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Perhaps wait until June before you buy a new Mac...


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Perhaps wait until June before you buy a new Mac...
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scratt
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2006-04-10, 08:44

Quick link to an interesting (very short) article about chip prices and future announcements.

Pretty obvious advice and I guess a lot of us could work this out for ourselves.

But it's nice to have some figures and numbers to look at..

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30881

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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pOps
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2006-04-10, 09:05

well, for speedfreaks it is...
the chips that are in there now are fast enough for now anyway.
but your advice does fit the 'modern-man' scenario of always wanting the newer, faster (or younger, when it comes to women) model... when probably the model you have (or will buy this week) is already more than you really need anyhow.
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scratt
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2006-04-10, 09:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by pOps
well, for speedfreaks it is...
the chips that are in there now are fast enough for now anyway.
but your advice does fit the 'modern-man' scenario of always wanting the newer, faster (or younger, when it comes to women) model... when probably the model you have (or will buy this week) is already more than you really need anyhow.
Oh.. Agreed. You are preaching to the converted here. I am on a 1st gen 17" PB and it's my every day machine and is still fine.

I did get a Dual G5 2.0Ghz when they first came out, as I did with the 17".

I have no need to upgrade for a good while yet.
When I do it will be for the fastest and best of the current models though! :smokey:

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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Schnauzer
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2006-04-10, 09:43

I think i will wait
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macleod
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2006-04-10, 09:49

Do you think that the intel iMac 20" will get a speed bump or a price drop this summer? I want to get one for my next year of college and I was going to buy it early this summer; however, this article is making me want to wait till about august to order because there might be a considerable price drop or a speed increase. Is this a valid assumption? What do you all believe about the timeline for the iMac processor speed bump and how great will this speed bumb be?
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Luca
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2006-04-10, 09:55

I think the iMac will not be upgraded until after all the other Macs have gotten Intel chips. It makes sense, but remember that "sense" is hardly a part of Apple's vocabulary and it doesn't seem to govern their decisions.

In short - maybe yes, maybe no.
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tacvbo83
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2006-04-10, 09:55

I would say speed bump and not price decrease for iMacs later in the year. They will stay same price with better hardware probably.

Last edited by tacvbo83 : 2006-04-10 at 10:35.
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macleod
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2006-04-10, 09:56

Ok so how fast do you think they would move up to. Merom with the 4MB cache and the 2.33 GHz in the 20" iMac?
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AWR
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2006-04-10, 10:01

I just got a rise in my Levi's.
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Luca
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2006-04-10, 10:02

How should we know? It's hard enough predicting WHEN they'll come out, much less what they'll be like when they do.

You'll have to wait and see what the other Macs get. The Power Macs should be a good indication of the future of the iMac, but on the other hand the iMacs seem to be closer in spec (usually) to the PowerBook/MacBook Pro.
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macleod
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2006-04-10, 11:14

I was just asking based on the linked article.
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Gargoyle
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2006-04-12, 14:14

This mac rumors article is stating that merom will drop into the same socket that the core duo uses. Although I have not got the time to search intels site id does link to another article with this snippet...
Quote:
Intel's Mooly Eden showed a benchmark pitting a Dell Core Duo system against the same system with a Merom processor (Eden literally swapped out the Core Duo CPU and stuck in a Merom processor, partly to showcase its backwards comptability).
Good news for us early adopters, a huge fart to those who thought they would wait and that Apple had made a mistake dropping back to 32bit.

This just goes to show the there is someone in Apple keeping on the ball. The intel transition has been kick started, then just at the right time Boot Camp and now an option of most early adopters to get 64 bit goodness for the price of just a new chip - £200 maybe if you buy as soon as they are out.

Oh and unlucky for all those that bought a MacBook Pro. The chips in those are soldered I believe.

If I can confirm this info, you can expect me to be one of the first people to get my sticky mits on a merom and try brain surgery on my iMac.

OK, I have given up keeping this sig up to date. Lets just say I'm the guy that installs every latest version as soon as its available!
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ZachPruckowski
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2006-04-12, 14:56

Well, I think the idea of buying as big as possible is to be able to keep up with changes. It's nice to pay a lot up front, but have it last for an extra few years. And the Merom upgradeability helps that too. It's easier to drop $2k when you know that in 4 years you can update it for only $100 to a less out-of-date chip.
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psmith2.0
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2006-04-12, 15:46

This is how it COULD work. But does anyone think Apple - in true Apple fashion - might somehow try to fix up a way where folks couldn't do this? Who'd buy all new Macs if their processors could easily - and cheaply - be upgraded by the user?

Certainly isn't out of character for Apple to break, deny, block, cripple, disable, plug, lock, solder, hobble, etc. things like this if they thought it would affect Mac sales.

Summer 2007: "Hmm, I've got a Rev. A Intel iMac that I've had for nearly 18 months; I can buy an all-new iMac for $1,299, OR I can boost it to 64-bit, 3GHz goodness for a few hundred bucks...".

I don't know all the technical ins and outs, but are we pretty confident this is something Apple would allow and keep possible? Sure doesn't seem like their way...

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PB PM
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2006-04-12, 16:24

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0
This is how it COULD work. But does anyone think Apple - in true Apple fashion - might somehow try to fix up a way where folks couldn't do this? Who'd buy all new Macs if their processors could easily - and cheaply - be upgraded by the user?

Certainly isn't out of character for Apple to break, deny, block, cripple, disable, plug, lock, solder, hobble, etc. things like this if they thought it would affect Mac sales.

Summer 2007: "Hmm, I've got a Rev. A Intel iMac that I've had for nearly 18 months; I can buy an all-new iMac for $1,299, OR I can boost it to 64-bit, 3GHz goodness for a few hundred bucks...".

I don't know all the technical ins and outs, but are we pretty confident this is something Apple would allow and keep possible? Sure doesn't seem like their way...

G3 and G4 towers were not hobbled, and are very upgradeable. iMac's have never really been very upgradeable short of buying a new logic board with a faster CPU. I can understand soldiered CPUs in notebooks because it most likely saves space. Most users wouldn't know how to upgrade their machine so once it reached a point that they need an upgrade, its likely they'd just buy a new machine.
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psmith2.0
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2006-04-12, 16:28

True. Although, I kinda expect towers to be somewhat upgradeable (that's the whole point of buying them, for many).

But iMacs and Mac minis? THAT'S a new one...Apple might not want their bread-and-butter, "everyman" gear to be quite so "open-ended".



As for "not knowing how to upgrade", this seems pretty easy. A straight drop-in that any person smart enough to buy a Mac to begin with could probably handle?
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PB PM
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2006-04-12, 16:32

Considering that I know people who are scared to upgrade their G4 towers RAM (let alone the CPU), I think you overestimate what the average computer/Mac user is willing to do with their machine. I would hazard to guess that 80% of iMac buyers (even higher % for Mac Mini) wouldn't even dare to take the back case off to see what it looks like inside.
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Frank777
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2006-04-12, 17:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0
Certainly isn't out of character for Apple to break, deny, block, cripple, disable, plug, lock, solder, hobble..
I love this board.
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Partial
Stallion
 
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2006-04-12, 18:11

[quote=pscates2.0
As for "not knowing how to upgrade", this seems pretty easy. A straight drop-in that any person smart enough to buy a Mac to begin with could probably handle?[/QUOTE]



I've seen many idiots crack processor cores trying to install them themselves. I kid you not while working at the buy I saw someone bring in ram in a ziplock bag in their pocket to show what type they had. Needless to say I encouraged them to buy a 2nd 256 stick since the one they brought in probably didn't work any longer
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bassplayinMacFiend
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2006-04-13, 08:34

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0
As for "not knowing how to upgrade", this seems pretty easy. A straight drop-in that any person smart enough to buy a Mac to begin with could probably handle?
You still have to get inside the iMac though. The latest revisions are painful to open and since they open through the front you have to worry about not damaging the LCD as well as everything else.

Here's a site showing what a guy went through to upgrade their hard drive (profusely illustrated).
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Dr_LHA
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2006-04-13, 08:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0
This is how it COULD work. But does anyone think Apple - in true Apple fashion - might somehow try to fix up a way where folks couldn't do this? Who'd buy all new Macs if their processors could easily - and cheaply - be upgraded by the user?
Well this kind of upgrade path has been available in the PC world for years, but I guarantee that 99% of PC owners would never even dream of opening up their PC and changing the CPU in it. I doubt Mac owners are any different.

Changing the CPU will only be done by a few propellerheads and I doubt that will dent Apple's sales too much.

To be honest though, the major thing Apple have done to stop this is to make their computers (especially the iMac and to a lesser extent the mini) almost impossible to take apart.
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