Apple Updates iMac

[Cristian_25H]

Apple today updated iMac with fourth generation Intel quad-core processors, new graphics, next generation Wi-Fi and faster PCIe flash storage options. The updated iMac brings the latest technology to the stunningly thin design and gorgeous display of the world's leading all-in-one desktop.

"iMac continues to be the example that proves how beautiful, fast and fun a desktop computer can be," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Inside its ultra-thin aluminum enclosure, the new iMac has the latest Intel processors, faster graphics, next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi and faster PCIe flash storage."





The entry-level 21.5-inch iMac features a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and new Iris Pro graphics for unprecedented levels of integrated graphics performance. The high-end 21.5-inch model and both 27-inch models feature quad-core Intel Core i5 processors up to 3.4 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce 700 series graphics with twice the video memory and up to 40 percent faster performance than the previous generation. Customers looking for the ultimate in performance can upgrade to quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 3.5 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M series graphics with up to 4 GB of video memory.

iMac now supports next generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi. When connected to an 802.11ac base station, iMac delivers wireless performance that is up to three times faster than the previous generation.

The updated iMac now features support for PCIe-based flash storage that makes Fusion Drive and all-flash storage options up to 50 percent faster than the previous generation.* The popular Fusion Drive option combines the large storage capacity of a hard drive with the high performance of flash to deliver shorter boot times and faster access to apps and files. Customers can configure their iMac with a 1 TB or 3 TB Fusion Drive, and all-flash storage options are now available in configurations up to 1 TB.

iMac comes standard with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB hard drive, and customers can choose to configure their iMac with up to 32 GB of memory and up to a 3 TB hard drive. iMac also comes with two Thunderbolt and four USB 3.0 ports for connecting to external storage and other high performance peripherals.

Continuing Apple's commitment to energy efficiency and the environment, iMac meets stringent Energy Star 5.2 requirements and achieves an EPEAT Gold rating. iMac features LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. iMac includes PVC-free components and cables, contains no brominated flame retardants, and uses highly recyclable materials and material-efficient packaging designs.

iMac ships with OS X Mountain Lion, bringing Messages, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, AirPlay Mirroring, Dictation, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper to your Mac. With iCloud built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Pricing & Availability
The new iMac is available today through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. The 21.5-inch iMac is available with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.2 GHz and Intel Iris Pro for a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US); and with a 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US). The 27-inch iMac is available with a 3.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 755M for a suggested retail price of $1,799 (US); and with a 3.4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.8 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US). Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at www.apple.com/imac.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Easy Rhino]

beautiful!

 

[Fourstaff]

inb4 too expensive and iShit comments.

I personally think other manufacturers should do better with AIOs, I haven't seen one which competes properly against iMac

 

[RCoon]

inb4 too expensive and iShit comments.

I personally think other manufacturers should do better with AIOs, I haven't seen one which competes properly against iMac

MSI does OK, but you're right, nobody emulates the similar quality finish that these iMacs have. I'd never buy one, but I appreciate the design and finish.

 

[Easy Rhino]

MSI does OK, but you're right, nobody emulates the similar quality finish that these iMacs have. I'd never buy one, but I appreciate the design and finish.

sony got close there for a little bit a few years ago but they did not sell. nobody wants a cheap knockoff.

i don't see myself buying an iMac any time soon but when my kids get older i could see us getting one for school work. ah hell, who am i kidding. they are each going to build their own desktop or not get one.

 

[Frick]

iMac is the reason why grannies and iSluts think that the monitor IS the computer.

No.

EDIT: On topic, AIO's is pretty much the only computer I recommend these days, in cases where they do not want laptops for whatever reason.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Well...first flat panel displays and then iMacs sure as hell made my job easier. People at work move cubes all the time and back in the day they all had a tower and a giant heavy CRT and a secondary small LCD plus all the cabling.

 

[Easy Rhino]

the picture quality on these is very very good and since it has a nice design and a low footprint you can stick it in your living room and not feel embarrassed.

 

[xvi]

Seems like it's time for a new design. Granted they were slightly larger, but this design started with a PowerPC processor inside it.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

No.

EDIT: On topic, AIO's is pretty much the only computer I recommend these days, in cases where they do not want laptops for whatever reason.

im glad im not your friends or family then, you might as well recomend an ipad imho, Aio's have there place but a house's main pc is'nt it imho

for office work and browsing they are perfect but gameing , music, and video editing you can do better ,my opinion's the same for most laptops.

 

[Easy Rhino]

im glad im not your friends or family then, you might as well recomend an ipad imho, Aio's have there place but a house's main pc is'nt it imho

for office work and browsing they are perfect but gameing , music, and video editing you can do better ,my opinion's the same for most laptops.

you do realize that the large majority of households with a PC do not game on it, right ? Also, for a family PC, which this is geared to, it plays music and does video editing very well.

 

[Octavean]

The problem is beauty is highly subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Apple and many other people often use these subjective terms when referring to Apple products. Apple often uses other terms like magical, tasteful, elegant, classic and so on all with the same questionable veracity.

Whenever someone says beautiful or similar, independent thinker that I am, my mind instantly kicks in and internally says "I'll be the @#&*ing judge of that!!!". Its done involuntarily and because of how subjective such things are not simply to be contrary.

Having said that, I don't disagree. There are a few things I would like to see change esthetically here and there though.

Thinness isn't something I covet to the point that it has been taken here though and I don't think it should be much of a selling point. The reason Apple design goals put so much emphasis on thinness is similar to why ancient civilizations like the Egyptians built on a massive scale. To show what they could do and because it was considered impressive. So some people consider thinness (or building on a smaller and smaller scale) to be impressive because they consider it to be an advancement. The key word there being "consider" as this is an idea.

I look at it more like a vapid teenager being late for school because she wanted to put on just the right outfit.

Having said that,.....its about time!

 

[xvi]

im glad im not your friends or family then, you might as well recomend an ipad imho, Aio's have there place but a house's main pc is'nt it imho

for office work and browsing they are perfect but gameing , music, and video editing you can do better ,my opinion's the same for most laptops.

AFIK, it's in a somewhat thermally constrained case. Since Performance = Heat, it's only going to go so fast. Admittedly, I haven't done anything recently with my PC that would require hardware better than what's specced in this iMac and even for me, so I think this would be enough for most people. Certainly not enough for a good number of users here though.

 

[Wile E]

The one thing iMac has over the vast majority of other AIOs is the LCD panel quality. Very few have an IPS option, and those that do are nearly as expensive anyway.

 

[shovenose]

What bugs me the most is how they say iMac has blah blah blah... Not the iMac, but just iMac. It's not a living, breathing object.

Sexy computer? Yes. But not revolutionary anymore. I'd love to see some more premium Windows 8 all in one PCs, with i5 or i7 CPUs, high quality SSDs, and high res (not lame 1080P) IPS displays.

 

[Frick]

im glad im not your friends or family then, you might as well recomend an ipad imho, Aio's have there place but a house's main pc is'nt it imho

for office work and browsing they are perfect but gameing , music, and video editing you can do better ,my opinion's the same for most laptops.

And gaming, video/audio editing isn't what people generally do anyway. Obviously I wouldn't tell a hardcore gamer to buy this.

The one thing iMac has over the vast majority of other AIOs is the LCD panel quality. Very few have an IPS option, and those that do are nearly as expensive anyway.

I actually think they have gone a bit too far with the thin thing lately. A laptop sure, but an AIO has no need to be as thin as possible.

 

[Wile E]

And gaming, video/audio editing isn't what people generally do anyway. Obviously I wouldn't tell a hardcore gamer to buy this.



I actually think they have gone a bit too far with the thin thing lately. A laptop sure, but an AIO has no need to be as thin as possible.

Yeah, I'm not big on the uber thin thing either. I am big on high quality IPS panels though. lol.

 

[cheesy999]

Certainly not enough for a good number of users here though

you can spec it for a quad core @3.5ghz and a gtx 780m

The 780m will do most video games on ultra at a playable fps at 1080P (maybe a bit less than ultra at a higher resolution for some games)

If you need anything more on the cpu side you won't get much higher before going server grade

The gpu is good enough for anyone not obsessed with benchmarks and 120fps

Really while it is expensive it is specced well

 

[Yeoman]

Apparently the base version is up by £50, and it comes with Iris Pro graphics, which means its running on a i5-4570R. Not really sure why it can't just have a regular graphics card, since Iris Pro performs worse than last years 650m (or was it 640m?), and it's not as if the imac runs on a battery. Fair enough, having everything on one die simplifies things, but they're probably a year or two too soon, it is meant to be a powerful AIO, not a laptop.

Personally, I like apple products as I feel they're well made and have a lot of finesse. But, I would be loath to ever buy an imac. I'd actually prefer a larger (deeper) imac that could accommodate desktop graphics and full power desktop processors. Personally, I just feel the cooling for the iMacs is not good enough. In a laptop, fair enough, I can expect the processor to be hitting the 90s in terms of temperature. But in an AIO, I expect much better cooling, as I don't want my processor to be tapping out after just 2 years of hard work.

I also don't like that the base price has gone up £150 in just two years. Makes building a mini-ITX powerhouse a lot more appealing, and cases such as the Prodigy are equally as nice to look in my opinion.

 

[cheesy999]

Apparently the base version is up by £50, and it comes with Iris Pro graphics, which means its running on a i5-4570R. Not really sure why it can't just have a regular graphics card, since Iris Pro performs worse than last years 650m (or was it 640m?), and it's not as if the imac runs on a battery. Fair enough, having everything on one die simplifies things, but they're probably a year or two too soon, it is meant to be a powerful AIO, not a laptop.

The base version had a 640m which the iris pro performs about on par with to better than

640m has a average 3dmark gpu score of about 1730
HD5200 has an average 3dmark gpu score of about 1950

 

[buildzoid]

If apple designed it will have an idiot cooling system ie my mac book pro processor easily hits 95c just playing minecraft. So I really want to see how much these will heat up doing things like a 30min blender render. Also where the hell is my DVD drive.

 

[Yeoman]

Ah I see. Thanks for the info. I think I might appreciate them giving it more performance rather than going for Iris Pro. In the UK at least, the pricing is up £50 over last year. Which, I guess it could be down to anything, but it kind of sucks considering they're only edging out the 640m in terms of performance.

 

[Yeoman]

If apple designed it will have an idiot cooling system ie my mac book pro processor easily hits 95c just playing minecraft. So I really want to see how much these will heat up doing things like a 30min blender render. Also where the hell is my DVD drive.

Although I don't think a dvd drive is absolutely necessary as it once was. It was a bit of a slap in the face considering the 2012 iMac (when it went on a diet) came with a £100 mark-up. I always thought it would've been nice to get a discount on iMacs bundled with a apple super-drive...but I'm not aware anything like that ever happened.

 

[cheesy999]

Ah I see. Thanks for the info. I think I might appreciate them giving it more performance rather than going for Iris Pro. In the UK at least, the pricing is up £50 over last year. Which, I guess it could be down to anything, but it kind of sucks considering they're only edging out the 640m in terms of performance.

Considering apples pricing in the UK is almost double what it is in the US whereas every other manufacturer only seems to be about 10-20% more they've never been particularly worthwhile

 

[hardcore_gamer]

A good IPS monitor + NUC combination is much better and cheaper than similarly spec'd AIOs.