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Apple Announces New iMacs With Better Screens And Modern Processors; Refreshes MacBook Lineup (arstechnica.com)
Apple today announced updates to its iMac line and MacBook lineups at WWDC, giving its all-in-one desktop, and laptop series more powerful specifications and the latest Intel chips. From a report: Apple is bringing Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake processors to the new iMac, along with what Apple calls "the best Mac display ever," offering 500 nits of brightness, or 43 percent brighter than the previous generation. The 21.5-inch model now can be configured up to 32GB of RAM, while the 27-inch goes up to 64GB, twice what had previously been offered. The new iMacs also are getting two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, making it Apple's first desktop computer to embrace the port standard. Graphics cards are getting a spec boost in the updated iMacs, too. The entry level 21.5-inch model will have an Intel Iris Plus 640 GPU, while the 4K 21.5-inch models will get Radeon Pro 555 and 560 graphics cards. Meanwhile, the 27-inch 5K model will have a choice of Radeon Pro 570, 575, and 580 graphics cards, topping out at 8GB of VRAM. The 21.5-inch iMac will start at $1099 and the 4K 21.5-inch model at $1299. As expected, Apple also refreshed the MacBook lineup. From a report: Today Apple provided a minor but wide-ranging refresh to its modern MacBooks and MacBook Pros, adding new processors from Intel and making a handful of other tweaks. The new processors are from Intel's "Kaby Lake" family, and some of them have been available for the better part of a year. Compared to the outgoing Skylake architecture, Kaby Lake introduces a gently tweaked version of Intel's 14nm manufacturing process, provides small boosts to CPU clock speeds, and supports native acceleration for decoding and encoding some kinds of 4K video streams.
I don't give a crap if the new macbook is a hair slimmer.. give me back some usable ports. Really don't want to buy (then have to search for) an adapter every time I want to use a peripheral
So... for over $3k (27inch) Apple has seen fit to grace this thing with a 580 card? Something in the range of a NVIDIA GTX 1060, which can be had for about 260 bucks?
I guess they really have given up on the desktop market.
Really? I'm not denying that, but I am questioning it. Programming for some time now and I can't remember the last time I needed to crack open the case to change out an expansion card of all things. I know a couple of folks in the graphic arts department and likewise, most of their editing and asset management hasn't required a change of things that would typically go into a PCIe slot. So I am curious as to which fields require a constant refresh of what's in the PCIe slots?
Now if we are talking gaming, end user side, I can see that. So with a flexible enough definition we can call them professional? I'm a little out of the gaming loop so I don't want to grant a title to gaming that it doesn't have, but at the same time don't want to snub a legitimate group there. But gaming development, of which I don't do (sorry mostly deal with standard grade C++ and database programming) maybe then there's a need for it?
I'm just struggling to put a solid finger on who exactly needs a constant refresh of cards but at the same time doesn't need a refresh of CPU/RAM/etc at the same time. Is this a common thing in that industry? Not hating on your comment or anything but it now has my curiosity peaked.
Apple promised a refresh of Mac Pros in 2018 and indicated it would be a "modular" system.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
As above, this is just the Apple Snooze Fest.
Minor boosts in some specs, no compelling or interesting new features, but a new, higher price. No ports, no expandability, and lord have mercy on your soul if you ever need to get it repaired.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
What about Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt enclosures, though?
-Daniel
And no touch screens either?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
My big concern about the Macs in general, isn't the quality of the upgrade, but the lack of them in the past few years.
The 2002-2012 Macs where really the premium system you can get. But after that they just kinda lagged and updated some of the specs to make sure they are not obsolete.
I was a Mac user, then I switched over to Lenovo Think Pads. Because if I am going to get a boring old laptop. I might as well get one that is solid. For me to switch back, Apple will need to show evidence of a long term commitment to their mac lines.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I was hoping they'd add a 32GB option to the highest end MacBook... That's gotta come in the next year or so. It seems that there aren't suppliers for 32GB LPDDR3 setups(LPDDR3 being super-low-power RAM) and Intel CPUs won't support LPDDR4 until the next generation(Cannonlake). LPDDR4 uses a lot less power and supports much higher densities than LPDDR3.
Intel was supposed to have Cannonlake out last year...
I typically upgrade the RAM and storage at least once during the life of my computers.
Apple is nice and worth paying for but without a way to upgrade it 2-3 years from now, I'll get a non-Apple notebook the next time I need one.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
pci-e x4 3.0 best case shared does not work to well for all uses and system video also shares the same bus. one more thing the external PCIe enclosure cost just about as much as good mid range video card.
* MacBook Pro -- STILL limited to 16 GB ? Really?
* It supports a wide color gamut -- what about 9-bit / channel or 10-bit / channel ???
* Radeon GPU? UGH, I where is the nVidia GPU option to run CUDA code?
* Sooo, what happened to the Mac Pro ? Thanks for giving us the finger Apple.
* No new Mac Minis ?
* iMac Pro -- at $4,999 isn't this just another Mac Pro ?
* If Apple was serious about games -- the could EASILY blow Microsoft and Sony out of the water. WHERE is the gamepad??? Or the ability to use Android / PS4 gamepads?
* HomePod -- You guys don't understand bass at all. I have a 12" driver on my sub. Why would I downgrade to a wimpy 4" driver ???
I love my MacBook Pro -- but Apple really is becoming more clueless.
In comparison, processor speed, core counts and RAM amounts have increased only modestly, and for many users the currently available amounts of RAM are still OK.
I already committed to a Dell XPS 32GB for my next laptop though, I didn't have any faith on Apple being "courageous" enough to compromise on making a model that's slightly thicker than a previous model.
What they actually said was "not this year." And while it may well be in 2018, they didn't say that.
Apart from the iMac Pro (which I'm afraid to see the price of...), their 'improvements' are no less a joke now than they were last year.
They barely count as incremental, and nothing that is truly important. Their $4000 machine still only has 16GB RAM, a 4GB graphics card, and still no way of connecting to *anything* externally without buying an armload of attachments.
I miss the days when their "Pro" laptops actually were. Apple is probably the singularly best example of what happens when a company replaced an Engineer CEO with an MBA. Cook needs to be fired and replaced with someone that can provide actual leadership instead of just coming up with new ways to milk the dongle dollar.
GPU capability has been outstripping CPU capability for some time
I get that GPU speeds have been on the rise, but a GPU cannot do everything a CPU can. So upgrading a GPU isn't exactly like upgrading a CPU. Additionally, GPU can only help with software specifically written to use that kind of acceleration. Each element in a GPU by itself is slower than a CPU so the speed bump only comes when a task can be spread across as many elements as possible. That is, while 77.6 GFLOPS might be what it can do, you have to be able to spread your task out enough to get to that value. And if we are just focusing on GPUs as a rationale for changing out the PCIe slots, what professional industry actually does that? I once had a gig at a university's chemical engineering department and even then they just sent modeling compounds off to a farm, where I can understand the need to change out regularly. But what profession is doing it regularly at the workstation? I would assume that the real players that need this massive parallel processing are farming it out to specially built rigs.
I see your high DPI and 4K monitor statement there. Is that a common case? Everywhere I look in cube-ville here it's basically, you get a monitor upgrade when you get a computer upgrade. Are there industries that are actively switching to 4K and swapping out the card as opposed to just getting a new system altogether? How often does that happen? Do I need to walk into my boss' cube and demand a 4K monitor? I don't know why but I find all of this absolutely fascinating.
I'm just struggling to put a solid finger on who exactly needs a constant refresh of cards but at the same time doesn't need a refresh of CPU/RAM/etc at the same time.
Programmers for games, 3D animators, and anyone doing any GPU intensive activities. GPUs are making decent strides in performance while CPUs are remaining relatively lame in comparison. As we load the GPUs up more and more it is finding a new purpose as one of the most critical components in a computer. /Disclaimer: I'm on my 3rd GPU upgrade on my 6 year old CPU and RAM combo which I still don't feel the need to touch.
Same boat as you, 2012 quad 16GB mini. Upgraded since purchased to an SSD and it runs like a champ.
Apple has zero interest in selling a $600 box that you can hook to your own $300 4k 28" monitor, they want you to buy a $3000 iMac.