Explain that logic to me. An $1800 no-display machine is going to sell compared to a $1300 machine WITH display? Yes, there might be some who want to use their existing monitor, but paying $500 more than an iMac just to NOT have a display and to change the video card and add another HD, both of which you have to buy separately? Explain that one to me.
That's the whole point. The two won't compete with each other. I agree with the strategy that Apple should keep expandability on the pro side. But the Mac Pro is moving in a direction beyond what most people can afford or will need.
The xMac I am thinking of would basically be a Mac Pro Jr. with the fastest Conroe options. Smaller form factor than the Mac Pro. 4 RAM slots instead of 8, 2 HDD instead of 4, one optical drive. They could sell that for around $1800.
If Apple did launch a $999 xMac they would risk loosing profit in two ways. One way it looses money is by offering expandability to a part of the market that mostly would not use it. The other way it looses money is by offering expandability cheaply when people would pay more for it.
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I sense Apple may be stonewalling the issue to keep iMac sales as high as possible,
Yes I'm sure that's apart of it. Apple is a publicly traded business that must meet revenue projections. The same as every other publicly traded business.
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or they are in the process of designing a mini tower now, and waiting for the right time to spring it on us. I sure hope it is the latter.
Yes I said something like this earlier in this thread. It would not have been smart for Apple to launch the Mac Pro and a cheaper desk top at the same time.
They should wait a couple of quarters for Mac Pro sales to cool then launch a cheaper desktop. But I do agree Apple needs to add one to its lineup.
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I see no reason Apple cannot sell a mini tower for $999 with the specifications of the $1199 iMac. They would be about equal value. The tower would go on up from there, as it has more opportunities for options.
Because their is more advantage to selling a base model at $1700 with BTO options decreasing the price to $1200, than selling it at $999 at all.
I think your'e RIGHT on the money of what they should offer. I've been saying it for months... A conroe smaller desktop of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro ISSSS moving in a direction a lot of consumers / pro-sumers don't want to go. I don't need 4 cores or 8 cores. A dual CONROE (NOT MEROM) is good enough for me. Another thing I hate about the MacPro is the slow ram. FBDimms are required for use with the Xeon processors no matter how you slice it. Anandtech did benchmarks with it and found it to be much slower than DDR2 ram. I don't need a workstation. I just want a nice desktop WITHOUT a display. I will NEVER purchase an AIO computer EVER again. Every iMac I've had has either had a burned out display or a burned out motherboard shortly after the warranty ends. I feel they are cheaply made. Though in my defense I haven't owned a g5 or intel iMac. And I never will. I want to be able to choose MY own displays. Apple doesn't use the best displays anyways. For instance, their 20" widescreen is 14ms response time. The samsung 205bw I have now is 5ms. Why would I want to be stuck on an old display for 2-3 years? Another gripe I have... I HAVE to run dual monitors. I like my second monitor on the right side of the machine. Can't do that with the iMac because the damn dvd burner is on the right side of the display!!
Just sell a NORMAL mac ffs. To me, it's fishy they aren't using conroe in any of their computers. It's intel's flagship processor. The cpu that is getting all the attention right now. The AIO and xMac are 2 different machines. xMac more of a pro-sumer deal, and iMac more of a home consumer machine.
I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
I think your'e RIGHT on the money of what they should offer. I've been saying it for months... A conroe smaller desktop of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro ISSSS moving in a direction a lot of consumers / pro-sumers don't want to go. I don't need 4 cores or 8 cores. A dual CONROE (NOT MEROM) is good enough for me. Another thing I hate about the MacPro is the slow ram. FBDimms are required for use with the Xeon processors no matter how you slice it. Anandtech did benchmarks with it and found it to be much slower than DDR2 ram. I don't need a workstation. I just want a nice desktop WITHOUT a display. I will NEVER purchase an AIO computer EVER again. Every iMac I've had has either had a burned out display or a burned out motherboard shortly after the warranty ends. I feel they are cheaply made. Though in my defense I haven't owned a g5 or intel iMac. And I never will. I want to be able to choose MY own displays. Apple doesn't use the best displays anyways. For instance, their 20" widescreen is 14ms response time. The samsung 205bw I have now is 5ms. Why would I want to be stuck on an old display for 2-3 years? Another gripe I have... I HAVE to run dual monitors. I like my second monitor on the right side of the machine. Can't do that with the iMac because the damn dvd burner is on the right side of the display!!
Just sell a NORMAL mac ffs. To me, it's fishy they aren't using conroe in any of their computers. It's intel's flagship processor. The cpu that is getting all the attention right now. The AIO and xMac are 2 different machines. xMac more of a pro-sumer deal, and iMac more of a home consumer machine.
I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
Well, 5ms would be better, but Dell notoriously lies about their response time: they, for the most part, use the same panels as Apple.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro. Its not like the GPU is a limitation in XP right?
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro.
On my wish list the base model of the xMac would have one 2.67 GHz Conroe Duo and ATI X1950 XT in a small form factor and cost $1699.
I don't think the target for the xMac would be so much about outperforming the Mac Pro but as I said earlier the Mac Pro Jr providing some of its advantages in smaller case at a lower price.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
Merom Vs. Conroe: Ram type and front side bus (which are obviously going hand in hand).
Merom fsb is 667 mhz. Conroe is 1066mhz. Conroe can clock much higher than Merom: 2.33ghz vs. 2.9ghz. Yes the ram that apple uses is slower than most ram... because it's laptop memory in all of their computers EXCEPT the Mac Pro.
First off, I can tell a difference between 14ms and 5ms when dragging windows and editing video. But that wasn't even the point. The point was, with an AIO you are stuck with that LCD for 2-3 years (depending how long you keep the machine). With a headless you can upgrade your lcd along with technology changes. As a rule of thumb technology doubles every 18 months, who knows what kind of LCDs will be out in 3 years. That very well could be 4 times better LCDs out then, especially compared to apple's already older lcds in there now. BTW I don't game at all. I work on my mac 8-16 hours a day nearly every day. I program, do graphic design, and 3d modeling with cinema.
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro. Its not like the GPU is a limitation in XP right?
Vinea
The main apps that a conroe outperforms a woodcrest are instruction intense that requires a lot of memory reads memory writes from the cpu. Check out this article from anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2832
I'm not too worried about the gpu, but i'd DEFINITELY like something more than integrated graphics and preferably 256bit. 384bit GPUs are on the verge of coming out (next few weeks)... and we're still using intel's integrated graphics in the mac mini? come on now. The 1800 xMac would have a conroe, notice it out performed woodcrest (dual not quad) in a lot of benchmarks? That's mainly because of the ram.
On my wish list the base model of the xMac would have one 2.67 GHz Conroe Duo and ATI X1950 XT in a small form factor and cost $1699.
I don't think the target for the xMac would be so much about outperforming the Mac Pro but as I said earlier the Mac Pro Jr providing some of its advantages in smaller case at a lower price.
Few people need 4 or 8 cores.
Yes, few people need 4 or 8 cores, but with kentsfield coming out soon, we'll have 4 cores in 1 chip.
Even though I'm open to the enclosure design, I hope it's at least bigger than a macmini with SOME upgradeability.
. . . $700 tower not so much. You're converting a $1000-2000 (17"-24") sale to a $700 sale and the possibility of a monitor sale.
We can all make up numbers that suit our opinions. Let's be realistic, though, and have our examples closer to good business practice. To begin with, very few here would suggest Apple sell a $700 Mac tower. Most seem to argue for a tower being similar in value and performance to the iMac, so it might start at about the $1000 mark and go up from there, with higher performance and better features.
You do bring up a good point that the sale of a mini tower does not necessarily mean the sale of an LCD display for Apple. Apple might raise the price of the tower just slightly to adjust for that potential loss of revenue, and then offer a small discount on a display when purchased with the tower. There are ways to minimize this impact.
Since Apple owns the Mac OS X market, the profit on a tower can be just as high as on an iMac. Apple can make it anything they want to achieve their profit goal. We assume Apple will use good business sense to maximum overall sales and market share.
One more thing to think about. Several people have stated their displeasure with Apple's decision to use the Meron in the iMac, rather than the Conroe. Apple's choice means higher CPU price and lower clock rates. I understand why they did it, to have a quieter cooling fan. Possibly a redesign of the iMac is coming that will use the Conroe, and run quiet enough. In that case, the iMac could be more competitive against a mini tower and lose fewer sales.
Some here seem to argue against having two product in the lineup that compete. It is not necessarily bad, however. It means that customers have a choice. Those who want a tower buy a tower. Those who want an AIO buy an iMac. What is wrong with the consumer getting what he or she want, rather than putting up with whatever is available? It is money in Apple's pocket either way.
The best part is that it will pick up more sales overall, because there are those of us who will not buy an AIO, but go to eBay instead for our towers. There are also the potential switches, who just want a tower because that is all they have ever purchased in the past.
One more thing to think about. Several people have stated their displeasure with Apple's decision to use the Meron in the iMac, rather than the Conroe. Apple's choice means higher CPU price and lower clock rates. I understand why they did it, to have a quieter cooling fan. Possibly a redesign of the iMac is coming that will use the Conroe, and run quiet enough. In that case, the iMac could be more competitive against a mini tower and lose fewer sales.
I don't believe that was the main reason apple went with merom over conroe. A) They would have had to design a new motherboard / chipset to use conroe in the existing models. Merom was a drop in replacement. The heat / noise issue doesn't mean much. Conroe can actually be ran with JUST a heatsink and NO fan. Maximum PC did some tests and found that the conroe under full load for 4 hours would only raise a degree or 2. Granted the iMac doesn't have the best enclosure cooling, but I'm sure they could definitely have conroe in the iMac without sacrificing noise.
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Originally Posted by snoopy
The best part is that it will pick up more sales overall, because there are those of us who will not buy an AIO, but go to eBay instead for our towers. There are also the potential switches, who just want a tower because that is all they have ever purchased in the past.
Exactly. I know many pc users that will not switch because the Mac Pro is out of their league and they refuse to buy an AIO. That leaves NO option for pc switchers. I bet apple would see MORE switchers if they had a computer switchers were used to.... a mid tower with 1 good cpu and 1 good graphics card. This xMac is what I'm waiting for. It may be a LONG LONG LONG wait for me.
Geeze. It's easy. As Apple moves to sales of 2million a quarter?
A dual core conroe tower drops in nicely alongisde the £895-£1395 price bracket. Ideal for the gamers. Get a nice gpu option and cpu. But you don't get the iMac's 24 inch monitor.
Easy. The more sales. The more options. But back when Apple was selling 800k units per quarter? Harder to justify maybe.
I'll put my vote behind the 'Macintosh'. Very doable. A real gamers Mac. We're due one. (Along with a slim form laptop, ultra portable.)
I tend to agree with Emig and Snoopy's posts on this. Apple could pick up quite a few sales. The PC press seems to have been impressed with the Mac Pro. If only they'd conroe it and have a tier underneath. Not that hard now the CPu supplier is Intel and not PPC>
Customers have a choice. Those who want a tower buy a tower. Those who want an AIO buy an iMac.
I agree, Apple should eventually give people a choice.
After thinking about it some. I don't think the xMac directly competes with any of Apple's currently line up.
If they introduced a $1699 Cube it will steal some sales from the Mac Pro simply because it is a lower cost expandable option. It will likely steal some sales from the 24" iMac. But it does not compete with the 24" iMac in price. The xMac would not compete with lower cost mini or 17" iMac at all.
With the Mac Pro going quad-core and octo-core its in an entirely different class than any duo core computer altogether. Its unlikely anyone who needs serious speed and power would look at the xMac over the MacPro.
A $1699 xMac with a quality 1920x1200 24" widescreen will cost well over $2000. The 24" iMac would be a cheaper solution. So one would have to feel the advantages of the xMac outweigh the cheaper cost of the 24" iMac. That would help preserve 24" iMac sales.
In either case I don't see where a $1699 xMac would kill any of Apples current line up.
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I bet apple would see MORE switchers if they had a computer switchers were used to.... a mid tower with 1 good cpu and 1 good graphics card.
I don't really agree with this. For one Apple has increased its number of switchers. I don't believe their would have been significantly more if there had been another desktop because most sales were from laptops.
People have such wide opinions on what the Mac tower needs to be that I don't see ANYTHING Apple releasing pleasing everyone. It will either a) be too expensive, b) not be expandable enough, c) not have enough GPU options or some combination there of. Seriously Apple is a niche computer maker and for now they're happy there it seems. They have a professional workstation and laptop, they have an 'average' consumer desktop and laptop and they have a low-priced model that is there to pick up sales from switchers and people who otherwise would have bought a $599 Dell.
If Apple wanted to please EVERYBODY they'd have 100 options again with prices all over the board and it would be EXACTLY like 1997 all over again.
As for the comment earlier about LCDs - I don't know HOW you can see the difference between a 6ms and 14ms LCD when simply dragging windows around your desktop. I bet 99.9999% of other people cannot in any way detect that and therefore it's a pretty moot point. If you absolutely must have that 6ms LCD why not buy an iMac and hook up an external screen that is 4ms and deal with it? If you upgrade your LCD every 12 months you are definitely wasting money, my mother is using a 15" LCD I got in 4 years ago next month and it still works fine.
Considering how much faster these Intel Core 2 Duos are than the G5 they're replacing is having a Merom really that bad? You could still have a G4 with it's impressive 133Mhz FSB. It's obvious why the iMac is using the Merom over the conroe though - drop in replacement for the previous chip. Absolutely no further work needed.
I don't think the DDR2-667 RAM is so 'slow' as to be considered un-usable especially when you look at the target audience of the computer. There is nothing I do on a daily basis that would run that much faster if I had desktop DDR2-800 RAM in my iMac instead of DDR2-667. If something you are doing really requires you to have that fast of a RAM then I think the Mac Pro is for you, because even though it's not as fast as the fastest of DDR2 RAM it will hold up to 16GB which should more than makeup for that shortcoming.
After thinking about it some. I don't think the xMac directly competes with any of Apple's currently line up.
How does the 'xMac' not compete against the other Apple models? Firstly, if it costs less than the Mac Pro but has more expandability than the iMac it will directly compete with BOTH of those models on those conditions.
There is this odd principle of 3's. People have a tendency to buy what is in the middle. There will always be people who want either the absolute best or the absolute cheapest, but most people look at the middle as 'good enough'. That is part of the reason I believe for Apple's current line-up being exactly the way it is. They have the mini, iMac and Pro and most people go into the Apple store and wow at all the Macs and then decide to buy an iMac because it has more features than most people need and it costs less than the Pro and is more than the mini. If you add a 4th model then the 3 that people will look at the most are the iMac, 'xMac' and Pro and both of those models will decrease in sales (that is assuming the price isn't so high as to make it practically a Mac Pro without the performance or expandability).
If Apple wanted to please EVERYBODY they'd have 100 options again with prices all over the board and it would be EXACTLY like 1997 all over again.
We are asking for one more computer, not 10.
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Originally Posted by jwsmiths
As for the comment earlier about LCDs - I don't know HOW you can see the difference between a 6ms and 14ms LCD when simply dragging windows around your desktop. I bet 99.9999% of other people cannot in any way detect that and therefore it's a pretty moot point. If you absolutely must have that 6ms LCD why not buy an iMac and hook up an external screen that is 4ms and deal with it? If you upgrade your LCD every 12 months you are definitely wasting money, my mother is using a 15" LCD I got in 4 years ago next month and it still works fine.
If you read a little closer you'll see that I could tell during editing video, but that wasn't even the point. I HAVE to run dual monitors for my work. I run my secondary monitor on the right. This is how I work. I CAN NOT run a secondary monitor on the right of the iMac. There is a dvd burner that is in the way. But besides this, you are using your grandmother in this example. This machine wouldn't be for grandmothers or joe user consumers. This would be for pro-sumers. People that want an iMac without the damn lcd. Who's to say that LCD's won't significantly change in the next 3 years. Perhaps there will be a whole entirely brand new monitor that comes out that doesn't even have a response time. Monitor technology changes extremely rapidly. That 15" your grandmother is using from 4 years ago, guaranteed has a 25ms or slower response AND less than a 250:1 contrast ratio. These are things that would make working with graphics and video impossible. I have a very keen eye for detail. I wouldn't even switch to LCDs until this 205bw because the ghosting drove me bonkers. Maybe I did too much LSD, but I can see things like that. It's not acceptable by any means. I barely notice it with this LCD, but it seems anything 8 or 12ms and higher I notice ghosting. I was at WWDC 04 when the first aluminum apple displays came out. The guy next to them when we walked out of the keynote asked me what I thought. I instantly noticed ghosting and told him. He said yah.. they could only manage 16ms for them.
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Originally Posted by jwsmiths
Considering how much faster these Intel Core 2 Duos are than the G5 they're replacing is having a Merom really that bad? You could still have a G4 with it's impressive 133Mhz FSB. It's obvious why the iMac is using the Merom over the conroe though - drop in replacement for the previous chip. Absolutely no further work needed.
I don't think the DDR2-667 RAM is so 'slow' as to be considered un-usable especially when you look at the target audience of the computer. There is nothing I do on a daily basis that would run that much faster if I had desktop DDR2-800 RAM in my iMac instead of DDR2-667. If something you are doing really requires you to have that fast of a RAM then I think the Mac Pro is for you, because even though it's not as fast as the fastest of DDR2 RAM it will hold up to 16GB which should more than makeup for that shortcoming.
When you're compiling objective-c / c++ all day, and compositing video... it's nice to have the quickest ram possible. I'm not saying it's unbearable, but every little thing helps. I'll admit, I'm on the borderline of buying a mac pro. But I feel I'd be much happier with a xMac than a mac pro. I just want a conroe chip in a tower with normal ram. Why is that so much to ask for? I believe this could be Apple's flagship computer. This is the computer PC users are used to. This is what all the pc gamers have. This is what all the consumers have (besides laptops). Every person I talk to about switching to os x... they complain about the lack of a normal desktop, because the mac pro IS indeed out of their reach. I'll admit if Apple doesn't come out with a xMac soon, I'll be forced to get a Mac Pro... which isn't so bad with edu discount, but it isn't what I want. It's not what a lot of potential switchers want either.
How does the 'xMac' not compete against the other Apple models? Firstly, if it costs less than the Mac Pro but has more expandability than the iMac it will directly compete with BOTH of those models on those conditions.
There is this odd principle of 3's. People have a tendency to buy what is in the middle. There will always be people who want either the absolute best or the absolute cheapest, but most people look at the middle as 'good enough'. That is part of the reason I believe for Apple's current line-up being exactly the way it is. They have the mini, iMac and Pro and most people go into the Apple store and wow at all the Macs and then decide to buy an iMac because it has more features than most people need and it costs less than the Pro and is more than the mini. If you add a 4th model then the 3 that people will look at the most are the iMac, 'xMac' and Pro and both of those models will decrease in sales (that is assuming the price isn't so high as to make it practically a Mac Pro without the performance or expandability).
You're not factoring that people may be buying that mac because they didn't want either the mac pro or iMac before. There ARE people out there that feel strong enough against AIO's they will never buy one.. EVER. And the Mac Pro is so expensive it is out of reach for them as well. Apple used to always have a $1500 desktop, until the g5. Then it disappeared. If users want this, why not give it to them. I have seen it all over the place. People WANT another choice for a desktop.
Comments
Explain that logic to me. An $1800 no-display machine is going to sell compared to a $1300 machine WITH display? Yes, there might be some who want to use their existing monitor, but paying $500 more than an iMac just to NOT have a display and to change the video card and add another HD, both of which you have to buy separately? Explain that one to me.
That's the whole point. The two won't compete with each other. I agree with the strategy that Apple should keep expandability on the pro side. But the Mac Pro is moving in a direction beyond what most people can afford or will need.
The xMac I am thinking of would basically be a Mac Pro Jr. with the fastest Conroe options. Smaller form factor than the Mac Pro. 4 RAM slots instead of 8, 2 HDD instead of 4, one optical drive. They could sell that for around $1800.
If Apple did launch a $999 xMac they would risk loosing profit in two ways. One way it looses money is by offering expandability to a part of the market that mostly would not use it. The other way it looses money is by offering expandability cheaply when people would pay more for it.
I sense Apple may be stonewalling the issue to keep iMac sales as high as possible,
Yes I'm sure that's apart of it. Apple is a publicly traded business that must meet revenue projections. The same as every other publicly traded business.
or they are in the process of designing a mini tower now, and waiting for the right time to spring it on us. I sure hope it is the latter.
Yes I said something like this earlier in this thread. It would not have been smart for Apple to launch the Mac Pro and a cheaper desk top at the same time.
They should wait a couple of quarters for Mac Pro sales to cool then launch a cheaper desktop. But I do agree Apple needs to add one to its lineup.
I see no reason Apple cannot sell a mini tower for $999 with the specifications of the $1199 iMac. They would be about equal value. The tower would go on up from there, as it has more opportunities for options.
Because their is more advantage to selling a base model at $1700 with BTO options decreasing the price to $1200, than selling it at $999 at all.
I think your'e RIGHT on the money of what they should offer. I've been saying it for months... A conroe smaller desktop of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro ISSSS moving in a direction a lot of consumers / pro-sumers don't want to go. I don't need 4 cores or 8 cores. A dual CONROE (NOT MEROM) is good enough for me. Another thing I hate about the MacPro is the slow ram. FBDimms are required for use with the Xeon processors no matter how you slice it. Anandtech did benchmarks with it and found it to be much slower than DDR2 ram. I don't need a workstation. I just want a nice desktop WITHOUT a display. I will NEVER purchase an AIO computer EVER again. Every iMac I've had has either had a burned out display or a burned out motherboard shortly after the warranty ends. I feel they are cheaply made. Though in my defense I haven't owned a g5 or intel iMac. And I never will. I want to be able to choose MY own displays. Apple doesn't use the best displays anyways. For instance, their 20" widescreen is 14ms response time. The samsung 205bw I have now is 5ms. Why would I want to be stuck on an old display for 2-3 years? Another gripe I have... I HAVE to run dual monitors. I like my second monitor on the right side of the machine. Can't do that with the iMac because the damn dvd burner is on the right side of the display!!
Just sell a NORMAL mac ffs. To me, it's fishy they aren't using conroe in any of their computers. It's intel's flagship processor. The cpu that is getting all the attention right now. The AIO and xMac are 2 different machines. xMac more of a pro-sumer deal, and iMac more of a home consumer machine.
I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
TenoBell,
I think your'e RIGHT on the money of what they should offer. I've been saying it for months... A conroe smaller desktop of the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro ISSSS moving in a direction a lot of consumers / pro-sumers don't want to go. I don't need 4 cores or 8 cores. A dual CONROE (NOT MEROM) is good enough for me. Another thing I hate about the MacPro is the slow ram. FBDimms are required for use with the Xeon processors no matter how you slice it. Anandtech did benchmarks with it and found it to be much slower than DDR2 ram. I don't need a workstation. I just want a nice desktop WITHOUT a display. I will NEVER purchase an AIO computer EVER again. Every iMac I've had has either had a burned out display or a burned out motherboard shortly after the warranty ends. I feel they are cheaply made. Though in my defense I haven't owned a g5 or intel iMac. And I never will. I want to be able to choose MY own displays. Apple doesn't use the best displays anyways. For instance, their 20" widescreen is 14ms response time. The samsung 205bw I have now is 5ms. Why would I want to be stuck on an old display for 2-3 years? Another gripe I have... I HAVE to run dual monitors. I like my second monitor on the right side of the machine. Can't do that with the iMac because the damn dvd burner is on the right side of the display!!
Just sell a NORMAL mac ffs. To me, it's fishy they aren't using conroe in any of their computers. It's intel's flagship processor. The cpu that is getting all the attention right now. The AIO and xMac are 2 different machines. xMac more of a pro-sumer deal, and iMac more of a home consumer machine.
I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Merom is a laptop chip and needs to work within power and heat limitation.
The xMac would not need Merom's power or heat limitations and would make use of the full power and speed of Conroe.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
Well, 5ms would be better, but Dell notoriously lies about their response time: they, for the most part, use the same panels as Apple.
I would GLADLY drop 1800 on a xMac today.
And a mac mini wouldn't come near to satisfying my needs. I'd like at least a decent gpu... a 7600gt would be fine... with the possibility of a 7900gs or x1900xt. On top of that the ram is ALSO slow in the mac mini... not to mention the harddrive. The mini is worthless for me.
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro. Its not like the GPU is a limitation in XP right?
Vinea
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro.
On my wish list the base model of the xMac would have one 2.67 GHz Conroe Duo and ATI X1950 XT in a small form factor and cost $1699.
I don't think the target for the xMac would be so much about outperforming the Mac Pro but as I said earlier the Mac Pro Jr providing some of its advantages in smaller case at a lower price.
Few people need 4 or 8 cores.
What is wrong with the Merom that you absolutely require the Conroe?
Also: The RAM in the Mac mini runs at the exact same speed as the RAM in the iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro - do ALL of Apple's computers utilize "slow" RAM?
As for the 14ms vs. 5ms screen - how big of an issue is that REALLY? Only a serious gamer would take notice of that particular characteristic of their LCD. Ask any random person what the 'ms' of their LCD is and they'll give you a very puzzled look.
Merom Vs. Conroe: Ram type and front side bus (which are obviously going hand in hand).
Merom fsb is 667 mhz. Conroe is 1066mhz. Conroe can clock much higher than Merom: 2.33ghz vs. 2.9ghz. Yes the ram that apple uses is slower than most ram... because it's laptop memory in all of their computers EXCEPT the Mac Pro.
First off, I can tell a difference between 14ms and 5ms when dragging windows and editing video. But that wasn't even the point. The point was, with an AIO you are stuck with that LCD for 2-3 years (depending how long you keep the machine). With a headless you can upgrade your lcd along with technology changes. As a rule of thumb technology doubles every 18 months, who knows what kind of LCDs will be out in 3 years. That very well could be 4 times better LCDs out then, especially compared to apple's already older lcds in there now. BTW I don't game at all. I work on my mac 8-16 hours a day nearly every day. I program, do graphic design, and 3d modeling with cinema.
Well, 5ms would be better, but Dell notoriously lies about their response time: they, for the most part, use the same panels as Apple.
I was referring to my Samsung 205bw... btw it's 6ms... typo on my part.
Well, okay...I'm curious how much faster a $1800 xMac would be vs a $2100 Mac Pro. Its not like the GPU is a limitation in XP right?
Vinea
The main apps that a conroe outperforms a woodcrest are instruction intense that requires a lot of memory reads memory writes from the cpu. Check out this article from anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2832
I'm not too worried about the gpu, but i'd DEFINITELY like something more than integrated graphics and preferably 256bit. 384bit GPUs are on the verge of coming out (next few weeks)... and we're still using intel's integrated graphics in the mac mini? come on now. The 1800 xMac would have a conroe, notice it out performed woodcrest (dual not quad) in a lot of benchmarks? That's mainly because of the ram.
On my wish list the base model of the xMac would have one 2.67 GHz Conroe Duo and ATI X1950 XT in a small form factor and cost $1699.
I don't think the target for the xMac would be so much about outperforming the Mac Pro but as I said earlier the Mac Pro Jr providing some of its advantages in smaller case at a lower price.
Few people need 4 or 8 cores.
Yes, few people need 4 or 8 cores, but with kentsfield coming out soon, we'll have 4 cores in 1 chip.
Even though I'm open to the enclosure design, I hope it's at least bigger than a macmini with SOME upgradeability.
. . . $700 tower not so much. You're converting a $1000-2000 (17"-24") sale to a $700 sale and the possibility of a monitor sale.
We can all make up numbers that suit our opinions.
You do bring up a good point that the sale of a mini tower does not necessarily mean the sale of an LCD display for Apple. Apple might raise the price of the tower just slightly to adjust for that potential loss of revenue, and then offer a small discount on a display when purchased with the tower. There are ways to minimize this impact.
Since Apple owns the Mac OS X market, the profit on a tower can be just as high as on an iMac. Apple can make it anything they want to achieve their profit goal. We assume Apple will use good business sense to maximum overall sales and market share.
One more thing to think about. Several people have stated their displeasure with Apple's decision to use the Meron in the iMac, rather than the Conroe. Apple's choice means higher CPU price and lower clock rates. I understand why they did it, to have a quieter cooling fan. Possibly a redesign of the iMac is coming that will use the Conroe, and run quiet enough. In that case, the iMac could be more competitive against a mini tower and lose fewer sales.
Some here seem to argue against having two product in the lineup that compete. It is not necessarily bad, however. It means that customers have a choice. Those who want a tower buy a tower. Those who want an AIO buy an iMac. What is wrong with the consumer getting what he or she want, rather than putting up with whatever is available? It is money in Apple's pocket either way.
The best part is that it will pick up more sales overall, because there are those of us who will not buy an AIO, but go to eBay instead for our towers. There are also the potential switches, who just want a tower because that is all they have ever purchased in the past.
One more thing to think about. Several people have stated their displeasure with Apple's decision to use the Meron in the iMac, rather than the Conroe. Apple's choice means higher CPU price and lower clock rates. I understand why they did it, to have a quieter cooling fan. Possibly a redesign of the iMac is coming that will use the Conroe, and run quiet enough. In that case, the iMac could be more competitive against a mini tower and lose fewer sales.
I don't believe that was the main reason apple went with merom over conroe. A) They would have had to design a new motherboard / chipset to use conroe in the existing models. Merom was a drop in replacement.
The best part is that it will pick up more sales overall, because there are those of us who will not buy an AIO, but go to eBay instead for our towers. There are also the potential switches, who just want a tower because that is all they have ever purchased in the past.
Exactly. I know many pc users that will not switch because the Mac Pro is out of their league and they refuse to buy an AIO. That leaves NO option for pc switchers. I bet apple would see MORE switchers if they had a computer switchers were used to.... a mid tower with 1 good cpu and 1 good graphics card. This xMac is what I'm waiting for. It may be a LONG LONG LONG wait for me.
A dual core conroe tower drops in nicely alongisde the £895-£1395 price bracket. Ideal for the gamers. Get a nice gpu option and cpu. But you don't get the iMac's 24 inch monitor.
Easy. The more sales. The more options. But back when Apple was selling 800k units per quarter? Harder to justify maybe.
I'll put my vote behind the 'Macintosh'. Very doable. A real gamers Mac. We're due one. (Along with a slim form laptop, ultra portable.)
I tend to agree with Emig and Snoopy's posts on this. Apple could pick up quite a few sales. The PC press seems to have been impressed with the Mac Pro. If only they'd conroe it and have a tier underneath. Not that hard now the CPu supplier is Intel and not PPC>
Lemon Bon Bon
Customers have a choice. Those who want a tower buy a tower. Those who want an AIO buy an iMac.
I agree, Apple should eventually give people a choice.
After thinking about it some. I don't think the xMac directly competes with any of Apple's currently line up.
If they introduced a $1699 Cube it will steal some sales from the Mac Pro simply because it is a lower cost expandable option. It will likely steal some sales from the 24" iMac. But it does not compete with the 24" iMac in price. The xMac would not compete with lower cost mini or 17" iMac at all.
With the Mac Pro going quad-core and octo-core its in an entirely different class than any duo core computer altogether. Its unlikely anyone who needs serious speed and power would look at the xMac over the MacPro.
A $1699 xMac with a quality 1920x1200 24" widescreen will cost well over $2000. The 24" iMac would be a cheaper solution. So one would have to feel the advantages of the xMac outweigh the cheaper cost of the 24" iMac. That would help preserve 24" iMac sales.
In either case I don't see where a $1699 xMac would kill any of Apples current line up.
I bet apple would see MORE switchers if they had a computer switchers were used to.... a mid tower with 1 good cpu and 1 good graphics card.
I don't really agree with this. For one Apple has increased its number of switchers. I don't believe their would have been significantly more if there had been another desktop because most sales were from laptops.
If Apple wanted to please EVERYBODY they'd have 100 options again with prices all over the board and it would be EXACTLY like 1997 all over again.
As for the comment earlier about LCDs - I don't know HOW you can see the difference between a 6ms and 14ms LCD when simply dragging windows around your desktop. I bet 99.9999% of other people cannot in any way detect that and therefore it's a pretty moot point. If you absolutely must have that 6ms LCD why not buy an iMac and hook up an external screen that is 4ms and deal with it? If you upgrade your LCD every 12 months you are definitely wasting money, my mother is using a 15" LCD I got in 4 years ago next month and it still works fine.
Considering how much faster these Intel Core 2 Duos are than the G5 they're replacing is having a Merom really that bad? You could still have a G4 with it's impressive 133Mhz FSB. It's obvious why the iMac is using the Merom over the conroe though - drop in replacement for the previous chip. Absolutely no further work needed.
I don't think the DDR2-667 RAM is so 'slow' as to be considered un-usable especially when you look at the target audience of the computer. There is nothing I do on a daily basis that would run that much faster if I had desktop DDR2-800 RAM in my iMac instead of DDR2-667. If something you are doing really requires you to have that fast of a RAM then I think the Mac Pro is for you, because even though it's not as fast as the fastest of DDR2 RAM it will hold up to 16GB which should more than makeup for that shortcoming.
After thinking about it some. I don't think the xMac directly competes with any of Apple's currently line up.
How does the 'xMac' not compete against the other Apple models? Firstly, if it costs less than the Mac Pro but has more expandability than the iMac it will directly compete with BOTH of those models on those conditions.
There is this odd principle of 3's. People have a tendency to buy what is in the middle. There will always be people who want either the absolute best or the absolute cheapest, but most people look at the middle as 'good enough'. That is part of the reason I believe for Apple's current line-up being exactly the way it is. They have the mini, iMac and Pro and most people go into the Apple store and wow at all the Macs and then decide to buy an iMac because it has more features than most people need and it costs less than the Pro and is more than the mini. If you add a 4th model then the 3 that people will look at the most are the iMac, 'xMac' and Pro and both of those models will decrease in sales (that is assuming the price isn't so high as to make it practically a Mac Pro without the performance or expandability).
If Apple wanted to please EVERYBODY they'd have 100 options again with prices all over the board and it would be EXACTLY like 1997 all over again.
We are asking for one more computer, not 10.
As for the comment earlier about LCDs - I don't know HOW you can see the difference between a 6ms and 14ms LCD when simply dragging windows around your desktop. I bet 99.9999% of other people cannot in any way detect that and therefore it's a pretty moot point. If you absolutely must have that 6ms LCD why not buy an iMac and hook up an external screen that is 4ms and deal with it? If you upgrade your LCD every 12 months you are definitely wasting money, my mother is using a 15" LCD I got in 4 years ago next month and it still works fine.
If you read a little closer you'll see that I could tell during editing video, but that wasn't even the point. I HAVE to run dual monitors for my work. I run my secondary monitor on the right. This is how I work. I CAN NOT run a secondary monitor on the right of the iMac. There is a dvd burner that is in the way. But besides this, you are using your grandmother in this example. This machine wouldn't be for grandmothers or joe user consumers. This would be for pro-sumers. People that want an iMac without the damn lcd. Who's to say that LCD's won't significantly change in the next 3 years. Perhaps there will be a whole entirely brand new monitor that comes out that doesn't even have a response time. Monitor technology changes extremely rapidly. That 15" your grandmother is using from 4 years ago, guaranteed has a 25ms or slower response AND less than a 250:1 contrast ratio. These are things that would make working with graphics and video impossible. I have a very keen eye for detail. I wouldn't even switch to LCDs until this 205bw because the ghosting drove me bonkers. Maybe I did too much LSD, but I can see things like that. It's not acceptable by any means. I barely notice it with this LCD, but it seems anything 8 or 12ms and higher I notice ghosting. I was at WWDC 04 when the first aluminum apple displays came out. The guy next to them when we walked out of the keynote asked me what I thought. I instantly noticed ghosting and told him. He said yah.. they could only manage 16ms for them.
Considering how much faster these Intel Core 2 Duos are than the G5 they're replacing is having a Merom really that bad? You could still have a G4 with it's impressive 133Mhz FSB. It's obvious why the iMac is using the Merom over the conroe though - drop in replacement for the previous chip. Absolutely no further work needed.
I don't think the DDR2-667 RAM is so 'slow' as to be considered un-usable especially when you look at the target audience of the computer. There is nothing I do on a daily basis that would run that much faster if I had desktop DDR2-800 RAM in my iMac instead of DDR2-667. If something you are doing really requires you to have that fast of a RAM then I think the Mac Pro is for you, because even though it's not as fast as the fastest of DDR2 RAM it will hold up to 16GB which should more than makeup for that shortcoming.
When you're compiling objective-c / c++ all day, and compositing video... it's nice to have the quickest ram possible. I'm not saying it's unbearable, but every little thing helps. I'll admit, I'm on the borderline of buying a mac pro. But I feel I'd be much happier with a xMac than a mac pro. I just want a conroe chip in a tower with normal ram. Why is that so much to ask for? I believe this could be Apple's flagship computer. This is the computer PC users are used to. This is what all the pc gamers have. This is what all the consumers have (besides laptops). Every person I talk to about switching to os x... they complain about the lack of a normal desktop, because the mac pro IS indeed out of their reach. I'll admit if Apple doesn't come out with a xMac soon, I'll be forced to get a Mac Pro... which isn't so bad with edu discount, but it isn't what I want. It's not what a lot of potential switchers want either.
How does the 'xMac' not compete against the other Apple models? Firstly, if it costs less than the Mac Pro but has more expandability than the iMac it will directly compete with BOTH of those models on those conditions.
There is this odd principle of 3's. People have a tendency to buy what is in the middle. There will always be people who want either the absolute best or the absolute cheapest, but most people look at the middle as 'good enough'. That is part of the reason I believe for Apple's current line-up being exactly the way it is. They have the mini, iMac and Pro and most people go into the Apple store and wow at all the Macs and then decide to buy an iMac because it has more features than most people need and it costs less than the Pro and is more than the mini. If you add a 4th model then the 3 that people will look at the most are the iMac, 'xMac' and Pro and both of those models will decrease in sales (that is assuming the price isn't so high as to make it practically a Mac Pro without the performance or expandability).
You're not factoring that people may be buying that mac because they didn't want either the mac pro or iMac before. There ARE people out there that feel strong enough against AIO's they will never buy one.. EVER. And the Mac Pro is so expensive it is out of reach for them as well. Apple used to always have a $1500 desktop, until the g5. Then it disappeared. If users want this, why not give it to them. I have seen it all over the place. People WANT another choice for a desktop.
We are asking for one more computer, not 10.
No, YOU'RE asking for one more computer. Someone else is asking for another, and someone else is asking for another.
You all want DIFFERENT computers. Yes, there's a hole. One computer won't fill it.
jw nailed it on the head.