Look, we've debated the soldered RAM thing for years now, and while it's a problem for me I understand non-techies don't care.
And Apple's profiting off that, and it's fine.
But it's really more the 5400 drive thing that bothers me.
See my post above. Please tell me: what is this use case for the average user where they're doing a ton of disk I/O? If you're doing that, you're likely someone who understands that they need to upgrade to a Fusion drive or an SSD.
You do realize that the point here is that you can't perform those upgrades you mention on the new iMac, right?
No, that was not my response to the original poster (check again). The question was about 5400 drives in general - about how useless they are - and my response was that it was fine. I upgraded my HDD after 6 years (which is possible in the new Mac by taking it to a service location, which I did). I honestly can't see a perceptible difference between them (for the tasks we are doing), although it has only been a week.
I don't get the rationale behind soldered RAM on a full desktop computer. Sure I get it on a portable, with all the space constraints and such, but on a 20+'' iMac?
That's just poor judgment. If by some unhappy chance someone get a faulty RAM, that quits on you just after AppleCare expires, that on itself will require full logic board replacement.
How is that scenario unique, compared to any other integrated component failing? My integrated GPU failed and I had no protection for that, despite the seller of the chip package getting sued by Apple over it. Bad timing.
The whole "upgrade" concept is itself an invention of legacy technology marketing:
"Can't afford to maximize the RAM today on your computer purchase? that's ok! Buy it later!*
*by the time you can afford to maximize the RAM, that format will be off the market, that maximum capacity will be obsolete, and you'll have to buy a new computer with faster CPU, faster RAM, and a higher max RAM size."
Tech people have sponsored the planned obsolescence process by being fully supportive of people replacing their computers every two to three years. So celebrate the power of geeks, or something.
Still, the notion of "upgrading" isn't some fundamental norm. It's just a different marketing tactic that has fallen by the way side as other tactics have made it irrelevant. The people taking advantage of hardware upgrade capability are a minority compared to the people buying once, using, and then replacing the device with a new one. The "pro" market is, and always was, a minority, plus many of the people in that minority have the financial resources (or necessity of their job) to maximize the capacity on initial purchase, making future upgrading irrelevant.
Now... Where's the next revision of the Mac Pro with thunderbolt 3 and a 5K Apple display? (that's the place where "upgrades" are still meaningful, by keeping your old display, keyboard, and mouse, while buying a new computer... which is why Apple aren't selling isolated components much any more: the industry is choosing the market, selecting for the consumers it wants most).
If you want to fight planned obsolescence, wasteful materials, and other anti-consumer behaviors, you need to aim at capitalism, not just one industry within it. Good effing luck.
No, that was not my response to the original poster (check again). The question was about 5400 drives in general - about how useless they are - and my response was that it was fine. I upgraded my HDD after 6 years (which is possible in the new Mac by taking it to a service location, which I did). I honestly can't see a perceptible difference between them (for the tasks we are doing), although it has only been a week.
There you go: "for the tasks [you] are doing". Try running FXpansion BFD. You'll quickly find 5400 rpm to be insufficient. They officially do not support such slow drives.
People using their Macs as DAWs are specifically unserved by 5400 rpm hard drives.
There you go: "for the tasks [you] are doing". Try running FXpansion BFD. You'll quickly find 5400 rpm to be insufficient. They officially do not support such slow drives.
People using their Macs as DAWs are specifically unserved by 5400 rpm hard drives.
Would it not be just as true to say people using their Macs as DAWs are specifically unserved by any machine with moving parts, whether they spin at 5400 or 7200 RPM?
My point being, those running specialized applications (like yourself) know what works and what doesn't and makes sure they get the right equipment.
For the rest who don't care, there are 5400 rpm drives.
Personally, my favorite spinning storage runs at 45 rpm ????
45 rpm is superior in terms of sound quality. 12" 45's have the best overall sound though they are not to common.
I was only kidding. 45rpm 12" EPs are definitely the best quality sound -- especially with heavy vinyl (180 gram). I was thinking of those 7" 45 singles, which are terrible sounding (but classic). But anyways, there was another point (as polymnia just mentioned) and we're getting off topic...
Even 7 or 8 years ago, there were a lot of low end consumers using iMacs.
Today, if someone tells you their parents want a computer just to check email and surf the web, you direct them to the iPad.
That's what I mean, a lot of those "average users" don't exist anymore. Students have gone entirely to laptops and iPads.
So who's Apple really building the 21" iMac for? Any home users editing video will eventually feel the slower drive. Do small businesses really not care that they can't add RAM in-house, and will have to lose the workstation for days to an Apple Store with company data on it?
It's hard for me to envision a huge Mac demographic that doesn't eventually get riled by using soldered RAM and 5400 rpm drives.
Most regular consumers will NEVER upgrade their hard drive or RAM once they purchase their computer. What part of that reality alludes you? Honestly, deep down you know that's the truth yet somehow, you still are stuck to the old-age mentality that today's computers need to be easily upgradeable, and the engineering/costs associate with that should be acceptable even though most people will never take advantage of that.
Honestly, get over it and accept it. Apple saves costs on engineering, and (arguably) improves reliability by soldering the RAM and improving the reliability that can be compromised by the physical connections of RAM-to-Motherboard.
If it's "hard to envision" that concept, it's because you refuse to even look at the direction PC's are going.
...old-age mentality that today’s computers need to be easily upgradeable...
They either have to be upgradable or they have to be supported for a longer period of time. That’s your compromise. I remember when code had to be tight just to fit onto hardware. Nowadays people are just expected to buy a bigger hard drive or more memory or a faster CPU... but when you can’t do that, the prospect of buying an entirely new computer just to run some software dissolutions you from the idea of owning a computer.
Most regular consumers will NEVER upgrade their hard drive or RAM once they purchase their computer. What part of that reality alludes you? Honestly, deep down you know that's the truth yet somehow, you still are stuck to the old-age mentality that today's computers need to be easily upgradeable, and the engineering/costs associate with that should be acceptable even though most people will never take advantage of that.
This is the argument that least persuades me about upgradability.
Most "regular" customers use only about 20% of the features of their computer. Why then, does Apple invest significant engineering resources in upgrading OS X with features that most people will never use? Should they just offer a stripped down OS and save on engineering costs?
Who "needs" a Retina screen anyway? Sherlock? Split screens? Thunderbolt? Can't we just get by with less and save the engineering costs?
Let's all rise up and demand that Apple give us the lowest common denominator experience, whilst charging the highest prices.
If it's a general purpose computer (as stated in posts above) and a premium one at that, it needs to have a bit of flexibility.
Great argument except your advice to pay the extra $200 for the upgrade runs counter to everything you just laid out. You clearly, and correctly made the argument that many people just don't need that upgrade.
Crap... for that moment I was thinking as a tech enthusiast and not a regular consumer.
You're right... there will be people who would be perfectly happy with the base-model machine. They won't need the upgrade.
But I have to wonder if Apple creates these particular configurations simply to get a low starting price... and thus creates a path to upsell?
I would love to know how many people walk into an Apple Store to buy the $1,100 Mac... but end up walking out with the $1,300 Mac. Apple is king of the upsell.
I need nvidia gpu for octane. At work we use a workstation with two gtx 980 ti on. And we need more. then I use c4d, a little bit of houdini, substance, AE, zbrush, etc...(lot of plug ins and those programs need good gpu as well)
I was waiting for the hope of a good imac upgrade. And i "was" in good hope for opencl as well, but nvidia destroyed the competition.
This is the argument that least persuades me about upgradability.
Most "regular" customers use only about 20% of the features of their computer. Why then, does Apple invest significant engineering resources in upgrading OS X with features that most people will never use? Should they just offer a stripped down OS and save on engineering costs?
Who "needs" a Retina screen anyway? Sherlock? Split screens? Thunderbolt? Can't we just get by with less and save the engineering costs?
Let's all rise up and demand that Apple give us the lowest common denominator experience, whilst charging the highest prices.
If it's a general purpose computer (as stated in posts above) and a premium one at that, it needs to have a bit of flexibility.
You're not convincing me one iota that there's an issue. Most consumers of the 21" iMac (and probably the 27" model too?) will never upgrade that machine. Period. Just about every machine I've ever maintained for anyone - Apple or Wintel - were always in the same configuration years after purchase. Then, when the time comes to "upgrade" a component, the age of the machine is usually old enough that they are better off buying a new machine. That's just the nature of the industry. Apple is simply adapting to that reality, and I think it's a great idea. Their designs reflect that, to the chagrin to users like you but to others, it's what sets Apple apart from the competition and based on the popularity of their systems, you definitely seem to be in the minority.
The 27" lets you upgrade memory because in some back-room at Apple, they realized that people do upgrade those machines up to a point. I upgraded my 2009 iMac a couple times to an SSD drive, and more RAM. It was a pain-in-the-a$$ to upgrade the hard drive compared to my old PC rigs, but guess what? It's doable and I didn't grunt much since I knew it is rare - if ever - I'll open the case again on that level.
Years ago, PC reliability was so flaky, it made sense to make machines so flexible to upgrade. That's not the case anymore and the manufacturing is reflecting that.
For this statement to hold any weight at all, you'd have to prove that going from 128 to 24 in a Fusion Drive actually negatively impacts the user experience.
I don't expect you to put that much thought into this though.
Well, apart from the fact they're charging the same price for far, far less, and the abhorrent pricing on SSDs...
If you have 32GB of RAM or more, you're not going to get any benefit from fast waking as it won't fit in the flash storage available. I believe the 2TB and higher Fusion drives have more space available, so it's forcing users who want 32GB of RAM to fork out an extra $200 if they want this benefit. With only 24GB of storage, we're limited to the core OS plus no more than a few applications being caches on the SSD portion at a time, whereas 128GB as was in previously would be quite a lot of heavy multitasking. With only 24GB, running something like Photoshop or Premier will easily consume the entirety of that portion of the drive and keep the mechanical portion spun up. When you've only got a 5400RPM drive on top of that, it's going to be a substantial performance drop compared to having 128GB of SSD caching available to you.
True, if you're not a power user - you might not notice it. Chances are the 16GB of RAM is more than enough for most people and if all you are doing is using the computer as a facebook or word processing machine or whatnot, you won't notice a problem with only 24GB of cached flash storage. Doing video work? Have a few VMs? Doing any kind of digital art? Playing more recent high-budget games? You'll notice it. We'll have to wait for actual performance reviews to come out to say for sure, but one fifth of the previous caching space is a substantial drop. Apple could be spinning some black magic into their stuff and giving the ability to save 32GB of ram caches into that 24GB portion, I don't know. Again, we'll have to wait - but I do see it as being detrimental to the consumer for nothing but profit.
With Apple cheaping out and not even providing 7200RPM drives and charging through the teeth for alternative storage options I see it as nothing more than a cash grab. That admitadly quite cheap $1100-something starting machine you can stick 32GB of RAM into suddenly has an extra $200 added to the cost to take full advantage of the Fusion drive, on top of the extra for RAM, or the previously mentioned colossal amounts of money for actual SSD storage.
I'm not wanting to preclude the chance Apple is working something something software side that'll make that 24GB work massively more efficiently and if they have good on them, but charging the consumer for far less whilst keeping the price the same is doing nothing but alienate your consumers, or exploiting those that don't know better. I love the iMac, but come on, this is Microsoft levels of milking the consumer. It wouldn't be difficult to give the user replaceable RAM and storage or charge just a touch less for the Memory and storage options.
Can someone answer some questions for me? Apple's RAM spec indicates the Apple supplied RAM is 1867MHz DDR3. OWC's RAM is 1600MHz. So the frequency is a bit lower.
1. With the 27" iMac's 4 slots, can you use both 1867MHz and 1600MHz RAM at the same time (paired properly)? In other words, can I leave the supplied RAM in and simply add, say two 8GB DIMMs from OWC? 2. What kind and how much of an impact will the lower frequency have on the system?
Comments
Look, we've debated the soldered RAM thing for years now, and while it's a problem for me I understand non-techies don't care.
And Apple's profiting off that, and it's fine.
But it's really more the 5400 drive thing that bothers me.
See my post above. Please tell me: what is this use case for the average user where they're doing a ton of disk I/O? If you're doing that, you're likely someone who understands that they need to upgrade to a Fusion drive or an SSD.
You do realize that the point here is that you can't perform those upgrades you mention on the new iMac, right?
No, that was not my response to the original poster (check again). The question was about 5400 drives in general - about how useless they are - and my response was that it was fine. I upgraded my HDD after 6 years (which is possible in the new Mac by taking it to a service location, which I did). I honestly can't see a perceptible difference between them (for the tasks we are doing), although it has only been a week.
How is that scenario unique, compared to any other integrated component failing? My integrated GPU failed and I had no protection for that, despite the seller of the chip package getting sued by Apple over it. Bad timing.
The whole "upgrade" concept is itself an invention of legacy technology marketing:
"Can't afford to maximize the RAM today on your computer purchase? that's ok! Buy it later!*
*by the time you can afford to maximize the RAM, that format will be off the market, that maximum capacity will be obsolete, and you'll have to buy a new computer with faster CPU, faster RAM, and a higher max RAM size."
Tech people have sponsored the planned obsolescence process by being fully supportive of people replacing their computers every two to three years. So celebrate the power of geeks, or something.
Still, the notion of "upgrading" isn't some fundamental norm. It's just a different marketing tactic that has fallen by the way side as other tactics have made it irrelevant. The people taking advantage of hardware upgrade capability are a minority compared to the people buying once, using, and then replacing the device with a new one. The "pro" market is, and always was, a minority, plus many of the people in that minority have the financial resources (or necessity of their job) to maximize the capacity on initial purchase, making future upgrading irrelevant.
Now... Where's the next revision of the Mac Pro with thunderbolt 3 and a 5K Apple display? (that's the place where "upgrades" are still meaningful, by keeping your old display, keyboard, and mouse, while buying a new computer... which is why Apple aren't selling isolated components much any more: the industry is choosing the market, selecting for the consumers it wants most).
If you want to fight planned obsolescence, wasteful materials, and other anti-consumer behaviors, you need to aim at capitalism, not just one industry within it. Good effing luck.
There you go: "for the tasks [you] are doing". Try running FXpansion BFD. You'll quickly find 5400 rpm to be insufficient. They officially do not support such slow drives.
People using their Macs as DAWs are specifically unserved by 5400 rpm hard drives.
Would it not be just as true to say people using their Macs as DAWs are specifically unserved by any machine with moving parts, whether they spin at 5400 or 7200 RPM?
My point being, those running specialized applications (like yourself) know what works and what doesn't and makes sure they get the right equipment.
For the rest who don't care, there are 5400 rpm drives.
Personally, my favorite spinning storage runs at 45 rpm ????
Personally, my favorite spinning storage runs at 45 rpm ????
I'm personally better served by the sound quality offered by 33 1/3 rpm
Crazy how people have different preferences.
I wonder if Apple has heard about this phenomenon?
Maybe they have applied these revolutionary ideas in designing their various iMac models?
It's awfully forward-thinking, but they are a reasonably successful product design company.
????
I'm personally better served by the sound quality offered by 33 1/3 rpm
45 rpm is superior in terms of sound quality. 12" 45's have the best overall sound though they are not to common.
I think you are missing the point.
45 rpm is superior in terms of sound quality. 12" 45's have the best overall sound though they are not to common.
I was only kidding. 45rpm 12" EPs are definitely the best quality sound -- especially with heavy vinyl (180 gram). I was thinking of those 7" 45 singles, which are terrible sounding (but classic). But anyways, there was another point (as polymnia just mentioned) and we're getting off topic...
Even 7 or 8 years ago, there were a lot of low end consumers using iMacs.
Today, if someone tells you their parents want a computer just to check email and surf the web, you direct them to the iPad.
That's what I mean, a lot of those "average users" don't exist anymore. Students have gone entirely to laptops and iPads.
So who's Apple really building the 21" iMac for? Any home users editing video will eventually feel the slower drive. Do small businesses really not care that they can't add RAM in-house, and will have to lose the workstation for days to an Apple Store with company data on it?
It's hard for me to envision a huge Mac demographic that doesn't eventually get riled by using soldered RAM and 5400 rpm drives.
Most regular consumers will NEVER upgrade their hard drive or RAM once they purchase their computer. What part of that reality alludes you? Honestly, deep down you know that's the truth yet somehow, you still are stuck to the old-age mentality that today's computers need to be easily upgradeable, and the engineering/costs associate with that should be acceptable even though most people will never take advantage of that.
Honestly, get over it and accept it. Apple saves costs on engineering, and (arguably) improves reliability by soldering the RAM and improving the reliability that can be compromised by the physical connections of RAM-to-Motherboard.
If it's "hard to envision" that concept, it's because you refuse to even look at the direction PC's are going.
They either have to be upgradable or they have to be supported for a longer period of time. That’s your compromise. I remember when code had to be tight just to fit onto hardware. Nowadays people are just expected to buy a bigger hard drive or more memory or a faster CPU... but when you can’t do that, the prospect of buying an entirely new computer just to run some software dissolutions you from the idea of owning a computer.
Most regular consumers will NEVER upgrade their hard drive or RAM once they purchase their computer. What part of that reality alludes you? Honestly, deep down you know that's the truth yet somehow, you still are stuck to the old-age mentality that today's computers need to be easily upgradeable, and the engineering/costs associate with that should be acceptable even though most people will never take advantage of that.
This is the argument that least persuades me about upgradability.
Most "regular" customers use only about 20% of the features of their computer. Why then, does Apple invest significant engineering resources in upgrading OS X with features that most people will never use? Should they just offer a stripped down OS and save on engineering costs?
Who "needs" a Retina screen anyway? Sherlock? Split screens? Thunderbolt? Can't we just get by with less and save the engineering costs?
Let's all rise up and demand that Apple give us the lowest common denominator experience, whilst charging the highest prices.
If it's a general purpose computer (as stated in posts above) and a premium one at that, it needs to have a bit of flexibility.
nice upgrade... not for the video card.... really pissed off....
I use 3d software that needs gpu power from nvidia card at office and at home.... so..
....I'd never think about making switch to shit pc.
thanks apple
What 3D software do you use? Just curious.
Crap... for that moment I was thinking as a tech enthusiast and not a regular consumer.
You're right... there will be people who would be perfectly happy with the base-model machine. They won't need the upgrade.
But I have to wonder if Apple creates these particular configurations simply to get a low starting price... and thus creates a path to upsell?
I would love to know how many people walk into an Apple Store to buy the $1,100 Mac... but end up walking out with the $1,300 Mac. Apple is king of the upsell.
I need nvidia gpu for octane. At work we use a workstation with two gtx 980 ti on. And we need more. then I use c4d, a little bit of houdini, substance, AE, zbrush, etc...(lot of plug ins and those programs need good gpu as well)
I was waiting for the hope of a good imac upgrade. And i "was" in good hope for opencl as well, but nvidia destroyed the competition.
why this curiousity?
This is the argument that least persuades me about upgradability.
Most "regular" customers use only about 20% of the features of their computer. Why then, does Apple invest significant engineering resources in upgrading OS X with features that most people will never use? Should they just offer a stripped down OS and save on engineering costs?
Who "needs" a Retina screen anyway? Sherlock? Split screens? Thunderbolt? Can't we just get by with less and save the engineering costs?
Let's all rise up and demand that Apple give us the lowest common denominator experience, whilst charging the highest prices.
If it's a general purpose computer (as stated in posts above) and a premium one at that, it needs to have a bit of flexibility.
You're not convincing me one iota that there's an issue. Most consumers of the 21" iMac (and probably the 27" model too?) will never upgrade that machine. Period. Just about every machine I've ever maintained for anyone - Apple or Wintel - were always in the same configuration years after purchase. Then, when the time comes to "upgrade" a component, the age of the machine is usually old enough that they are better off buying a new machine. That's just the nature of the industry. Apple is simply adapting to that reality, and I think it's a great idea. Their designs reflect that, to the chagrin to users like you but to others, it's what sets Apple apart from the competition and based on the popularity of their systems, you definitely seem to be in the minority.
The 27" lets you upgrade memory because in some back-room at Apple, they realized that people do upgrade those machines up to a point. I upgraded my 2009 iMac a couple times to an SSD drive, and more RAM. It was a pain-in-the-a$$ to upgrade the hard drive compared to my old PC rigs, but guess what? It's doable and I didn't grunt much since I knew it is rare - if ever - I'll open the case again on that level.
Years ago, PC reliability was so flaky, it made sense to make machines so flexible to upgrade. That's not the case anymore and the manufacturing is reflecting that.
For this statement to hold any weight at all, you'd have to prove that going from 128 to 24 in a Fusion Drive actually negatively impacts the user experience.
I don't expect you to put that much thought into this though.
Well, apart from the fact they're charging the same price for far, far less, and the abhorrent pricing on SSDs...
If you have 32GB of RAM or more, you're not going to get any benefit from fast waking as it won't fit in the flash storage available. I believe the 2TB and higher Fusion drives have more space available, so it's forcing users who want 32GB of RAM to fork out an extra $200 if they want this benefit. With only 24GB of storage, we're limited to the core OS plus no more than a few applications being caches on the SSD portion at a time, whereas 128GB as was in previously would be quite a lot of heavy multitasking. With only 24GB, running something like Photoshop or Premier will easily consume the entirety of that portion of the drive and keep the mechanical portion spun up. When you've only got a 5400RPM drive on top of that, it's going to be a substantial performance drop compared to having 128GB of SSD caching available to you.
True, if you're not a power user - you might not notice it. Chances are the 16GB of RAM is more than enough for most people and if all you are doing is using the computer as a facebook or word processing machine or whatnot, you won't notice a problem with only 24GB of cached flash storage. Doing video work? Have a few VMs? Doing any kind of digital art? Playing more recent high-budget games? You'll notice it. We'll have to wait for actual performance reviews to come out to say for sure, but one fifth of the previous caching space is a substantial drop. Apple could be spinning some black magic into their stuff and giving the ability to save 32GB of ram caches into that 24GB portion, I don't know. Again, we'll have to wait - but I do see it as being detrimental to the consumer for nothing but profit.
With Apple cheaping out and not even providing 7200RPM drives and charging through the teeth for alternative storage options I see it as nothing more than a cash grab. That admitadly quite cheap $1100-something starting machine you can stick 32GB of RAM into suddenly has an extra $200 added to the cost to take full advantage of the Fusion drive, on top of the extra for RAM, or the previously mentioned colossal amounts of money for actual SSD storage.
I'm not wanting to preclude the chance Apple is working something something software side that'll make that 24GB work massively more efficiently and if they have good on them, but charging the consumer for far less whilst keeping the price the same is doing nothing but alienate your consumers, or exploiting those that don't know better. I love the iMac, but come on, this is Microsoft levels of milking the consumer. It wouldn't be difficult to give the user replaceable RAM and storage or charge just a touch less for the Memory and storage options.
I've waited 5 stinking years to upgrade and this has definitely got me excited.
It's the exact same speed.
The OWC RAM is 1867 also. From the horses mouth:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/1867DDR3S64S/
Hope that helps.