hesitating to jump

[UtterDisbelief]

I believe Apple's Intel chips are specially fabricated for them, and so, they don't have the sleep, deep sleep, hibernation problems that other Intel chips have. In the case of the Mac Pro I would rather have two XEON CPUS than one. But I really wish I didn't need to flash a GPU to make it work in OSX. The larger the GPU VRAM the less likely one would need system RAM, no? If so, then one gets a double whammy in not being able to upgrade system RAM nor upgrading to a video card with more VRAM (which should help with browser tabs, running browser video codecs, etc.)

But me? I would never buy an iMac. (Or an All-In-One from any manufacturer, whether it be Dell, HP, etc.) They could only be upgraded so far. Supposedly today's iMac will have their RAM soldered on. ntyvm. Crack the screen? Replace he whole display. Currently costs about $850. On the old iMacs a replacement glass cover screen was about $150. Eventually it will all get to where once anything is broken it will need to be replaced. The problem will be the land fill...

I didn't realise Intel made specific CPUs for Apple, but perhaps that is to be expected. They are a big enough customer and Intel will want to be as flexible as they can be, unlike IBM before them.

Yes, the GPUs used by Apple also seem to be unique variants that you can't buy elsewhere. But many people are happy with the built-in iGPUs anyway.

You are right, the throw-away nature of modern machines is a bad way for the industry to go. An example I dislike is the way most new laptops - not just Apple - now feature non-removable batteries. A throw-away mentality that encourages that land-fill you mention

 

[pastrychef]

I've never heard of Apple using custom Intel CPUs. The closest they came to custom CPUs were the delidded Xeons found in the dual CPU models of the MacPro4,1. The MacPro5,1 used standard lidded CPUs. I upgraded my 5,1 with standard off-the-shelf Xeons and never experienced any problems.

 

[vulgo]

The big difference is in the firmware. I believe Apple firmware is written by Apple engineers whereas generic motherboard firmware tends to be created largely by American Megatrends Inc, is much more general in hardware scope (might contain code that may or may not apply to the board it is running on) and is written very much with Windows in mind. On desktops with compatible hardware we can achieve 'almost native' compatibility with patching and code injection.