iMacs of 2003

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Well, I'm putting money down for new iMacs this coming MacWorld. Who agrees with me? I'm guessing the iMac may reach a 1Ghz G4. Also guessing slot load (and there has been talk of not wanting this), new graphics card and possible FW2, USB2 and Bluetooth.



Any other features our new iMac could indeed have?

And do you think Apple is over their Color phase, will we see iMac in colors again?



Thanks...
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 89
    gamringamrin Posts: 114member
    My conservative estimate: 800 and 900ish G4 iMacs with 100MHz bus. They go 17" across the board. All have GeForce 4MX. Not sure about the drives, but hopefully they'll put a faster combo drive on those things.



    My hope: 900ish and 1GHz iMacs with 133 or 167 (if possible) bus. High end has 19" screen and GeForce 4Ti or something equivalent. A Superdrive with a high write and rewrite speed for CDs would be nice, too. This would make me buy one on the spot.



    I don't see slot loading drives in the iMac's future. They don't work with non-standard CDs, are perhaps a little more expensive, and can be a pain in the ass (just ask me about how my cube doesn't like to accept CDs with labels on them?too tight a fit). As of now, the Powerbook is the only Mac with a slot-loading drive. I think it'll stay that way.



    Gamrin
  • Reply 2 of 89
    krassykrassy Posts: 595member
    no. all >1Ghz G4
  • Reply 3 of 89
    rogue27rogue27 Posts: 607member
    I would expect the iMacs to move to 133Mhz bus (not 166 - that requires DDR memory) and there will be at least one iMac at 1Ghz or above. Hopefully there will be some across-the-board price cuts on the machines as well.



    Upping them to 64MB video memory couldn't hurt either.
  • Reply 4 of 89
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    I have to agree with rogue. Don't forget HD and RAM upgrades as well. I think the 17" display will drop down one model so we have two 15" models and two 17" models, configurations that bring to mind the current iBook ones.



    This will most likely be a stop-gap mobo (in between the old iMacs and the ones we will see after the 970 gets here.)
  • Reply 5 of 89
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    A better video card and a significant price drop would be nice
  • Reply 6 of 89
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    Anything could be better than the current year-old iMacs.
  • Reply 7 of 89
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    Yeah I forgot to mention that the video cards will probably be upgraded to 4MX's, or even 4 Ti, being as nVidia's next card might be out by then...



    The GeForce 4 Ti is really doubtful, though.



    Hopefully 64MB across the line.



    Apple has been on the ball with video card updates lately, no reason to stop now.
  • Reply 8 of 89
    ill say

    867MHz and 1Ghz G4's

    133Mhz FSB

    4x AGP

    64MB Graphic's Chip

    same price points
  • Reply 9 of 89
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I think they'll keep a 15" model on the low end...the rest of the line gets the wide 17".



    Standard, expected hard drive bumps of 20GB or so.



    Perhaps a product-wide graphics card update.



    Speedier CD-R and Combo Drive?



    Still tray-loading optical drive (but a cool iMac DV style slot-loading one WOULD be cool!).



    Apple Pro Speakers on all models (that should just be standard anyway).



    900MHz and one 1GHz model on the high-end.



    It's Apple, people...100MHz at a time...







    Anyone saying "1.2GHz iMacs..." needs a smack.
  • Reply 10 of 89
    For me, the iMac sales sputtered because of price.

    Just like the Cube before it.

    The ideal iMac lineup would start with:

    - 1 GHz G3 ( = G4-1 )

    - 15 in LCD

    - 2 accessible RAM slots of same type

    - no fan

    - $990



    Humbly,
  • Reply 11 of 89
    jrcjrc Posts: 817member
    [quote]Originally posted by Locomotive:

    <strong>For me, the iMac sales sputtered because of price.

    Just like the Cube before it.

    The ideal iMac lineup would start with:

    - 1 GHz G3 ( = G4-1 )

    - 15 in LCD

    - 2 accessible RAM slots of same type

    - no fan

    - $990



    Humbly,</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Price Price Price. I agree.

    And make one headless while you're at it.
  • Reply 12 of 89
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    I'm just annoyed its been 11 months with no hardware refresh for the line. If MWSF now results in a simple refresh instead of something bigger, then I'll be even more perturbed.
  • Reply 13 of 89
    gamringamrin Posts: 114member
    Interesting point, Eugene. Actually, I've been thinking along the same lines. This is, of course, wishful thinking and I understand that all the info we have about the release date of the 970s point against this, but...



    What if the long gap in iMac updates is because Apple's been working on entirely revising the guts of the iMac for something like the 970? Why the iMac before the towers? I'm not really sure, but remember that Apple did the same thing when they first released the G4 iMacs. During their initial release, they were as fast as the towers, I believe, cheaper, and had a flat panel screen. For the couple of months until the towers got updated, it seemed crazy to buy a tower over an iMac. It would be nice if the same thing would happen here by putting the 970 in an iMac, but it certainly seems unlikely, to say the least.



    Gamrin
  • Reply 14 of 89
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I hate to sound like a dumb-ass, but what is 970? I've been out of the loop for about a month, so...



    Is this a chip or what?



    Someone fill me in or provide some linkage?







    And I agree with Eugene: the iMac has gone nearly an entire year (and by the time MWSF rolls around, it WILL have been a year!) with no updates or tweaks!!!



    :eek:



    All they've done is roll out a 17" widescreen model with a beefier graphics card and larger hard drive in July at MWNY.



    But the original three 15" models haven't been TOUCHED. Very odd.



    Although, I guess I shouldn't bitch because I've enjoyed most of 2002 with a "top of the line" model, without having to deal with the whole "I just bought it and then they updated it in two months" trauma.



  • Reply 15 of 89
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    [quote]Originally posted by Gamrin:

    <strong>I'm not really sure, but remember that Apple did the same thing when they first released the G4 iMacs. During their initial release, they were as fast as the towers, I believe, cheaper, and had a flat panel screen. For the couple of months until the towers got updated, it seemed crazy to buy a tower over an iMac. It would be nice if the same thing would happen here by putting the 970 in an iMac, but it certainly seems unlikely, to say the least.



    Gamrin</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Not really. When the iMacs were released, the PowerMacs had L3 cache and a faster bus/memory combo, and faster hard drives, plus the availability of better video cards (still do.) The 800MHz G4 iMac is only as fast as a 533MHz G4 PowerMac. At the time that the iMacs were released, the low-end was 733MHz I believe, so the fastest iMac was slower than the slowest PowerMac.



    [ 12-01-2002: Message edited by: Spart ]</p>
  • Reply 16 of 89
    wormboywormboy Posts: 220member
    What's the 970? Wow, you have been out of the loop... Where ya been? South pole??



    <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,543317,00.asp"; target="_blank">eWeek</a>



    <a href="http://www.siliconstrategies.com/story/OEG20021014S0059"; target="_blank">Silicon Stratagies</a>



    and of course...



    <a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/news/2002/1014_powerpc.html"; target="_blank">IBM itself.</a>
  • Reply 17 of 89
    wormboywormboy Posts: 220member
    Oh, and here are some projected SPEC numbers from IBM...



    SPECint_base2000

    =================

    242 G4 800Mhz

    259 G4 867Mhz

    306 G4 1000Mhz

    937 GPUL 1800Mhz

    =================



    SPECfp_base

    =================

    147 G4 800Mhz

    153 G4 867Mhz

    187 G4 1000Mhz

    1051 GPUL 1800Mhz

    =================



    ...and the icing on the cake... The VMX vector instruction set is Alitvec with a different name.
  • Reply 18 of 89
    I hope they don't release an iMac that trumps over the towers and is cheaper...cause I'm getting a dual ghz. Tower this week!
  • Reply 19 of 89
    Well if they bump the whole line, I am hopin that they include: mhz, graphics card, bus speed, and maybe LCD bumps.



    Well I am hopin the top model will hit 1 ghz, then maybe keep the same price points, except take the low end 15' model now, knock 300 buck off its price, and offer it for 999. I bet it will sell like crazy. That does not sound unreasonable does it?
  • Reply 20 of 89
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by Wrong Robust:

    <strong>I hope they don't release an iMac that trumps over the towers and is cheaper...cause I'm getting a dual ghz. Tower this week!</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The Tower will still be much better than any iMac that's released.
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