Apple Announces New iMac with Next-Gen Quad-Core Processors, Graphics, Thunderbolt

[Wiselnvestor]

No it is based loosely on the 6850, but is downclocked and performs as well as a 6790

Your right on the performance front. I hope the new iMac left some wiggle room for the GPU. Hopefully a bit of voltage increase plus OC will kick the performance up a notch.

Does Apple let people OC the CPU and GPU?

 

[n-ster]

In such a setup, I don't think I'd risk OCing

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah, good chance you'll melt the plastic--or something that shouldn't be melted. I'm fairly certain they are passively cooled.

 

[Wile E]

You can't overclock on the Mac side. In windows, I have OCed the X1600 in my iMac since day one using ATI tray tools.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

Yeah, good chance you'll melt the plastic--or something that shouldn't be melted. I'm fairly certain they are passively cooled.

Well you're wrong. They are cooled by laptop-style coolers.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's passive. The only fan in there is most likely for the power supply and probably only runs when the PSU is inside of five minutes of starting a fire. The optical drive sits between that fan and the GPU HSF. There's a whole lot nothing over by the CPU HSF (it's just rather large). They use mobile parts with reduced power consumption so they don't have to actively cool it. It increases the cost of the machine but that also means it is virtually silent.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

It's passive. The only fan in there is most likely for the power supply. The optical drive sits between that fan and the GPU HSF. There's a whole lot nothing over by the CPU HSF (it's just rather large). They use mobile parts with reduced power consumption so they don't have to actively cool it. It increases the cost of the machine but that also means it is virtually silent.

Two fans.
There is space under the ODD due to convex back. There is also foam around the ODD to reduce airflow loses. air goes like this: blower - under ODD - GPU heatsink
For CPU it's blower - CPU heatsink - PSU

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I think I can finally spot the other fan you're talking about (only appears in one of the pictures and it is more than half covered). Still, it is a very inefficient design (no cold air intakes or hot air exhausts) so no one should expect to overclock them much (if at all) without serious modifications to the cooling system.

 

[pr0n Inspector]

I think I can finally spot the other fan you're talking about (only appears in one of the pictures and it is more than half covered). Still, it is a very inefficient design (no cold air intakes or hot air exhausts) so no one should expect to overclock them much (if at all) without serious modifications to the cooling system.

It does have intake and exhaust.
Intake is at the bottom of the bezel, exhaust is at the back near the top.

 

[erixx]

is that keyboard usefull for anything other than a short email, WTF how tiny and flatty (=bad)

 

[yogurt_21]

is that keyboard usefull for anything other than a short email, WTF how tiny and flatty (=bad)

actually you'd be suprised how natural it feels. Tried one the other day, loved it.

 

[kgreene]

$1000 and up. and still no blu-ray drive, still running firewire and no usb 3.0 support.

 

[heinzter]

No blu-ray

Apple has not shipped their units with a blu-ray drive because they believe that blu-ray is a dying format. As you can see from all of apple's product line, they are of the firm belief that in the future all content (ie, music, videos, pictures, software, etc) will be available online 24/7 365. They are literally betting the farm on this (N Carolina). for that reason, you will never see blu-ray on their devices. for them to do so, would be to admit they were wrong.

 

[heinzter]

you will never see blu-ray on their systems. Firewire and USB have been replaced by thunderbolt.

 

[heinzter]

my bad.. you still have usb 2.0 but yes, no usb 3.0 pushing thunderbolt.

 

[cheesy999]

is that keyboard usefull for anything other than a short email, WTF how tiny and flatty (=bad)

feels like an ordinary laptop keyboard - eg: small and some of the buttons arn't as you'd expect

 

[Wile E]

actually you'd be suprised how natural it feels. Tried one the other day, loved it.

I hate it. Completely. I like my white Apple keyboard several orders of a magnitude better.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Wow this Thunderbolt port sounds like it's the be all and end all of ports! Faster than USB 3.0, compatible with DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA, Firewire and external PCI-e? Damn.

om nom nom thunderbolt.

Been playing with USB 3, it's not bad, but wheres my thunderbolt?!!! I'm curious on data latency for the data transfer: Thunderbolt GPU, anyone?

If I could install XP or W2k3 native on an iMac I would buy two. I'm serious. Unfortunately, bootcamp compatibility was dropped for all but W7. Shame.

Why would you cripple yourself with such an out of date OS? Time to move on. Let the horse die. Win7 x64 is quite solid.

 

[jsfitz54]

I recently posted regarding my friends Dell 9100 that was having boot issues due to mobo...

Well, he bought the 27" i7 version iMac.

I can say, it's very very nice.

 

[TheMailMan78]

I hate it. Completely. I like my white Apple keyboard several orders of a magnitude better.

I agree. IMO they were trying to hard to be "cutting edge" and trendy with it. It reminds me of the dreaded "hockey puck" mouse. Gimme my old apple white standard keyboard anyday. But the best one they ever made was the one that came with the last gen.

This thing was/is a TANK!. Only complaint I have is the damn white keys combined with the clear base. It shows you what kinda dirty bastard you are

I like this one too. My only issue with this one was the keys got "sticky" after a while. No clear "clicks" ya know?

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

$1000 and up. and still no blu-ray drive, still running firewire and no usb 3.0 support.

you will never see blu-ray on their systems. Firewire and USB have been replaced by thunderbolt.

People still use CD media?

 

[cadaveca]

People still use CD media?

I think the figures say that only 60% of the US even has highspeed internet access.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I hate it. Completely. I like my white Apple keyboard several orders of a magnitude better.

I can't really get used to them either. Though they look great.

my bad.. you still have usb 2.0 but yes, no usb 3.0 pushing thunderbolt.

See the edit button below your posts? Use it. Triple (even double) posting is really bad form.

 

[Ripper3]

Love the flat laptop-style keyboard, but that's mostly because I've been using an MBP for like two years now. I do sometimes use a proper desktop keyboard, and it's tough to get used to again, my hands are used to the slightly different layout and the lack of real force of the feedback, but once I'm used to it, I fly! Still have an old IBM or Compaq PS/2 keyboard, it's built better than most tanks, I think.

CD media is pretty much dead or dying. I hadn't used my DVD drive for months, until I was reminded I needed to burn a physical disk copy of my assignments. Still emailed copies though that'll learn 'em!

I'd like to use some Thunderbolt accessories. In the MBP and the iMac, the Thunderbolt chip uses a separate PCI-E channel to the other internal chips, so it has full bandwidth. No chance of heavy GPU operations interrupting your big copy across external HDD(s) connected to Thunderbolt, which is nice.

The GPU is on an MXM module (can't remember which number/type), while the CPU is socketed, not soldered, in the iMac. Should hopefully mean upgrades are very possible. The 21.5" has a space for 2.5" HDD under the ODD, same as the 27", so potentially, in a year or two, you could upgrade it to 16GB RAM, add an SSD, upgrade the HDD, remove the ODD and add another SATA drive, change the GPU and the CPU, leaving you with a very different iMac.
With the 27", you've got the same choices of upgrades, but even better is that you have two Thunderbolt ports so technically, you can connect two external displays. Should be great for iOS/OSX devs, no need to buy the Mac Pro just to have three displays any more.

Oh, and btw, cooling should handle things nicely in the iMac. Not as many issues with heat as in the MBP, which is ridiculously hot-running. The two fans in the MBP have to run full-blast on my old model with the 9600m turned on, to avoid getting to 60c on the desktop...

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Oh, and btw, cooling should handle things nicely in the iMac. Not as many issues with heat as in the MBP, which is ridiculously hot-running. The two fans in the MBP have to run full-blast on my old model with the 9600m turned on, to avoid getting to 60c on the desktop...

But thats the beauty, it's still silent (60C is well within spec for laptop components btw)