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New iMac disassembled
wild_berry writes "Found, via Ars Technica's Apple journal, Infinite Loop, a Japanese site disassembling Intel Core Duo iMac. Clint, from the Ars blog, points out that the Core Duo processor is socket-mounted, allowing for possible upgrades, unlike the IBM chips which were soldered to the PCB's. Please use the - cached pages."
Something to remember about the last few batches of socketed processors in Macs (G3s and G4s): the FSB, voltages, and processor frequency settings were controlled via a series of unlabeled jumpers on the motherboard, which had a prefabbed jumper block taped onto them (warranty void if removed blah blah blah). I'm sure if they're using a similar mechanism that it will only be a matter of time before someone figures out the jumper scheme and posts them. Then again, maybe EFI handles all of this now. Anybody familiar enough with EFI to know?
This guy's the limit!
http://mactree.sannet.ne.jp.nyud.net:8090/~kodawar isan/imac_intel/imac_intel01.html
Take-off every
People seem to have the impression that these Intel machines have been designed haphazardly, and the lack of aesthetics inside have made for many comments online that the insides must have been designed by Intel themselves to look so different to the G5s. A friend of mine has put together a picture of various models to show that they are almost identical inside to the previous model G5 iMacs. It's those G5 iMacs with iSights that introduced the messier interior, not the Intel ones.
Just so people know.
I study Operating Systems at a top CS school here in the United States - Rockhurst College in Kansas City. I don't understand why people go so ga-ga over OSX - it isn't even a pre-emptive multitasking OS, people!
I guess the top schools aren't taking very many bright students these days, sigh. OSX is absolutely a preemtive multitasking OS. It's built atop the Mach kernel which is preemptive.
Perhaps you're thinking of MacOS 9 and below which were cooperative. Either way, get your facts straight, esp if you're gonna start your post all puffy chested.
Bingo. You just nailed the thermal management system of the Powermac right on the head. The thing has 10 (ten) fans but is quiet as heck because the machine is split up in thermal zones and each fan only runs when necessary.
Instead of the PC horror of one fan that has to suck out a large volume the whole time and runs at full blast no matter what.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
As an owner of a PowerBook G4 1.5GHz (which amazingly is not only, predictably, obsolete at a year and three weeks, but was in fact more or less obsolete when it shipped; that the MacBook Pro is reportedly only 4-5x faster in benchmarks is surprising) I'll have to disagree.
I'm a programmer. OS X has some of the best tools I've ever used, and it gives me access to both tools I used before (most of the unixy goodness like the scripting languages and simple, focused command line tools) and now continue to use, and to some completely awesome new tools (Cocoa). This isn't me being a zealot (I'm presumably much more annoying when I'm a zealot), it's just facts.
It's true that lots of people who are 'in an artistic field' appreciate Macs too, because it's what they've been using all these years. But I, as a programmer, find that I write apps much easier and that the other tools in my toolbox are plenty and good. I like the industrial design (swap out with 'pwetty boxes' if you seriously think they're the same thing) as much as anyone, but aside from a fleeting fascination with it, it's not why I bought it - I bought it because of an awesome OS and some very good tools. And so far, I have not been let down.
I just got a 20 inch Dual Core iMac yesterday. Screen is a monster. The mac, for everything except games (cal of duty, battlefield, etc) is DEAD QUIET. I can't hear ANYTHING. I love it.
\ Dual Core 2 ghz iMac is do damn fast it's not funny. Editing home movies while 10 apps run in background is nothing short of a delight. I'll exit fanboy mode now, but if you are thinking of Dual Core, go for it.
MacWorld covered many of these questions.
2 006/index.php
See http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/intelfaq
(particularly the bottom of the page "Does this mean that Open Firmware is dead?")
First, the few G5 iMacs that sounded like a "jet taking off" were iMacs with specific, acknowledged motherboard problems that resulted in their fans ramping up to full speed. This was fixed on-demand in any iMac with that issue, and it was indeed addressed completely in later revisions. This issue never affected more than a small percentage of machines.
Further, Apple's design is to use *more* fans such that they don't need to be running at full speed (you did know that those are all variable speed blowers, right?). For example, the G5 towers that use 9 fans. None of them are running at too high a speed, keeping the entire machine quiet. Aside from a few models of machines with more audible airflow, Apple's goal is to have machines that run very quietly and are audibly unobtrusive.
I don't think you'll be disappointed.
The big difference is that the original G5 iMacs were designed to be user-serviceable. The iSight models (G5 or Intel) are not -- nobody's supposed to be looking in there except Apple techs.
(Now why you aren't supposed to be able to upgrade RAM or disk in 2006 is another question.)
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
On one of the pictures you can see a Infinion-TPM module. Is that activated on the Mac?
hfoo
I never see the "beachball" mouse curser (the Windows equiv. is the hourglass mouse cursor, indicates OS is busy). I can have iDVD, iMovie, Call of Duty, iTunes playing, 10 Tabs open in Safari, FTP serving files to active connection, and no beach ball in Windows, game still plays nice, and iTunes "skipped" once in three hours of all this crap running while playing Call of duty.
And to the anti-fanboy like-dells-balls people out there, the above is simply a subjective review of my experience. Simple real world usage. And remember, it takes almost NO desk space and I plugged in electric, mouse and keyboard usb, and was using this thing, including registration, in 4 minutes. Have fun loading spybot/adaware/ms antispyware/clam av/avg/zonealarm just before you can even use your box. ha. the only windows I have in my life is now Virtual PC, and as I find good mac replacesments, eventually that app will go the way of the DoDo bird.