Apple upgrades iMac lineup to Core 2 Duo; adds 24" mode

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-06 02:46pm

Apple apparently went with Merom, I assume due to thermal requirements.

The new lineup is:
$999 - 17" / 1.83GHz / 512MB RAM / 160GB HD / Combo / Intel GMA 950

$1199 - 17" / 2.0GHz / 1GB RAM / 250GB HD / SuperDrive / Radeon X1600

$1499 - 20" / 2.16GHz / 1GB RAM / 250GB HD / SuperDrive / Radeon X1600

$1999 - 24" / 2.16GHz / 1GB RAM / 250GB HD / SuperDrive / GeForce 7300GT

The $999 model is new and for people who don't care about GPU's apparently. The $1199 model is the old $1299 model, with a $100 price drop, double the RAM, and a Core 2 Duo. Same with the $1499 model. The $1999 one is all-new and has a 24" screen.

ARGH! Why must you taunt me, Apple? I had plans to buy an iMac this month, then scrapped it because I realized that I'm going to be spending most of my time at the university with three hours a day on the bus, and decided to get a MacBook instead. Then they do this.

Well, I'm disappointed in the lack of Conroe. It leaves a glaring hole in Apple's lineup- hopefully they'll introduce the fabled "headless iMac" with a Conroe at the September 12th event.

Oh, and it's about time they started putting 1 GB in their systems. Spending $1599 for a system with 512 MB of RAM was just ridiculous.

EDIT: Oh, they updated the Mac Mini too. They upgraded all the processors slightly (the Core Single one is now a 1.66 Core Duo, the 1.66 Core Duo is now a 1.86).

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-06 02:49pm

Why should they put Conroe when the differance is at most 10% and Merom has far less power consumption?

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-06 02:51pm

Ace Pace wrote:Why should they put Conroe when the differance is at most 10% and Merom has far less power consumption?

Because a 2.4 GHz Conroe barely costs more than a 2 GHz Merom. Much higher clock speeds at the same price.

Regardless, Core 2 Duo is Core 2 Duo. I just hope they give me a MacBook update on the 12th (even if it stays Yonah, increase the RAM or clock speed or something), because I'm buying on the 14th.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-06 02:52pm

Praxis wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Why should they put Conroe when the differance is at most 10% and Merom has far less power consumption?
Because a 2.4 GHz Conroe barely costs more than a 2 GHz Merom. Much higher clock speeds at the same price.

Regardless, Core 2 Duo is Core 2 Duo. I just hope they give me a MacBook update on the 12th (even if it stays Yonah, increase the RAM or clock speed or something), because I'm buying on the 14th.

Because a 2GHZ merom probebly has half the power use and thermal output of a 2.4GHZ Conroe?

Or did you forget a draw of the macs is the nicity of not having a bajillion fans?

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-06 02:56pm

Got me there, I'm just a performance fiend

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-09-06 03:31pm

Thats nice and all, but Apple seriusly has to stop with the combo drive shit on their cheaper models. Hello there, this is 2006, having a CDRW/DVDROM drive on a 1000$ PC is insulting. Hell, its insulting on the mac minies. The diffrence in price is what? 10$? Cheapasses...

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-09-06 03:38pm

Praxis wrote:Got me there, I'm just a performance fiend

You're a performance fiend who's excited about a desktop system with an X1600?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-06 03:43pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Praxis wrote:Got me there, I'm just a performance fiend
You're a performance fiend who's excited about a desktop system with an X1600?

He's a weirdo who imagines he can movie edit on the go. There's nothing wrong with merom over yonah, but it's utterly silly to go over it based on preformance when the entire system is GPU bound.

Except for media editing which he has a fetish for.

2007 Santa Rosa platform will be interesting, higher FSB speeds is far better preformance, but more power use.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-06 04:02pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Praxis wrote:Got me there, I'm just a performance fiend
You're a performance fiend who's excited about a desktop system with an X1600?

got a point there, was mainly thinking processor-wise.

To be honest I've always been behind the times GPU-wise. My current PC has an overclocked Geforce FX 5200

I'm willing to run the games at lower resolution.

Thats nice and all, but Apple seriusly has to stop with the combo drive shit on their cheaper models. Hello there, this is 2006, having a CDRW/DVDROM drive on a 1000$ PC is insulting. Hell, its insulting on the mac minies. The diffrence in price is what? 10$? Cheapasses...

Seconded.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-09-06 05:15pm

I'll point out that it'd be difficult to stuff a Conroe in there, but very easy to stuff a Merom in, because the Merom is pin compatible with Yonah, which they used to have.

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 2006-09-06 08:20pm

Glad to hear of the bumps, hoping they do the same with the macbook and macbook pros soon. Wish they would put out a 13" macbookpro though, I want the power of the MBP with the small form of the macbook. (not that I need the graphics capabilities.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-07 03:07am

Since I'm buying a MacBook on the 14th I really, really hope we get an update at Apple's September 12th event.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-07 06:08pm

Guess what guys?

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/a ... gradeable/

It just gets better and better. Christophe Laporte, editor-in-chief of MacGeneration, a French language Mac publication and web site, tells Macsimum News, that they’ve “discovered a little surprise about the new 24-inch iMac”: you can replace the video card thanks to the system’s MXM PCI Express connector. You an read the MacGeneration report here—if you speak French.

Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) is an interconnect standard normally used for graphical user interfaces in laptops using PCI Express. The goal of MXM is to offer a non-proprietary, industry standard socket, so you can upgrade the graphics processor in a laptop, without having to buy a whole new system or relying on proprietary vendor upgrades.

MXM is the result of a joint design effort between Nvidia and the industry’s notebook manufacturers. According to Nvidia it provides a consistent interface for mobile PCI Express graphics in order to achieve: faster time to market for the latest notebook graphics; multiple system configurations and price points from a single system design; compatibility for any graphics solution from any vendor; and configure-to-order upgradeable graphics through notebook manufacturers, or potentially by consumers.

We’ll be investigating this further. But iIt would be a nice idea if Apple use the same connector in the next MacBook Pro, wouldn’t it?

That's right. The 24" iMac has an upgradeable graphics card. FINALLY. So the hard drive, RAM, processor, and GPU can all be upgraded...it's almost as good as a tower (except you have to buy more expensive mobile GPUs)!

Goodbye, "Macs aren't upgradeable" myth. Hope they do this to the Mac Mini too.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-09-07 07:24pm

That's cool and all, but how really, how much does upgradability matter today anyway? The only component that really needs to be upgradable is RAM. Most consumers will never upgrade their GPUs, hard drives or any other internal component. They'll just buy a new computer entirely.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-09-07 07:31pm

Durandal wrote:That's cool and all, but how really, how much does upgradability matter today anyway? The only component that really needs to be upgradable is RAM. Most consumers will never upgrade their GPUs, hard drives or any other internal component. They'll just buy a new computer entirely.

Since the iMac has an integral monitor and is a desktop solution, I actually think that a user-upgradable GPU is a significant upgrade. If you buy a new machine after you're finished with the iMac, you're basically throwing out a 24 inch monitor--a significant expenditure for many users.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-09-07 07:45pm

That's true, but machines like the iMac often become hand-me-downs anyway.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-09-07 07:49pm

Durandal wrote:That's cool and all, but how really, how much does upgradability matter today anyway? The only component that really needs to be upgradable is RAM. Most consumers will never upgrade their GPUs, hard drives or any other internal component. They'll just buy a new computer entirely.

I think that after the RAM, the GPU is the second most important part in terms of upgradeability. New games make graphics cards obsolete much faster than they make processors obsolete.

Since, unlike the processor, the iMac's graphics card is not top of the line, but more a low-to-midrange card, it will go obsolete faster than anything else in the system. And when you get a new system to replace it, you have to throw out a 24-inch display if the GPU isn't upgradeable.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-07 07:55pm

The sort of person who purchases an iMac does not strike me as the sort of person who would reach into their computer to upgrade it so that they could play new games; they strike me as the sort of person who would likely never notice the effects of an upgraded GPU.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-09-07 08:38pm

Uraniun235 wrote:The sort of person who purchases an iMac does not strike me as the sort of person who would reach into their computer to upgrade it so that they could play new games; they strike me as the sort of person who would likely never notice the effects of an upgraded GPU.

Maybe if they would accomodate the sort of people who play new games and upgrade their graphics cards they might have more than 3% market share...

Galiv · Post by **Galiv** » 2006-09-07 11:00pm

InnocentBystander wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:The sort of person who purchases an iMac does not strike me as the sort of person who would reach into their computer to upgrade it so that they could play new games; they strike me as the sort of person who would likely never notice the effects of an upgraded GPU.
Maybe if they would accomodate the sort of people who play new games and upgrade their graphics cards they might have more than 3% market share...

For this past quarter:

"Apple [4.8%] fourth in the USA behind Dell with 34.3% of sales for the quarter, HP (20.1%) and Gateway (6.5%).

Global market leaders include Dell (19.2%), HP (15.9%), Lenovo (7.7%), Acer (5.4%) and Fujitsu (3.4%)."

Apple's market share is doing just fine and it's more profitable than most of its larger competitors. Apple could do what many of its competitors do and sell millions of cheap budget boxes with virtually no profit on them, but for what purpose other than the imaginery benefit of higher market share?

On the issue of gamers Apple will never bother pursuing hardcore gamers who upgrade constantly since it's not Apple's, or MacOS 10's market.

Adding a consumer desktop between the iMac and Mac Pro may make sense now since their is a bit of a gap between the iMac and Mac Pro. Or perhaps they could add a single Conroe system to the Mac Pro line. When considering this I'm sure they'll be remembering how the single cpu G5 PowerMac's were largely a flop.

An upgradable consumer desktop would also likely butcher sales in both the iMac and Mac Pro lines. I'd like to see it but I'm not sure it would really make good business sense for Apple.

On the topic of having an old iMac with a nice screen in it, iMac's retain their value quite well so once it gets a bit long in the tooth you can sell it and get a decent return. Right now my old 18 month G5 iMac is sitting on ebay with half a day to go with the bidding at 60% of what I paid for it. A PC would be lucky to hold 20% of its value over the same period of time.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-09-07 11:04pm

Hasn't MxN been around since the time of Dothan?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-09-07 11:13pm

Praxis wrote:I think that after the RAM, the GPU is the second most important part in terms of upgradeability. New games make graphics cards obsolete much faster than they make processors obsolete.

Wrong. Next to RAM, hard drives are the most important. Gamers aren't exactly a large proportion of computer users. For most people, the GMA965 is just fine, and the X1600 is more than plenty. If you asked Joe Average whether he'd rather have higher framerates in Quake 4 or whether he'd like to be able to store more porn, I'd bet the latter would prevail.

InnocentBystander wrote:Maybe if they would accomodate the sort of people who play new games and upgrade their graphics cards they might have more than 3% market share...

Yeah, they might have ... 3.1% marketshare. Seriously, why the hell do gamers think they're an important market for Apple, moreso than oh, say, college students? Apple's software and hardware make it abundantly clear that they're going after the digital hub, hoping for consumers to use their Macs as the center for their digital content. Gaming is not one of the primary uses for a Mac. You can play games on your Mac, but it's not the best thing out there for gaming. Apple already knows that superior game platforms exist that they could never put a dent in, so why bother wasting money trying to compete?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-07 11:33pm

Ypoknons wrote:Hasn't MxN been around since the time of Dothan?

Yes, but not always in wide use.