All-in-Ones Finally Grow Up, With Fast Graphics, SSDs, and CPUs

MojoKid writes "Historically, all-in-one desktop systems like the iMac, HP's TouchSmart and similar designs that incorporate a full system on the backside of a monitor, haven't offered performance that was competitive to their full-sized desktop counterparts. Part of the reason is that many of these systems are comprised of low power notebook platform PC components inside thin chassis designs with minimal airflow. However, as mobile platforms have become more powerful, so has the all-in-one PC. Dell's recently launched XPS 27 Touch, with Intel's Haswell mobile processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M on board, is an example of a new breed of AIO hitting the market now. The system is based on a 27-inch panel with 2TB of storage, a 32GB SSD cache drive, 8GB of RAM and performance in the benchmarks that keeps pace with average midrange full-sized desktops. You can even game on the machine with frame rates at the panel's 1080p native resolution with medium to high image quality. It's almost like the all-in-one finally grew up."

Comments

What fud

[Billly Gates]

The imac had decent specs for years.

The fact is most pcs sold have value oriented junk as only workstations and alienware bother with nice components. Most enthusiasts and gamers build their systens as a result.

Re: What fud

[Anonymous Coward]

true, but as this post is obviously a dell commercial, truth doesn't matter too much

Re:What fud

[dfghjk]

"fud" stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". It doesn't mean something you disagree with.

Re:What fud

[buddyglass]

Case in point: It will cost you an arm and a leg, but you can spec out a 27" iMac as follows:

3.4ghz quad-core i7 w/ Turbo to 3.9ghz
32GB 1600mhz DDR3
3TB "Fusion" drive (HDD/SSD hybrid)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5

Some cursory googling suggests the 680MX is the higher performing GPU.

Re:What fud

[Anonymous Coward]

Case in point: It will cost you an arm and a leg, but you can spec out a 27" iMac as follows:

  3.4ghz quad-core i7 w/ Turbo to 3.9ghz
32GB 1600mhz DDR3
3TB "Fusion" drive (HDD/SSD hybrid)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5

Some cursory googling suggests the 680MX is the higher performing GPU.

Not to mention that the Mac isn't struck with 1080p. It has 2560 x 1440 at 27".

Re:What fud

[Nemyst]

And that GTX 680MX is still not a high-end card, especially when you're talking about a desktop (which this thing is much closer to). It's about in line with a GTX580 (so two generations out of date by now) for an absurdly higher price tag. You're really paying through the nose to get the styling.

Re:What fud

[Billly Gates]

Those are freaking fast for AIO and couldceasily trounce both the xboxone and ps4. Sure they are not 7990s in crossfire by any sense of the mean but those are niche and add $1100 to the cost of the system. For even crysis which is the most demanding game you can get by with a 670 gtx or a 7870 just ine. You could also argue a crossfire 7990s are low end too because my $3000 quadro or firepro is soo much better and can support 32 monitors etc.

Re:What fud

[Improv]

Exactly right. When I started my current job, I had an iMac sitting on my desk; I was initially skeptical, but as soon as I saw the machine specs (as I was installing Linux onto it), I fell in love; it's a very nice machine, and my workplace had spiced it up further by putting a lot more RAM and disk into it. It's one of the most pleasant desktops I've ever worked with (and the resolution is amazing).

Re:What fud

[Immerman]

As a rule, yes. Basically bigger system = better cooling. Airflow, heat exchangers, etc are all very much volume dependent.

Generally speaking (and oversimplified) if you can halve the power consumption (=heat generation) of the CPU, GPU, etc. then you have two options:
1) Smaller - halve the capacity of the cooling system, roughly halving the minimum volume of the device.
2) Faster - double the number or power of chips, roughly doubling the performance at the same minimum device volume.

Of course if your desktop system uses a standard full-sized case and motherboard then there's probably lots of "wasted" space that can be trimmed - basically trading expandability and ease of maintenance for a more compact form factor. Once you're down to an compact motherboard and case though you can't really get much smaller without sacrificing cooling capacity. You could push things a little farther by doing away with upgradable, standards-compliant components in favor of custom-engineered solutions, but that increases costs and probably isn't worth it in most applications - once the cooling system becomes a major portion of the volume your options for further size reductions start being severely limited.

Re:What fud

[Khyber]

" Basically bigger system = better cooling. Airflow, heat exchangers, etc are all very much volume dependent."

Wrong, it's surface area then airflow dependent. Since the heat exchange happens pretty much in a layer 0.0001" on the surface of the heat conducting material, large volume isn't needed, large surface area is.

Re:What fud

[Khyber]

Actually, not even close. The 680M, while supposedly on par performance with a 580 according to notebookcheck (the physical specs on the cards makes me seriously doubt that given the 680M has roughly double the core count and about 300 gflops higher theoretical performance than the desktop 580) is still quite a top-notch mobile GPU.

Terribly crippled? Physically speaking, the 680M is just a typical desktop 670 chip with lower power consumption.

Re:What fud

[buddyglass]

The article original article seemed to suggest that the Dell 27" AIO system represents something "new" in terms of AIO's encroaching on desktop performance levels. That's why I pointed out the 680MX in the iMac. It's not a high-end part when compared to desktop GPUs, but it's superior to the part in the Dell system that was the subject of the article.

Re: What fud

[tverbeek]

Considering that the iMacs have been far and away the best-selling AIOs on the market pretty much since the first iMac was introduced, calling it a "minor exception" seems like a bit of tunnel vision. While they've never been the cutting-edge powerhouses that the Power Mac/Mac Pro have usually been, the iMac line has always included configurations with very respectable "desktop-grade" specs, especially as of the dates when new models are released. (The current line-up is about a year old, which might explain why it seems so "last year".) I know plenty of visual-arts professionals who've used iMacs as their primary work machines for years, a phenomenon that has contributed to the persistent (but evidently incorrect) rumors that Apple was abandoning the Mac Pro line as superfluous.

Re:What fud

[gman003]

Not really.

I use a 660M. It's basically a desktop 650 with a bit of an underclock. The 670MX is basically an underclocked 660, the 675MX is a 670MX with a wider memory bus, the 680M is basically an underclocked 670, and the 680MX is basically an underclocked 680. Now, these underclocks can be rather significant - 25% in some cases. But with the way clock speeds affect power consumptions, that means you're getting 75% the graphics power for 50% the electrical power. Sounds like a good thing, when it comes to laptops.

  Hell, if you're willing to lug around a massive system and drop a few grand on it, you can get SLI laptops - dual 680MX. That's within spitting distance of a top-of-the-line 690. And that's not even getting into the 7xx series, because those are still coming out.

Usage Enforcer Time

[__aaltlg1547]

Nothing is "comprised of" anything else. The word you are looking for is composed. An computer comprises components. Components compose or "make up" a computer.

If enough people misuse a word long enough, that becomes the new meaning.

Re:Usage Enforcer Time

[OzPeter]

Nothing is "comprised of" anything else. The word you are looking for is composed. An computer comprises components. Components compose or "make up" a computer.

If enough people misuse a word long enough, that becomes the new meaning.

Oh, the irony!

Re:Usage Enforcer Time

[craigminah]

It seems not spelling words correctly, misusing words, and poor grammar are so common our language will be forever changed. I see this on TV shows, magazines, newspapers, etc. The other day they were talking on a news show about how teachers in a school district won't correct mistakes on student's homework so long as they explain why they answered the way they did. I for one am sick of this culture of "nobody's wrong, we're all right, we're all winners." It's not going to help our society and will destroy us in the long run.

Re:Usage Enforcer Time

[Half-pint HAL]

There are no assinine rules of English spelling... because there are no rules to English spelling. The Oxford crew built up a dictionary of observed spellings, not attempting to impose any order, then suddenly everyone took them as canonical. Before the OED, there was no standardised orthography, but most writers were at least internally consistent -- the OED inadvertently broke the language fundamentally by describing a hodge-podge of different and inconsistent regional and personal styles.

I'd love to see a genuinely consistent English orthography evolve, but most people who propose attempting it impose a particular dialectal model...

Advertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that lab full of 2 year old existing Dell AOIs we have running liquid dynamics simulation software with tons of RAM and high-end Core i7s is just my imagination. This is a Dell advertisement in disguise under the cover of linking to a third party review. Products like this come out every week, why aren't they here? They're just as relevant as this thing.

Best buys?

[__aaltlg1547]

The submission and linked "story" read like ad copy from Dell. That said, all in ones and midrange laptops have long been best buys in the computing world because all the peripherals that you would otherwise have to pay extra for (and cable to your PC) are built in. It's been the case for years that high-end graphics cards are only worth the money for gamers, video composers, crackers and more recently, gene sequencers.

The Power of a Midrange Desktop PC

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

For only $2100. What a steal!

Not a story.

[redback]

This is an advert.

At last

[Intrepid imaginaut]

When the hero shoots out the bad guy's monitors and the computers stop working, it will make sense.

If I use the Disable Advertising button...

[Nova Express]

...will this "story" go away?

Glossy touchscreen? No VESA mount?

[Ptur]

No thanks...

Eliminates clutter

[sk999]

I bought an HP all-in-one a few years ago to replace a traditional floor tower, monitor and external speakers. With most things being built in, plus the integrated wireless, I eliminated 10 cables, 2 external boxes, and one power brick. A full-featured laptop could also have worked, but it is nice to have the big screen, and I leave it on all the time anyway.

It's a friggin' laptop

[garyoa1]

The AI1's are essentially a laptop with a stand and no cover. Have fun upgrading it or fixing it when there's an internal problem. Twice the money for half the computer. Sounds like an idea Apple would come up with. Oh... wait...