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27-inch iMac gets a major update

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11–20 of 611 posts

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#11
Finally they ditch spinning media on the base models.

Also notable, the rumored iPad-like style changes are conspicuously absent, these look pretty much identical to the older iMacs.

Otherwise this looks like a decent bump all around. Notably, the iMac Pro also got some love (though not too much it seems?)

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#13
post #6

I'm sitting here on a 2012 imac with a fusion drive. This drive never seemed to give much performance but it absolutely tanked once it converted to APFS. The computer became unusable to the point that I had to buy an external SSD and use that as my main disk. Now i'm very disappointed that it doesn't support Big Sur despite being only 8 years old. I will wait for the apple silicon because i don't anticipate that inte…

How much RAM do you have? I recently upgraded my 2012 iMac from 8gb to 32gb and the performance is like night and day, I suspect because it has more memory to use for disk cache. It's a fully usable machine again.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#14
post #6

I'm sitting here on a 2012 imac with a fusion drive. This drive never seemed to give much performance but it absolutely tanked once it converted to APFS. The computer became unusable to the point that I had to buy an external SSD and use that as my main disk. Now i'm very disappointed that it doesn't support Big Sur despite being only 8 years old. I will wait for the apple silicon because i don't anticipate that inte…

APFS is as far as I know designed for flash and performs really badly on spinning disk. They still provide HFS+ and ExFAT as the options if you format an external spinning disk.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#16

Finally they ditch spinning media on the base models. Also notable, the rumored iPad-like style changes are conspicuously absent, these look pretty much identical to the older iMacs. Otherwise this looks like a decent bump all around. Notably, the iMac Pro also got some love (though not too much it seems?)

Massive upgrade for people working at companies whose IT refuses to buy anything but the cheapest model.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#18
post #8

When we read "10th generation Intel Core" then we have to go and research whether than means real 10th generation (like i5/i7 MBA, some MBPs) or just another rebadged Skylake (6th gen) derivative.

All 10xxx parts are either Ice Lake (10nm) or Comet Lake (14nm), none are Skylake. I mean, if you want to get technical both are "Skylake derivatives", I guess.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#19
post #15

It just feels wrong to buy anything new from Apple with "Intel Inside" - when they're clearly going to dump it soon, in favor of ARM (excuse me for not using the cringey term Apple Silicon).

Why does it matter? There will be a period where the Intel Macs are still supported and probably more stable, and it could be ~2y before your upgrade is available if it's ARM based.

If you have a retina macbook pro from 2014~ it definitely makes sense to upgrade to a macbook pro 16" today. The thing will see you through another 5-6y easy.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#20

Solid spec bump. Interesting how much emphasis they put on the camera, speakers, and mic; makes total sense in the age of Zoom. I’d also speculate this means iMac won’t be the first computer getting Apple Silicon. I wonder if it will be the last? What’s the consensus guess now? Perhaps a new MacBook Air with good performance but the real “breakthrough” is > 12 hours battery life?

I'm guessing they will go right to the meat of things and upgrade one of their MacBook Pro models. That is right up the "Performance per watt" avenue which Apple claims their new silicon is best for. They are going to want to squash any rumors that these don't perform well right off the bat so I don't think they are going to be conservative here.

For similar reasons, I don't think the iMac was ever slated to be the first Apple Silicon machine. The desktop form-factor just doesn't highlight the benefits of the new architecture the way a laptop does. Since they sell a lot more laptops than desktops, it's likely they don't even have a desktop specific CPU ready at launch time. That'll come next year or maybe even 2022 towards the tail end of their 2 year launch window.

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