Hoping for a 2012 iMac with UBS 3.0 (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

John,

Never thought about that.

I also work with dual monitors and that would probably drive me nuts as well.

 

[JohnRice]

In that case, in your situation, with a somewhat older iMac, I'd go ahead and get an upcoming model and sell the one you have now. You'll probably get more than you expect for it and the new processor is twice as fast, so you'd get a significant boost. I'm sure Apple will eventually come out with a stand-alone retina display... for a nice tidy price.

 

[Sam Posten]

MD096X for me!
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/16/imac-reportedly-set-to-receive-updates-next-week/

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Same for me, Sam. Going for the best 27 inch available though it seems a wait will be in store for us.

 

[JohnRice]

Maybe the info could be more vague. I doubt I'll be spending 27" kind of money.

 

[JohnRice]

Excellent! A Quad core Mini with USB 3.0 and Firewire at a tolerable price. EXACTLY what I was hoping for.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I feel a bit of a wet blanket about the new releases. The new Macs look good. but not good enough to make me want to part with my the previous iMac, which is what I have at the moment. I find that you don't really notice a difference with Macs unless you swap on at least alternate generations of the product. The same goes for the iPad 4. Yes, it's quicker, but so what? 64GB memory is still hopelessly low for some of us, and until that increases, I ain't interested in upgrading. I'm glad the 7 inch iPad is here as I know there was demand for it, but for me it's too small in screen size.

 

[KeithAP]

Originally Posted by JohnRice /t/322742/hoping-for-a-2012-imac-with-ubs-3-0/60#post_3992349
Excellent! A Quad core Mini with USB 3.0 and Firewire at a tolerable price. EXACTLY what I was hoping for.

Keep in mind that price is with a 5400 RPM HD and the only upgrade options provided by Apple are $250 for their "fusion drive" or $300 for 256GB SSD. You also loose the option for a discreet graphics chip.

-Keith

 

[JohnRice]

I'm aware of all that Keith. For the time being I will be booting from an external SSD using USB 3.0, then probably Thunderbolt before too long. So, the somewhat slow internal drive isn't as big a deal. My current attitude is that I will upgrade every couple years and sell the old model while it will still fetch a decent price. This way I can move more hardware from model to model. I don't do video intensive stuff, though I do run dual monitors. What I want is the best raw processing power I can get. The computer spends most of its time sitting, churning out stuff on its own. I just want it to churn faster.

 

[JohnRice]

I just noticed an annoying little thing. It appears the 21.5" iMac will have a 5400 rpm drive in all configurations and the SSD options will only be available in the upgraded version. These are the things Apple does which annoy the hell out of me. I know everyone here seems to be into the loaded model, but especially considering the still extreme price of upgrades Apple charges, it would be nice to have an option without so much built-in crippling without spending $2K.

 

[Thomas Newton]

You also loose the option for a discreet graphics chip.

As opposed to an indiscreet graphics chip, which will send copies of the most embarrassing and incriminating text and graphics displayed on your screen to (a) your mother, (b) the tabloids, (c) your ex, (d) your boss, (e) the DA's office, and (f) your worst enemies, in no particular order?

 

[JohnRice]

The quad core Mini arrived today and I've migrated over from my backup drive. I was running 10.7 and kind of hoped the new model would operate on it, but no luck. There are some changes in Mountain Lion i was unsure of so I hadn't upgraded yet. I already have at least 3 USB 3.0 enclosures, so I am able to take full advantage of most improvement right away. I processed some video in Handbrake direct from a disc and was getting speeds averaging 250fps. What blew me away is I looked at what demand this was putting on the processor and it was showing 20-30% idle. Reading speed from the disc is probably holding it back. I will do some HD to HD converting in a minute and see how that goes. Anyway, this blew me away. Well over double the speed of the previous dual core mini i5
I have a couple questions about Mountain Lion. Is it even possible to run it without an Apple ID? Software update is actually the App Store now. I'm sure most of you are using Mountain Lion already and know about that. App launch speed on the internal drive is insanely fast. Enough that I might forgo the SSD, believe it or not.
Anyway, my first impression is that this machine screams.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

My quad core i7 Mac mini arrives in 2-3 weeks. It has the Fusion drive and I am installing 16 gigs of RAM.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[JohnRice]

Steve, I had 16GB as well waiting before the Mini arrived. Gotta like having plenty of room to move. I was just using Photoshop while HandBrake is processing a file and everything is running smooth as silk. I think I still want to get an an external Thunderbolt HD. This thing really kicks.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

My i7 mini is on the truck for delivery! It took them one week instead of the three they projected, and that is even with the Fusion Drive.

 

[Sam Posten]

Nice! Keep us posted! Still waiting to hear when the iMacs will be orderable!

 

[Steve Tannehill]

It showed up at 1:15pm. It was originally slated to arrive tomorrow, but overnight it ended up going between HK, Memphis, Dallas, my local sort facility, and the truck. Can you tell I was monitoring the tracking?
I installed the RAM (easy as pie), swapped cables with the old Mac mini (1-to-1) and started it up. I entered my language and keyboard preference, my wifi network and password, then it asked if I wanted to transfer from another Mac or hard disk. I had a current Time Machine backup (all 157 gigs of it) on a USB 3.0 portable hard drive, so I set up the new Mac as a clone of the old Mac.
After an hour of migration, I had my first problem. When I logged into the computer, the files had not transferred. So I called Apple and they recommended I run Migration Assistant manually, which I did, and it worked this time....but it took another hour.
I ran benchmarks. The Geekbench score on the new machine is through the roof:
Mac mini 2010: 3808... http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1228316
Mac mini 2012: 12296... http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1230039
Black Magic Disk Speed Test:
2011 MacBook Air 256gig SSD: 242.0 MB/s write, 258.8 MB/s read (This is a Samsung drive, slower than the current generation.)
2012 Mac mini, 1TB Fusion Drive: 284.6 MB/s write, 441.8 MB/s read
This is comparable to the 128GB SSD that Apple offers in its MacBooks.
The rip of a 2:11 blu-ray took just over an hour. The Handbrake conversion is running 12-13 fps (compared to fractional fps on the MacBook Air). It's got 2.5 hours to go at the midway point, doing 1-pass AppleTV 3 preset.
I'm very, very happy at the moment!

 

[Sam Posten]

Sweet! :tu: :tu: :tu:

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Steve,

Wanted to send my congrats on your new Mac.

Always happy to hear when Apple comes through
for the customer.

Enjoy!!!!

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Thanks!
After seeing reports of Geekbench scores in the 13,000's I reran and got 12,887:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1231776
I am probably slower because I did the full Time Machine restore, including kernel extensions, before I ran the benchmarks.
The blu-ray conversion using HandBrake took 5 hours...the last one I did on the MacBook Air took 48 hours. Quite a difference!