte, anti-glare screen? The 1,100+ petitions at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com/comment-page-1/#comments shows there are a substantial percentage - around 20-40% depending on which survey you look at - that need matte screens.
....
I was using a early 2006 white iMac (one of the first intel machines) for 4 and a half years at work. It was getting a bit long in the tooth (still a lovely machine though), but because all the new iMacs are glossy, when it came time to upgrade I asked for a Mini with a 24" Dell screen. I'd much prefer an all-in-one, but the glossy screens are a nightmare. It's very disappointing that there is almost no choice when it comes to glossy/matte with apple.
Any way the imac news and upgrades are fantastic !!!
APPLE now makes great gamer machines at 2 yrs old prices .
APPLE DOES ALL THIS WITH LESS
>>>>QUESTION FOR THE Board ?
The new iMac is still priced just $100 less than Apple's standalone 30 inch big screen display, despite packing in a powerful computer and new LED backlighting.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
3 INCHES MORE real estate
OR 3 IN LESS TO GET A AAA FAST MAC for the same money
3 yrs in a row this weird pixar pricing holds firm
Comments
I am a bit confused by the product matrix, mainly for 27" model.
There are 4 variations, 2 regular, 2 built to order CPU upgrades:
- $1699: 3.2 GHz i3 (dual, hyper-threading, 4 MB L3), ATI 5670 512 MB
- $1899: 3.6 GHz i5 (dual, hyper-threading, 4 MB L3), ATI 5670 512 MB
- $1999: 2.8 GHz i5 (quad, no hyper-threading, 8 MB L3), ATI 5750 1 GB
- $2199: 2.93 GHz i7 (quad, hyper-threading, 8 MB L3), ATI 5750 1 GB
Now, I realize 5750 is a better GPU than 5670 (AnandTech's review shows around 10 fps improvement across the board) and having double the L3 and true quad may possibly outweigh faster clock on BTO $1899 iMac. But it is a confusing matrix nevertheless. I wish someone were to compare them head on.The 3.6GHz dual core i5 has a list price that's $89 higher than the 2.8GHz quad core i5.
So blame Intel for pricing a dual core above a quad or or blame Apple for trying to pass off a lower priced part as better.
ROTFLMAO. So Snow Leopard isn't used in production environments? Maybe I'd better tell our graphics studio - along with many thousands more out there.
As for the rest, who pi$$ed in your cheerios? Snow Leopard is a great OS - no matter how much you whine about it. It can be improved, no doubt, but it's still the best thing out there for general purpose use.
Well not just for general purpose, It's being used for music production, graphic design, 3D animation and rendering, web design, bioinformatics, .... you name it, and not just by me and my friends. There are the best production studios being perfectly comfortable with SL. In my personal experience be it private or in my research lab, SL is doing an amazing job. I feel so sorry for mr. rain.
Thanks.
Good review but how did the Quad-Core i5 (2.8Ghz) ($1999 pricepoint) stack up in the benchmarks? Would have been nice to see some hard numbers for that.
Just where you'd expect. Usually faster than the dual core i5 and slower than the quad core i7, but that varies with the benchmark you choose.
There are lots of benchmarks out there. Google is your friend.
But Apple's not turning a blind eye. They seeded a SL Graphics Update to Developers this week:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/04/...to-developers/
And regarding USB 3.0 --> Blame Intel. Apple's now stuck using Intel Chipsets with the Core-iX processors (due to the NVidia legal Snafu) and Intel won't have any USB 3.0 compatible chipsets till at least 2011:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20001891-64.html
It's simple reality people.
And regarding USB 3.0 --> Blame Intel. Apple's now stuck using Intel Chipsets with the Core-iX processors (due to the NVidia legal Snafu) and Intel won't have any USB 3.0 compatible chipsets till at least 2011:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20001891-64.html
It's simple reality people.
There are USB3.0 controllers on the market that appear to be well tested and in selling in droves now. Apple could have gone that route and flipped to Intel?s controller in the future. They?ve bypassed Intel?s built-in options plenty of times in the past. Of course, there are certainly reasons not to jump at including a new tech simply because it?s new.
To the guy whining about Apple not supporting better graphics in SL - you have a point - even Valve is warning people that 10.6.4 is worse for graphics card than 10.6.3.
But Apple's not turning a blind eye. They seeded a SL Graphics Update to Developers this week:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/04/...to-developers/
Apple has already made some driver improvements. barefeats.com booted a 2009 iMac from a clone of a 2010 iMac's hard drive and got dramatically better results from some games.
You don't know what your talking about. Your basing your counter points purely on emotion and not experience. SL has not been adopted for production in design studio's.
SL isn't by any means perfect but you forget just what a mess Leopard was. SL immediately fixed a number of nagging issues with Leopard and frankly has been acceptable as a primary OS. Recent SL updates have just made the OS even better.
The graphic drivers are a joke. Printer and RIP drivers are even worse. 3rd party software is barely functional and crashes lots. You can't have that in a professional environment.
I won't dismiss these issues, especially the graphics driver issues. Apple certainly has to step up to the plate and do a decent job with GPU drivers. However your issues with third party apps seems to be overblown, many work better than Apple apps.
By the way the single biggest failing that I've seen seems to be related to Quicktime and the graphics drivers. This is something that doesn't get enough press time if you ask me.
If you think that Apple had given their desktop ecosystem any love at all in the last year in regards to osx... Dude...? The updates they have released make SL just barely capable of doing the simplest tasks.
In this regard I think you are way off base. SL does a lot of things really well. Better than any other system I use on a regular basis.
Apple needs to give OSX some attention - not multi-touch - and I don't think I'm the only one here who feels that way.
IOS has pretty much all the eggs in it's basket... Would be nice if some talent was focused back on SL.
You see I sit here thinking that something has you wound up. Is SL perfect - NO. There are significant shortcomings but it is a better platform than Leopard by a long shot. Do things like Quicktime and the graphics drivers need fixing - most certainly - but these fixes don't happen overnight. I sit here with an early 2008 MBP and have to wonder do you realize just how bad Leopard was?
Dave
Don't get me wrong, I will buy the new 27" iMac as soon as I can afford it, but still, it would be a good idea to get a neutral sponsor...
By the way the single biggest failing that I've seen seems to be related to Quicktime and the graphics drivers. This is something that doesn't get enough press time if you ask me.
Dave
Could you elaborate a little more on this? Are you talking about playback or editing in QT X ( trim only ) or 7 Pro?
I like to use QT7 Pro to edit. Does hyper-threading help with using QT for editing larger 500MB files? Will the highest end i7 give me some advantages for QT or does it only help iMovie or Final Cut? If you have anything additional you would like to add because I am real close to deciding on getting the iMac i7 or waiting an extra month for the new Mac Pro.
Thanks much.
Pathetic.
Previous Core i5 and i7 iMacs were clocked at 2.8GHz or below, but still outpaced the 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo, thanks to the Nehalem QuickPath memory architecture, which includes a direct memory controller on the CPU rather than having the processor talk to RAM via its external chipset. Quad Cores and more onboard CPU cache RAM also speed up the performance of the chips independent of their clock rate.
And yet again. QuickPath is not a memory architecture, does not include an on-die memory controller and is not a feature of Lynnfield and other Socket H processors. It supposes many of these things, however, and the quad-cores do have on-die memory controllers in spite of not having any QPI links.
Just where you'd expect. Usually faster than the dual core i5 and slower than the quad core i7, but that varies with the benchmark you choose.
There are lots of benchmarks out there. Google is your friend.
Thanks, I'll look around.
I own a early 2008 MBP and it has been my only computer for most of the time since then. Then I got an iPad and a funny thing happened, I anchored my MBP down to my desk and haven't moved it since (I never take it out the house). So now that I'm pretty much attached to my desk I might as well get all the benefits of a desktop and these new iMacs are looking sweet!
Yea nothing to do with anything really, just my personal story that I just forced down your throat. Thanks for reading.
Granted, there were very few photos in iPhoto but it was screaming fast.
Generally, these are:
- the percentage of the population that is susceptible to eye-strain and migraine headaches from the glossy screen;
- graphic artists
- photographers
- people who use their Macs in bright sun-lit areas
We're not saying matte screens are for everyone -- but there should be a choice.
If you're in desperate need of a matte screen on your iMac, you might add your petition to the growing list at http://macmatte.wordpress.com/comment-page-1/#comments
This is not a dead issue where, if we see Apple is stubborn, we just roll over and accept Apple's dictatorship. Why? Because, even though life carries on, the eye continue to hurt from glossy screens (for some people), and professionals and photographers continue to need non-reflective surfaces.
This is not a case like Apple removing the Firewire 400 port, or killing the floppy. Eventually, as those technologies grow irrelevant, protest dies down. Whereas, if you consider the reasons given for the need matte screens (by a certain percentage of the population - not everyone), those reasons are not going away.
Once your review is sponsored by a company that sells the products you are reviewing (virtually exclusively), there is a huge conflict of interest and the contents of the review invalid.
Don't get me wrong, I will buy the new 27" iMac as soon as I can afford it, but still, it would be a good idea to get a neutral sponsor...
Just go to another website. I like appleinisder but it's clearly biased towards apple. I've been coming here a few years and it's clear to see. But you kind of expect it, afterall it's called "appleinsider".
Engadget review: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/02/i...ore-i3-review/
zdnet review: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/deskt...2010-40089668/
How come there's no matte, anti-glare screen? The 1,100+ petitions at the petition site http://macmatte.wordpress.com/comment-page-1/#comments shows there are a substantial percentage - around 20-40% depending on which survey you look at - that need matte screens.
....
I was using a early 2006 white iMac (one of the first intel machines) for 4 and a half years at work. It was getting a bit long in the tooth (still a lovely machine though), but because all the new iMacs are glossy, when it came time to upgrade I asked for a Mini with a 24" Dell screen. I'd much prefer an all-in-one, but the glossy screens are a nightmare. It's very disappointing that there is almost no choice when it comes to glossy/matte with apple.
HOW LOW THE READERS OF Apple Insider HAVE SUNK ?
YOU GUYS EXCEPT FoR ABOUT 4O OF YOU dudes/.;
This topic should garnered about 200 posts ...!!
Any way the imac news and upgrades are fantastic !!!
APPLE now makes great gamer machines at 2 yrs old prices .
APPLE DOES ALL THIS WITH LESS
>>>>QUESTION FOR THE Board ?
The new iMac is still priced just $100 less than Apple's standalone 30 inch big screen display, despite packing in a powerful computer and new LED backlighting.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
3 INCHES MORE real estate
OR 3 IN LESS TO GET A AAA FAST MAC for the same money
3 yrs in a row this weird pixar pricing holds firm
So steve how was the pizza ??
9
go a p p l e .