“If the blog Pike’s Universum is to be believed, the next-generation iMac lineup could feature several improvements that make Apple’s desktop computer a more powerful workstation for professionals and average consumers alike,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors. “The blog, citing a ‘little bird’ that is ‘usually pretty accurate,’ claims the incoming iMac lineup will be available with up to the following tech specs…”
• Intel Xeon E3 processors
• 16GB to 64GB of ECC RAM
• Faster NVMe SSDs
• AMD graphics
• Thunderbolt 3
“The report claims the next iMac models will be unveiled in late October and be accompanied by a brand new keyboard,” Rossignol reports. “A previous report said Apple was exploring a standalone keyboard with a Touch Bar and Touch ID, but its release allegedly depends upon how well those features have been received on the latest MacBook Pro.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: But, will it come in Rose Gold?
SEE ALSO:
Apple patent application reveals Touch Bar keyboard for a future Mac desktops – April 4, 2017
Apple to unveil ‘iMac Pro’ later this year; rethought, modular Mac Pro and Apple pro displays in the pipeline – April 4, 2017
late October? …of 2019?
Yes, and in limited vastly underestimated supply.
….and lacking user ability to upgrade, too.
Too little to late. I’d prefer Nvidia, but AMD is fine. The biggest issue is no laptop GPU is ever going to compete with the desktop version. Plus, I can’t imagine the price of this being competitive. I’m sure it’ll top out over $3000 and I just built a Kaby Lake with GTX 1070 and 2 27″ monitors for under $2K. If they can price it competitively, I’d be surprised. Let’s be real though, that isn’t going to happen.
Not having Nvidia is a deal breaker. Why AMD? Because it plays better with Apple apps? Adobe users, for which there are many, need the CUDA accelerated Nvidia solutions. Apple needs to make the card type optional. THAT would, I have no doubt, stimulate sales even higher. Why does Apple always seem to embrace the wrong component choices?
You won’t get replaceable GPUs on an iMac — even an iMac Pro. That will be reserved for the Mac Pro.
Hopefully for the upcoming (and I use that term *extremely* loosely) Mac Pros Apple will have native support for the latest GPU card for both AMD and Nvidia. Hell, I’d even like it to support the P100 (or the latest evolution of the P100 at the time the Mac Pro finally ships). However, I realize that I’m probably completely delusional for hoping for that.
I’m not so worried about initial pricing — concerned, but not worried. The 27″ 5k iMac was actually prices a few cents less expensively than the price at which Dell was selling just the monitor itself. Initially, the trashcan Mac Pro, in virtually every configuration, was price competitive or less expensive when compared to a similarly configured Dell workstation.
But, these price equivalences were only good upon first shipping of the products. Within six months multiple other vendors had comparable products at less money.
I can only hope that Apple changes their mode of operation and does price cuts on products when appropriate. Apple does this extremely rarely, but should do so more often.
Nothing says ‘prosumer’ like rose gold. Yay!
Real artists ship.
So stop planting seeds in tech blogs Apple and ship something.
I’m just buying the old shit from macofalltrades. I need a handful of imacs we can use for software development. For a task like that buying four or five old machines at $900 each gets the job done.
When it comes to some other things, it’s a different story.
I’ve been saying for some time now that I have the impression a lot of people in Cupertino are resting on their laurels thinking they are hot shit and can’t be outdone by someone else. People need to wake up or they are going to end up like Microsoft.
Apple fans hate seeing Apple come in second on anything. Along those lines, can you believe some survey shows Microsoft tablets ranking higher than the iPad. Geez.
@ MDN
MacDailyNews Take: But, will it come in Rose Gold?
My Take – boo hoo hoo – get over it MDN
P.S. MDN – your ads are posting all sort of BULLSHIT! why don’t you take care of that!
burning out on this shite!!!
FROM YOUR AD SHIT — Obama moved just 2.1 miles from the White House to ensure this killer secret stays hidden from Trump
MDN like most blog sites can’t really police their ads. The ad service puts them there, usually based on the search and internet history (not just MDN sites) of the reader.
Exactly. I get ads for computers, hotels, vacations, real estate loans, health insurance.
No two people will ever get the same ads. You are served what you’re most likely to click, based on your web browsing habits. The ads you see tell a lot about you. Not everyone likes the story.
Right now I’m getting 3 ads for cat food. I don’t own a cat.
lots of people use and like iMacs.
(the Rumoured ) 64 GB or RAM looks good but I’ve always hesitated on iMacs due to the weak GPUs as I need to run a big Cintiq as well.
But Thunderbolt 3 might be a work around as you can use an external GPU box. (only saying the above this for those who don’t want or can’t wait for the new MP ).
Not to mention Nvidia just announced Pascal drivers for Mac, so eGPU just got a lot more attractive and powerful.
hey I didn’t know this. good to know.
Just successfully installed and booted a 980 ti in a Cheese Grater running Sierra this afternoon. (will give me 2-3 times GPU of the D700s on some tasks and total cost is just over $1000 including the Mac). Card and Mac sitting around for awhile , had wanted the 1000 series but drivers weren’t there.
typing this on another upgraded Cheeser.
How would and eGPU work with iMac that has a built in screen?
It uses it’s internal GPU for that screen, but CUDA or OpenCL would compute on the external GPU. You can also connect a second monitor to the external enclosure.
IMac doesn’t do it for me. User choice of display is important. Not being thermally constrained is important. There are just too many constraints in Apple’s fashion oriented desktops. Mac mini, again artificially limited by a company that lost its mojo. The products Apple has been calling Macs are all now overpriced and underperforming.
If Apple wants to be a premium company, the Mac needs to deliver premium value. Fire the gutless caretakers who designed all the good-enough nonupgradeable shlock that is currently shoved to the back corner of Apple’s formerly helpful full-range computing stores.
If the screen size is only 27″ so what.
Only if they go back to 1 to 2 inches thick. This thermal limit on the current ones is nuts because it’s so thin.
Oh, and make it easy to open and swap ram and hard drives.
Xeon is weak, old technology, right?
Xeon is a class of processor, not a generation of processor.
October? Two years between an iMac refresh is unprecedented in recent times. The longest has been just over a 1.5 years.
I’ve held off buying an iMac because of the seismic shift in connectivity barring me from getting the 2015 model. But come on Apple! This sort of wait for ANYTHING in the desktop space is unacceptable.
The bookstore manager at Loma Linda University, Redlands, CA says that “no one is bying my Macs; Everyone is waiting for the refresh.” I am one.
Too little, too late. I’m moving over to Windows 10 Pro as soon as I build my new PC in the summer. After years of BS from Apple, I’ve completely had it. I will “Hackintosh” it to run macOS without the need for hacked drivers. I want more powerful hardware. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t give a rat’s ass about professional and pro-sumer users.
By the time you configure and mess with drivers, yes drivers,…
Xeon E3 in an iMac?!!
What’s the power dissipation on those? 72 watts?
Can an iMac handle that?
If it can be done, that might be an attractive machine.
A glued shut iMac is no replacement for a Mac workstation as it is a skinny styling exercise designed to be thrown away in a couple of years. Xeons throw considerable heat – I know as I have one. It sits under the desk right next to my feet.
Next, the heat management of Jony’s skinny boxes is not well suited to high heat operations. I have a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro, and when doing similar work the Mac mini cannot be heard and the MacBook Pro’s fans spool up loudly despite having very similar CPU/GPU specs. Jony has to give up his obsession with anorexic Macs if they are putting any Xeon CPU set in and expect it to not cook itself.
The answer is to make a proper headless Mac – some us do not want an overpriced, throwaway styling statement which is what the iMac has become. Back in the day the iMac was $1,000 and was the entry point for Mac desktops- not a pro machine in any way.
Apple hinted that desktops are in the minority and the Mac Pro more so. They might consider they could sell more if they offered better computers at more reasonable pricing- you can piss away $1,500 on a Mac mini and still not have even Iris Pro graphics. 2-3K on an iMac is a fucking joke.
If the price of Jony’s styling is an extra thousand and weak kneed hardware due to heat constraints give me a beige box. Most Macs sold today loaded down with large storage and plenty of software are molasses slow compared to what the same money buys on other platforms. If the point of a computer is the work it does and not the styling of the case Apple is way behind and way overpriced. Apple does not need a Corvette- they need a Mustang, performance at an affordable price.
I wouldn’t mind a solar powered Apple keyboard. I got hold of a couple of the logitech ones for my office and they’re great. Not that you have to replace batteries that often but it’s so convenient never to have to faff around with them.
Don’t count an iMac Pro (Xeon) to be similarly priced and be faster. So why bother? In short, it will last longer and be rock solid doing heavy computation. What some professionals need but it wont be ideal for everybody.
A Xeon iMac with ECC memory will be designed for sustained work 24/7 more than for faster results (not a mistake). For a business nothing is as slow as to do things twice because the system failed. So an i7 will finish first but it does have a much higher failure rate. Also the Xeon is not terrible slow, it is just some GHz slower and wont be overclocked very high to reduce failures. Peace of mind too.
To achieve this the thermal design on an iMac has to be significantly increased and with it possibly the internal volume of the machine. In the end the machine needs to stay cool while running at top CPU and GPU speed for all the time needed.
The GPU needs to be 2X stronger (where is CUDA for Apple), but don’t count desktop class performance. And the iMac Pro has to be easy to service and upgrade. Please Apple make it right.
Maybe Ive should try putting the CPU and GPU on the outside as a styling exercise 🙂 You will be able to make toast on the heat sink as a side benefit, getting us one half way to Tim Cooks fabled toaster/refrigerator combo
EGPU configurations are bandaids on fundamentally flawed computers.
Apple needs to stop pretending that everyone needs thin light portable devices. Some people have desktop Macs because the want an integrated upgrade able super powerful Mac under their desks, not a kludged octopus of 3rd party boxes on top of them.