Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

27-inch iMac gets a major update

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 611 posts

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#41

Post by asadkn »

dijit wrote: post #19
asadkn wrote: 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.

Fair point. It does make sense if you really need to upgrade a very dated machine.

However, I am assuming since the Macbooks are rumored to get ARM as early as late this year, it is likely iMac would follow next year too. The Developer Transition Kit has a Mac Mini with ARM already.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#44

Post by dijit »

varjag wrote: post #28
dijit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will almost certainly be a low end macbook. In fact, there's a non-pro 'macbook'[0] that already exists which would be perfect, it was discontinued a year ago, but used ultra-low power CPUs. In fact when they were talking about them (prior to release) they thought they would have ARM CPU's back then. They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too. The major criticisms of t…

I have a later 2017 revision of that one, never really had an issue with CPU speed. Mine has RAM maxed to 16Gb though, perhaps that helps. It's a great machine: a real computer but with iPad pro dimensions.

The "best" CPU that comes in that lineup is the Intel Core i7-7Y75.

I have a GPD P2 Max[0] which also has 16GiB of ram and a Intel Core m3-8100Y...

Not to brag but my CPU does seem to bench higher[1][2], and for me it can be painfully slow at times.. Though perhaps the OS is doing me no favours (Sway+Arch/Chromium)

[0]: http://gpd.hk/gpdp2max

[1]: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-7Y75-vs-Intel-...

[2]: https://askgeek.io/en/cpus/vs/Intel_Core-m3-8100Y-vs-Intel_C...

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#45

Post by save_ferris »

bluedino wrote: post #36

Just when you think they've forgotten the iMac. Can't wait for Barefeats to post the benchmarks, and compare the top level 27" to the Pro. The 27" is interesting now because you can get 10Gbe. One gripe is the 27" iMac comes standard with only 8GB, while the 15" MacBook Pro has came with 16GB standard since 2014... I'm guessing most people are going to the aftermarket to throw 32-64GB in there anyway. Apple offers th…

Yeah, I’m totally fine with 8GB standard since aftermarket memory is so much cheaper than what Apple offers and it’s really easy to install.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#46

Post by saos »

> The 27-inch iMac now comes standard with SSDs across the line

Well. Wow.

> Apple today also announced that its 21.5-inch iMac will come standard with SSDs across the line for the first time.

Double wow

I'll be holding out for complete iMac redesign with ARM. I'm hoping something will be announced at their event?

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#47

Post by jeffbee »

I'm always interested in the differences between Apple's Intel OEM CPUs and the ones Intel lists in their catalog. There is no 10th-gen Core i9 CPU that exactly matches what Apple is selling here. In the iMac Pro they are installing a Xeon-W part that has almost twice as much cache as the standard part (43MB vs 25MB). They're not saying how much cache is in the new 27" iMac.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#48

Post by efficax »

dijit wrote: post #9
burlesona wrote: post #3

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?

It will almost certainly be a low end macbook. In fact, there's a non-pro 'macbook'[0] that already exists which would be perfect, it was discontinued a year ago, but used ultra-low power CPUs. In fact when they were talking about them (prior to release) they thought they would have ARM CPU's back then. They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too. The major criticisms of t…

the 12" macbook is my favorite laptop of all time. Mine is the 2016 version and it's starting to feel dated and I'm hoping that they rerelease this on the new silicon first. I'll be smashing the buy button the day it's out.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#49

Post by zamadatix »

gjvc wrote: post #42

8GB RAM is pretty derisory for a 2020 machine. Is there a RAM shortage somewhere I haven't heard about?

It's so the "starting at" price is low but they can mark up RAM and Storage upgrades when you actually go to order as if they were the expensive piece. They are making something like 80% margin when you max out the RAM, I assume similar for the "SSD storage" of ambiguous type.

Dell did the same thing with the RAM in a 7740 and 7750 I recently ordered (work and personal), ironically about the same markup.

Re: 27-inch iMac gets a major update

#50

Post by dbbk »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #4
burlesona wrote: post #3

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 think the MacBook they had discontinued is rumored to be making an Apple Silicon powered return.

There's no 'intel' to support that as far as I'm aware though, just sensible speculation.
Post reply on HN