AuroraProject
Gawd
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imacs get Core Duo 2 and a new 24" screen
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USMC2Hard4U
Supreme [H]ardness
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I Agree, It is alot better than the 7300, and deff better than the x1600 mobile.felix88 said:
I wonder how much I could sell my current iMac 20'' 2GHz Core Duo for...? Hrmm...
What I really want/need tho is a Core 2 Duo MacBook
kidicarus74
Limp Gawd
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i'm pretty sure that gaming isn't what apple had in mind with the imac. on the plus side, the 24" looks to be an amazing machine for web and graphic design.
Maybe I'm a little slice of the market: I dumped my watercooled 4400X2 with a 7800GTX for a 17" imac a few months ago when they released bootcamp. Since then I've fallen in love with OSX, picked up a macbook and a xbox 360. So I'm a convert now. With all that backstory, I still want to play some PC games, mainly HL2, and neither the 1600 or 7600 can push it. The macpro isn't too bad with is available 1900xt, but I like the imac's design, especially the 24", that's just freakin cool. I can't think of a reason why they can't put something with a bit more oomph in it. Alot of folks on the fence would flock if they dropped a 7800/7900 or a 1900 in there.
Thank god. Maybe people will quit complaing about Apple "missing the midrange" now. The screen is larger, the new video card is a huge leap over the X1600 mobility, and it has Firewire 800, so you can add an external drive without performance loss. Game, set, and match.
Archer75 said:
What's the tower gonna have that the new iMac doesn't? An upgradable video card is the only thing I can possibly think of, and depending on how Apple did it, the 7600GT in this one could be upgradable. but we won't know until someone disects it.
CEpeep said:
And upgradable video card, more ram slots and more hard drive bays. It will also use standard size and not notebook size optical drives.
Even should the imac have a pci express slot for upgradable video you really can't upgrade. There is nowhere to buy Mac video cards for these new intel macs(EFI video cards instead of the older bios style or something like that) and no drivers for them aside from what Apple supports. So there is very little options for video upgrades.
B. W. said:
If you need more than the 3GB of RAM the iMac supports (ie. you're doing high-res video rendering or something; games do not need 3GB), you've jumped into the "Pro" segment of Apple's market. Firewire 800 will let you run multiple drives at speeds that are comparable to internal drives in any form-factor you want, and the video card has already been addressed (but even for the Mac Pro, few options are available). If you already have a nice display, you can use it as a second monitor, and if you already have two nice displays, why can't you afford the Mac Pro?
I was a huge advocate of a midrange tower machine before (see my "G4 Cube" posts) but Apple has pretty much answered it all with a huge iMac that costs less than the Mac Pro and fills the gap.
CEpeep said:
It is quite odd that the imac only supports 3gb of ram. 2gb in one slot and 1gb in the other. But with that config you can't run it in dual channel mode. Having more than 3gb doesn't move me into the "pro" segment at all. I could just be doing video editing for home movies. Or want more gaming power. There are games out there now that can certainly make use of 2gb of ram. And if I have other stuff running in the background more ram is always nice. I just like to have that option for the future.
Us PC users are used to ALOT more freedom in our hardware choices and don't need another company telling us what we do or do not need. Just give me a midrange tower and let me decide what I want in it to suit my needs. Mac users seem to be used to throwing away entire systems when it's time to upgrade and buying new ones. PC users can just swap out more components as needed. If apple wants to expand thier marketshare they need to provide thier customers with more freedom.
I think that upgradeable video on the imac and more options for video cards would "feed the beast" as well. I'm buying a 24" imac as soon as I can get a decent video card in there. Or, I'll buy a macpro in a year, since that's how long it will take for me to afford one.
0ptional
Don't Trust Your Friends with Your Decanter
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I just hope the macbooks and macbook pro's follow soon. I'm in line to purchase one soon for school.
tsn | spazz
[H]ard|Gawd
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LOL Warranty!Archer75 said:
Apple provides INCREDIBLE warranty service. It would be stupid not to use it.
What about displays? I have an old 17" Dell Trinitron lying around. If the computer becomes out of date, my only real option is to buy a new one, replacing the monitor too.mrweasel said:3 years = "a little while"
3 years is WAY longer than I ever keep a machine.
Tutelary said:
What's wrong with FireWire 800? It lets people use all their existing devices. If you were suggeting an eSATA port in addition to the FW800, that would be ok, though there's not a whole lot of a performance difference between the two for most things.
Craptacular
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CEpeep said:
Don't get me wrong- I did end up getting a Mac Pro for work, but I would have preferred to get the 24" iMac if it supported more memory. Doing design work using virtual servers for local development environments doesn't demand Xeon-level horsepower, but it sure does eat up memory (bringing the Mac Pro "FB-DIMM tax" into play).
I would have loved to be able to allocate more budget for more screen real estate, but my 4GB memory minimum requirement meant that my options were... well, only one option. Considering that web development doesn't exactly qualify as a rare or niche market, a midrange machine would be perfect for those of us that have to mind our budgets.
CEpeep said:
Although more options will become available, with no such luck for the iMac.
CEpeep said:
So if a department had a decent budget two years ago to allow for a monitor purchase, they should be able to shoehorn in anything they want this year? I wish business worked that way.
Again, refer to my above statement about allocating more budget to screen while not necessarily needing to blow a bunch on Xeons and holycrapexpensive FB-DIMMs.
CEpeep said:
I'm glad you're happy with the current offerrings, but please do not assume that those with a different set of needs are misinformed, within a small insignificant group or are simply whining.
Craptacular said:
Oh, I'm not assuming that or trying to imply it. Apple is in a situation where they are attempting to attract die-hard PC users to their products, PC users who are used to complete freedom and expandability. In Apple's market, the main users who needed (and still need) this functionality were the Pro users, which is why it's only available at the highest product lines. In the standard consumer segment, the 24" iMac is more than most of Apple's users will ever need, which is precisely why it makes an excellent stopgap between the 20" iMac and the Mac Pro. Depending on how each is configured, the prices even overlap between nearly all of Apple's hardware offerings. Also, remember how well Apple's workstations hold their value. Selling your machine when it reaches the limits of how far it can (reasonably) be upgraded is a far more reasonable option for a Mac than your average PC.
In terms of video card expandability, I have a good feeling that the 24" iMac (and perhaps the 20" as well if it has a redesigned motherboard for its new processor) uses a mini-PCI express slot for its video, which is the same as many of the new high-end laptops. Just because there are few Mac video cards available for the slot (if it exists) at this point, doesn't mean there won't ever be more.
About the RAM issue, I guess I can't address it any better than to simply say that 3GB is more than enough for most people, and will be into the near future. 3GB is still a staggering amount when compared with other manufacturers machines that only come with 512MB (or god forbid 256) and only upgrade to 2GB. If you're a user who needs more than that, chances are good (but not certain, as you demonstrated) that the user also needs faster processing as well as other amenities, making the Mac Pro the only available choice for them.
For people who have legitimate reasons, like yourself, wanting a tower form factor is a legitimate request. I guess what I was hoping for is that the new model would make people who just wanted towers because they were used to them stop and think about if it's really the only thing that will satisfy their requirements.
On that note, I'm off to go get some dinner.
pr0pensity
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Tutelary said:
So get a Mac Pro. No hard drive is fast enough to saturate that bus.
mrweasel said:3 years = "a little while"
3 years is WAY longer than I ever keep a machine.
I believe the warranty is one year. 3 years if you want to pay for apple care. But then you can't upgrade your machine on your own or it voids the warranty.
Archer75 said:
1 year standard warranty, 3 years with AppleCare. what exactly would you be upgrading that would void your warranty? the RAM is user installable, and if you swap out the HD or optical drive, they just won't cover non Apple part you installed.
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