Rumour : New iMac to have 5K Display & AMD Graphics

seeing as though the iMac and MacBook Air are the only machines without the "Retina" treatment, I'm not surprised. my concern is the available GPU power in an ever-thinning enclosure.
 
I hope they release it soon. Been holding out for the next big iMac upgrade at work.
 
The AMD graphics rumor seems a little far-fetched considering how efficient NVIDIA's Maxwell arch is — and Apple would've known this for some time — but it's possible the timing wouldn't have worked out.

As far as the display goes, I kind of quit caring a while ago. I think HiDPI/Retina is pretty important for gaming (specifically for 3D), useful for video and photo editing, but really not all that compelling otherwise. Sharper text and images would be nice, but for me not a deal-maker.
 
wonderfield said:
The AMD graphics rumor seems a little far-fetched considering how efficient NVIDIA's Maxwell arch is — and Apple would've known this for some time — but it's possible the timing wouldn't have worked out.

As far as the display goes, I kind of quit caring a while ago. I think HiDPI/Retina is pretty important for gaming (specifically for 3D), useful for video and photo editing, but really not all that compelling otherwise. Sharper text and images would be nice, but for me not a deal-maker.
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I think it's possible. Apple doesn't let neither nVidia or AMD to get an upper hand in Apple products. Even after ATI made SJ really mad Apple eventually starting using ATI products again. After some venting of course hahaha.
 
I could never sell my custom build(I wouldn't get enough even if I tried) however, I'd be keen to try an iMac as my next pc. They seem pretty cool and I don't game anymore. It ould be kinda nice sticking it on a vesa and have nearly all of my desk space free. I'd pay a lot for that sort of workspace.

Interested in the size, gpu, panel type and ofc price.

The source says the new 27″ iMac will use a 5120 x 2880 panel as leaked in the OSX Yosemite code a few months ago. This resolution is double the current resolution of the 27″ iMac which is 2560×1440.
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Not 4x?

Either way, my Cintiq's 1920x1200 is going to look uglier and uglier going from WQHD to 5K on the second monitor.
 
I don't think they could do it and still keep it under $2k. Dell's 5K 27" will be $2500.. What's Apple going to do, charge $4000 for this?
 
SuperSubZero said:
I don't think they could do it and still keep it under $2k. Dell's 5K 27" will be $2500.. What's Apple going to do, charge $4000 for this?
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Remember the price of 1440p monitors before the cheaper Korean brands?
There was a time when you couldn't buy a tower and monitor combination that would beat the price of a 27" imac. Or at least very far from easily.

Maybe we will see something similar. (I hope)
 
JayJapanB said:
Remember the price of 1440p monitors before the cheaper Korean brands?
There was a time when you couldn't buy a tower and monitor combination that would beat the price of a 27" imac. Or at least very far from easily.

Maybe we will see something similar. (I hope)
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Circumstances might very well make this happen.

Apple can secure large quantities of high quality screens and negotiate a good price, Intel have their new highly efficient CPUs, and AMD have their new flagship Fiji GPUs (or a special variant of) with memory stacking, wide bus + compression + power improvements possibly ready for an OEM like Apple.

It really looks like a perfect time for a new product release to push the industry forward.
 
Wouldn't 5K be in uncharted waters or do you mean 5000 x 1400 or similar instead of the newer HD standard 4K.

As far as the CPU change goes, I'd be surprised if Apple decides to try something totally new when the Intel chips work really well as is and on the heals of the Broadwell release. However, Apple is run by a businessman instead of Jobs, so who knows.
 
SuperSubZero said:
Yes, I do. Because Apple still sells one for $999. But the cheapest 27" iMac is $1800. they get the markup of the $999 screen and the markup of what is essentially a slightly better $600 Mac Mini bolted on the back.

They can't sell a 5K iMac for $1800 or $2200.
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To be fair, that $999 display has a $200 Thunderbolt hub/replicator built into it. The 27" iMac also uses desktop parts rather than laptop ones like the Mini and the 21.5" iMac, so it's more than "slightly better." I could see Apple selling a "Retina" 27" iMac while still also offering the 1440p one if they can't get the price of the high res displays down far enough.
 
I can see Apple offering retina and non-retina iMacs due to large costs, similar to when retina was introduced to the MBP line.
 
SuperSubZero said:
I don't think they could do it and still keep it under $2k. Dell's 5K 27" will be $2500.. What's Apple going to do, charge $4000 for this?
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I don't think it will be $4000, however I do think it is likely that there will be two iMacs. A retina and non-retina version, akin to the 15" MBP and MBPr.

I would expect entry level 27" iMacs to start around the $2k (or slightly less) mark with the retinas coming in $500-$1k more.

Edit: synergy beat me to it.
 
SuperSubZero said:
I don't think they could do it and still keep it under $2k. Dell's 5K 27" will be $2500.. What's Apple going to do, charge $4000 for this?
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$2500

SuperSubZero said:
Yes, I do. Because Apple still sells one for $999. But the cheapest 27" iMac is $1800. they get the markup of the $999 screen and the markup of what is essentially a slightly better $600 Mac Mini bolted on the back.

They can't sell a 5K iMac for $1800 or $2200.
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You were right. $300 more.
 
We'll see soon whether their panel and system build in the new iMac was worth getting a profit on that price.
 
Anyone know what the PPI is on the thing and if there is any a comparable screen out there? 27" won't quite cut it for me, no matter how many pixels it has so investigatng multiple monitor solutions.
 
TBH I do not see the point in retina screens on a desktop. My vision is already not good enough to see pixels on a standard screen from that far away, so I doubt a higher pixel density is going to do anything other than waste GPU power.

On a tablet or phone, different story, because I look at them from close up.

It makes sense for Apple to switch all of their stuff to retina, though. Probably saves manufacturing costs to only have to make one type of screen on all devices.
 
elleana said:
Anyone know what the PPI is on the thing and if there is any a comparable screen out there? 27" won't quite cut it for me, no matter how many pixels it has so investigatng multiple monitor solutions.
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5120×2880 at 27" is 217.57 PPI. Even the Dell 24" 4K display is only 183.58 PPI. The only comparable screen is the Dell 27" 5K display, and that is apparently not nearly as good as the iMac display because Apple went with better options from the manufacturer.
 
AVT said:
TBH I do not see the point in retina screens on a desktop. My vision is already not good enough to see pixels on a standard screen from that far away, so I doubt a higher pixel density is going to do anything other than waste GPU power.
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Apple underwent a very long slog, starting back in 2005 with OS X 10.4, to fully implement resolution independence, both in the system itself and by application developers.

It is now paying off. The issues you see with Windows on resolutions this high do not exist on OS X. You can set any resolution you want, and scale the UI to be any size you want or use pixel doubling, and it all looks good.
 
AVT said:
TBH I do not see the point in retina screens on a desktop. My vision is already not good enough to see pixels on a standard screen from that far away, so I doubt a higher pixel density is going to do anything other than waste GPU power.

On a tablet or phone, different story, because I look at them from close up.

It makes sense for Apple to switch all of their stuff to retina, though. Probably saves manufacturing costs to only have to make one type of screen on all devices.
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You can run the thing at "Best for Retina" settings which means it will just look like a really crisp 2560x1440 display. Personally I run a couple notches away from that so that I can have some more space on my desktop. Bootcamping windows will look ridiculous on this thing but running a VM seems to scale quite nicely on a retina display.
 
No gold iMac??? Joking.

Placed an order for a BTO (maxed out except RAM) the moment they hit the online store. Just in time before the tax year ends :)

Will report later on my impressions.
 
Interesting to see this rumor pan out. Also looks like the release of AMD's big Tonga mobile chip, curious on specs.
 
elleana said:
Anyone know what the PPI is on the thing and if there is any a comparable screen out there? 27" won't quite cut it for me, no matter how many pixels it has so investigatng multiple monitor solutions.
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If you've seen the retina screen on a MacBook Pro, it's basically that. But 27 inches of it.

I'm personally withholding judgement on this until reviews take a deep dive with that screen, but man... If it's as good as it seems to be, this is a phenomenal leap forward in display technology. You can now get a very good quality, 5K 27" display for $2500... And it comes with a free Mac. I honestly wouldn't have predicted that Apple would be the company to put that kind of pressure on high-end display pricing in the desktop realm.

I'll be really, really interested in the technology behind this, once we have a better idea.

Also, one thing that I think should be mentioned since a lot of people have been complaining about it - getting a 5K display into their current 27" Cinema Display is NOT as simple as a panel swap (and an acceptance of lower margin, to be sure) - Thunderbolt 2 incorporates DisplayPort 1.2, which only supports resolutions up to 4K.

Apple would have to require the use of two Thunderbolt ports in a messily-done hack in order to get that to work... Or they could wait until Thunderbolt 3/DP 1.3.

...Still, what confuses me is how Apple did this with the Tonga GPU that's in the computer, since Im pretty sure that it only supports DP1.2. The only way that's possible without aforementioned ridiculous hacks would be to overclock the DP interface, which as far as I know is just plain unheard of for something like this.
 
PlayfulPhoenix said:
I honestly wouldn't have predicted that Apple would be the company to put that kind of pressure on high-end display pricing in the desktop realm.
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Why not? They've done this in every other segment they are in that uses displays. The desktop was the next logical step, and should be followed soon enough by the TV. This is all part of the last decade of Apple's cash hoarding coming to bear on the market. The recent mess with GT Advanced provides a glimpse into how Apple throws their money around in order to be able to push the envelope and bring products like this to market first, which alters the supply chain and makes it possible for competitors to rise to the challenge without investing in the R&D themselves. It's the suppliers that are doing the heavy lifting, but not without plenty of care and feeding from Apple.

PlayfulPhoenix said:
...Still, what confuses me is how Apple did this with the Tonga GPU that's in the computer, since Im pretty sure that it only supports DP1.2. The only way that's possible without aforementioned ridiculous hacks would be to overclock the DP interface, which as far as I know is just plain unheard of for something like this.
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They designed their own pixel clock that could drive the display since one apparently didn't exist yet, but we won't know exactly how the panel is interfaced until someone does a teardown.
 
CEpeep said:
Why not? They've done this in every other segment they are in that uses displays. The desktop was the next logical step, and should be followed soon enough by the TV.
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True, but Apple sells an order of magnitude more iPhones and iPads, all of which have much higher profit ratios, and all of which are replaced by users every 2-4 years rather than 4-5+ years. Even the jump to include this on the MacBook Pro did not require them to perform any process, or invent any new technology, other than to make a bigger Retina screen, because existing stuff supported building it, if only just.

None of this is true for the iMac. It sells in relatively low volume, and it makes much less money, and yet they have to fabricate their own TCON and institute a dizzying array of new materials, processes, and solutions - and that's just the ones we know about, with certain implementation details unresolved.

And then they sell that display as part of a high-end computer for less than just the display from you-buy-us-for-the-low-price Dell? I think that's very surprising! If Apple had charged $3000+ for this, nobody could have credibly said that it was overpriced relative to the market. The target demographic for this can eat an extra $500 in cost, so why forgo that revenue?

Not to say that I am complaining :p Far from it! Though DP 1.3 can't come soon enough.

CEpeep said:
They designed their own pixel clock that could drive the display since one apparently didn't exist yet, but we won't know exactly how the panel is interfaced until someone does a teardown.
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Right, I know, but that other half is just as important, if not more so. Before yesterday, the answer to the question of "Can I run a 5K display off of any graphics card across one interface?" was "No, that's impossible". I want to know how Apple answered that question.
 
PlayfulPhoenix said:
The target demographic for this can eat an extra $500 in cost, so why forgo that revenue?
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I think the aggressive pricepoint is indicitive of a need to get the facilities and the partners that make these ramped up to full capacity as quickly as possible for whatever's coming down the pipeline next. Thunderbolt 3 will have native support for DP 1.3, and it's coming with Intel's Skylake, hopefully next year. There's also some speculation that Apple could drive a 5K display off 2x Thunderbolt 2 ports, and if that's the case, we could see a new display in the first half of 2015. There's also the possibility that whatever Apple is doing with their next-gen TV product involves displays like this as well and they're using the iMac as a catalyst to ramp up production capacity as quickly as possible.

Most importantly, I think the pricepoint is Apple's attempt at capturing as many buyers as possible who want this kind of display, even if they wouldn't normally consider a Mac. As you and others have said, it really is like you are getting a free Mac when you buy the 5K display, at least when you weigh it against the other limited options on the market.
 
Does increased production capacity for 27" displays result in increased production capacity for displays of much greater sizes?
 
wonderfield said:
Does increased production capacity for 27" displays result in increased production capacity for displays of much greater sizes?
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Depends on how the panels are made. I've never seen a panel like this before and won't get to really see what it looks like until iFixit or someone else does a full teardown. My guess is that it's a better version of the stock used in the 13.3" Retina MBP just processed into panels 4x as large, or possibly even the same stock, though it seems to have much better viewing angles than the rMBP.
 
This new iMac is a fantastic deal. 27" 5K displays are about $2k. Apple is throwing in a complete computer on top of the 5K display for $2500. I installed Yosemite on my rMBP and it's really great. Apple is really running on all cylinders with the Mac right now.
 
AVT said:
It makes sense for Apple to switch all of their stuff to retina, though. Probably saves manufacturing costs to only have to make one type of screen on all devices.
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I hope you're joking.
 
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