Thursday, October 16th 2014
Apple Introduces 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K Display
Apple today unveiled the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, featuring the world's highest resolution display with a breathtaking 14.7 million pixels. At this amazing resolution, text appears sharper than ever, videos are unbelievably lifelike, and you can see new levels of detail in your photos. With the latest quad-core processors, high-performance graphics, Fusion Drive and Thunderbolt 2, iMac with Retina 5K display is the most powerful iMac ever made - it's the ultimate display combined with the ultimate all-in-one.
"Thirty years after the first Mac changed the world, the new iMac with Retina 5K display running OS X Yosemite is the most insanely great Mac we have ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With a breathtaking 14.7 million pixel display, faster CPU and graphics, Fusion Drive, and Thunderbolt 2, it's the most beautiful and powerful iMac ever."
iMac with Retina 5K display delivers an amazingly immersive user experience. With a resolution of 5120 x 2880, iMac with Retina 5K display has four times more pixels than the standard 27-inch iMac and 67 percent more pixels than a 4K display. Text looks as sharp as it does on a printed page, and you can see more of your high-resolution photos with pixel-for-pixel detail. In apps like Final Cut Pro X, you can view 4K video at full size while still leaving plenty of room for your assets and editing tools.
The display on the new 27-inch iMac has been engineered for performance, power efficiency and stunning visual quality. iMac with Retina 5K display uses a precisely manufactured oxide TFT-based panel to deliver vivid display brightness from corner to corner. A single supercharged Apple-designed timing controller (TCON), with four times the bandwidth, drives all 14.7 million pixels. iMac with Retina 5K display also uses highly efficient LEDs and organic passivation to improve image quality and reduce display power consumption by 30 percent, even while driving four times more pixels at the same brightness. To improve the contrast ratio, iMac with Retina 5K display uses a new photo alignment process and a compensation film to deliver blacker blacks and more vibrant colors from any viewing angle. In addition, every iMac with Retina 5K display is calibrated using three state-of-the-art spectroradiometers to ensure precise and accurate color.
Not only is iMac with Retina 5K display more beautiful on the outside, it is also more powerful on the inside. It comes with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, and for the first time can be configured with a 4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.4 GHz. Every new iMac with Retina 5K display also comes with AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and can be configured with AMD Radeon R9 M295X graphics, delivering up to 3.5 teraflops of computing power, the most powerful graphics ever offered on an iMac. iMac with Retina 5K display comes standard with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB Fusion Drive for the first time. The new iMac can also be configured with up to 32 GB of memory, a 3 TB Fusion Drive, or up to 1 TB of super-fast, PCIe-based flash storage. In addition, iMac with Retina 5K display includes two Thunderbolt 2 ports that deliver up to 20 Gbps each, twice the bandwidth of the previous generation.
Every new Mac comes with OS X Yosemite, a powerful new version of OS X, redesigned and refined with a fresh, modern look, powerful new apps and amazing new Continuity features that make working across your Mac and iOS devices more fluid than ever. OS X Yosemite is also engineered to take full advantage of the iMac's Retina 5K display, delivering stunning clarity across all your apps.
iMovie, GarageBand and the suite of iWork apps come free with every new Mac. iMovie lets you easily create beautiful movies, and you can use GarageBand to make new music or learn to play piano or guitar. iWork productivity apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, make it easy to create, edit and share stunning documents, spreadsheets and presentations. iWork has been redesigned with a new look, support for iCloud Drive and a host of new features, including a new comments view in Pages. iWork for iCloud beta lets you create your document on iPad, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends, even if they're on a PC.
Pricing & Availability
iMac with Retina 5K display begins shipping today with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and a 1 TB Fusion Drive for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US). Customers can order iMac with Retina 5K display through the Apple Online Store.
"Thirty years after the first Mac changed the world, the new iMac with Retina 5K display running OS X Yosemite is the most insanely great Mac we have ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With a breathtaking 14.7 million pixel display, faster CPU and graphics, Fusion Drive, and Thunderbolt 2, it's the most beautiful and powerful iMac ever."
The display on the new 27-inch iMac has been engineered for performance, power efficiency and stunning visual quality. iMac with Retina 5K display uses a precisely manufactured oxide TFT-based panel to deliver vivid display brightness from corner to corner. A single supercharged Apple-designed timing controller (TCON), with four times the bandwidth, drives all 14.7 million pixels. iMac with Retina 5K display also uses highly efficient LEDs and organic passivation to improve image quality and reduce display power consumption by 30 percent, even while driving four times more pixels at the same brightness. To improve the contrast ratio, iMac with Retina 5K display uses a new photo alignment process and a compensation film to deliver blacker blacks and more vibrant colors from any viewing angle. In addition, every iMac with Retina 5K display is calibrated using three state-of-the-art spectroradiometers to ensure precise and accurate color.
Not only is iMac with Retina 5K display more beautiful on the outside, it is also more powerful on the inside. It comes with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, and for the first time can be configured with a 4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.4 GHz. Every new iMac with Retina 5K display also comes with AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and can be configured with AMD Radeon R9 M295X graphics, delivering up to 3.5 teraflops of computing power, the most powerful graphics ever offered on an iMac. iMac with Retina 5K display comes standard with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB Fusion Drive for the first time. The new iMac can also be configured with up to 32 GB of memory, a 3 TB Fusion Drive, or up to 1 TB of super-fast, PCIe-based flash storage. In addition, iMac with Retina 5K display includes two Thunderbolt 2 ports that deliver up to 20 Gbps each, twice the bandwidth of the previous generation.
Every new Mac comes with OS X Yosemite, a powerful new version of OS X, redesigned and refined with a fresh, modern look, powerful new apps and amazing new Continuity features that make working across your Mac and iOS devices more fluid than ever. OS X Yosemite is also engineered to take full advantage of the iMac's Retina 5K display, delivering stunning clarity across all your apps.
iMovie, GarageBand and the suite of iWork apps come free with every new Mac. iMovie lets you easily create beautiful movies, and you can use GarageBand to make new music or learn to play piano or guitar. iWork productivity apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, make it easy to create, edit and share stunning documents, spreadsheets and presentations. iWork has been redesigned with a new look, support for iCloud Drive and a host of new features, including a new comments view in Pages. iWork for iCloud beta lets you create your document on iPad, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends, even if they're on a PC.
Pricing & Availability
iMac with Retina 5K display begins shipping today with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and a 1 TB Fusion Drive for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US). Customers can order iMac with Retina 5K display through the Apple Online Store.
79 Comments on Apple Introduces 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K Display
I would stop complaining about the gaming argument since this isn't intended to be a computer for gaming and if you think it is, you've already missed the point.
Price aside, it looks like a capable computer for almost any productivity tasks including those for pictures and video. Can it play games, sure, just not at 5k much like most other PC out which can't either.
I don't really care if Apple didn't actually make the panel. I don't really care if Dell requires dual DisplayPort 1.2 to drive their 5K option. I just care that prices are (seemingly / comparatively ) coming down and hardware prowess is going up.
Having said all that, If I were to buy a 5K display I kind of would like for it to be a little bigger then 27". I'm thinking more like 32" to 40". I already have two 4K displays (28" and a 39") and I really like them. 4K and up can really benefit from having larger displays IMO which helps negate the need for scaling.
As for gaming, Who doesn't love gaming? I get it, believe me I do. However, some people really do have to do real constructive "work" with a computer that can benefit from 4K / 5K and if you can't see that then clearly you are not one of those people. Its not always about games or consuming UHD (4K / 5K) video.
Edit:
Now that I think about it, if Apple is committed to 5K then every new piece of new hardware from them running OS X should have adequate support to push a 5K external display such as the upcoming Dell which supposedly needs dual DisplayPort 1.2. It doesn't really matter how hackneyed or patched together the connection interface may be it still needs to be supported.
So that new Mac Mini should be able to drive the same type of display.
Mobile R9 290MX ≈ Desktop R9 270X / HD 7870
Mobile R9 295MX ≈ Desktop R9 285
That said, for the people concerned about the GPU performance of the iMac, the Mac Pro is the device designed for people who need GPU performance, not the iMac. The iMac is focused on delivering the most performance possible in a given form factor, which means cutting down on hardware to fit that form factor. Granted, Apple is obsessed with making devices thinner and thinner, including the iMac, so there is less ability to hold a high power GPU in an iMac than there has been in the past, but the lack of higher GPU performance is also partially due to the lack of efficiency advances in AMD's line of mobile GPUs.
Unless a good IPS or VA 4K monitor comes down to below $1500 (preferably below $1000), the Retina iMac looks like a better deal.My dream display would be 39" with an 8K resolution (7680x4320) and 120Hz refresh rate. High DPI, tons of screen real estate, and fast refresh all in one package. That won't happen for many years, though.No off-the-shelf video card supports 5K output over a single-tile connection. It has to treat the output as dual 2560x2880 displays. Many first-generation 4K monitors work this same way (even though DP 1.2 can handle 4K@60Hz, the older scaler chips can't), and this causes all kinds of problems: failure to wake up after sleep, only one half of the screen showing up, and so forth. I don't think Apple wants that kind of experience for their users.
On the other hand, maybe since Apple controls the whole OS, they won't have these problems as severe as on Windows. They have a lot more ability to lean on AMD for better driver support than the average consumer does, and more ability to get their issues prioritized - especially since Apple is probably AMD's third biggest customer now, after MS and Sony.
The primary reason why Apple puts most of the purchase price into the display is because, sitting at Apple Stores, the screen makes it easier to convince people to shell out four digits worth of cash.
All in all, Apple is a premium product in the sense that you don't need to think about it for it to work. It just works, it looks nice, and generally speaking, they're very responsive. For any normal user, I don't see how there is really anything bad about Apple other than the price tag. Regardless what any individual person may think, Apple tries to sell a premium product weather we agree with that assessment or not. The two big parts of that are how they build their products and the software that those products use. If I could easily and legally run OS X on my tower, I would. Hell, I would even pay money to do it easily and legally, but Apple doesn't want that market. In all seriousness though, I think its 50% how its built and 50% the software. That's what Apple has going for them.
Now I want to say this one more time, I never have to think about OS X on my Air for work. It just works. To me, that's worth money.
filthy, especially the volume with the OS installed. In terms of running well, all I do there is keep malware off it.Yes, yes you have. About the only laptops I've encountered that make a racket only do so when playing games on it (loading the GPU, CPU, and HDD).All OEMs do. Dells, HPs, Sagers, Apples, etc. all come with everything to run the operating system preinstalled. Most users never have to touch them. I've worked on a lot of computers, in fact, that are more stable with the original drivers than with updated drivers.I'd argue Gamma Tech and Sager laptops are "premium." Gamma Tech = semi- and fully ruggedized; Sager = portable workstations. In both instances, the "premium" is tangible because they have obvious features that set them in a league of their own.
Edit: Looks like Gamma Tech set their sights on iMac. Well, not really because iMacs aren't semi-rugged but they are in the sense that they are now offering an all-in-one desktop system.
For example, I know someone who used Windows XP for quite some time at work on her office work machine. A few years before Windows 8 came out (making windows 8 a non-issue) this person was unceremoniously switched from a Windows XP / PC to a new 27" iMac. She was also given a Mac Book Pro for travel by her employer. She is a developer / programer with a bachelors degree in computer science.
That could be something of a pitfall of the industry in a sense. one should be able to adapt seamlessly or near seamlessly to change and even continue their education to keep up (often paid for by your employer). If you can’t keep up then you may unfortunately find yourself unemployed very quickly and someone that future employers in the same field (making similar changes) don’t want to employ moving forward.
Most businesses around here are going from XP to Windows 7. I only know of one that is going from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 and they do a ton of CAD work.
All I'm saying, Ford, is that Apple makes a solid product and that our sysadmin almost never has to think about machines already provisioned and distributed. Not only that, but our employees seem to be happy with them. In all seriousness, pair that with 11 hours+ of battery life, and you don't have much, other than the price tag, to complain about... unless you really dislike the UI like a co-worker of mine.
There is wasted money in the sense of hardware but then there is the wasted time in the sense of man-power. If you need more time to manage a PC-house than a Mac-house, that's money you're paying your sysadmin(s) to do their job and our sysadmin (singular) doesn't think about our machines often and neither did I when I was sysadmin.
I understand the resentment towards Apple, but in all seriousness, they build a good product.
Your "sysadmin almost never has to think about machines already provisioned" because there's nothing he/she can do except send it back to Apple. They're purposely designed to not be repaired by anyone except Apple so what is there to think about?
I'm not going to have this discussion with you if you pull numbers out of nowhere or compare a cheap PC with a HDD to an Air with PCI-E SSD. Compare apples to apples and you won't have a PC worth 500 USD when you putting it up against a modern Air.
I also think you missed the part where I said educational institutions also get a discount from Apple so it's not even like it's expensive as you think it is. 950-1000 is realistic for us and a 200 USD gap is worth the quality Apple provides for their hardware and software.