New iMacs Now Available With 9th Gen Intel Core CPUs

[tonymacx86]

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Apple's iMac got a speed bump today, the 21.5 inch iMac now has 8th generation Intel CPUs and the 27 inch is now using 9th generation Intel CPUs. Apple is also now using Radeon Pro Vega graphics as optional graphics upgrades on each.

Source:

iMac gets a 2x performance boost

Apple today updated its iMac line with up to 9th-generation Intel 8-core processors for the first time and powerful Vega graphics options.

www.apple.com

 

[Ecchi Nutuano]

According to Ars, these refreshes do not include any T2 chips. Which is just shocking to me. MBA, Mac mini, iMac Pro, and MBP all feature these chips, and we were naturally expecting them to be in the next iMac as well. Will have to wait until confirmation (tear down), but I can only guess it was because Apple was being pressured to update them(almost 2 years without update), and went the easy route and just did a drop-in refresh, instead of re-designing to fit a T2. That's good news for the Hackintosh community if true - insures longer compatibility for us, since I still expect at some point in macOS future to require a T2. This will push that requirement further down the road.

They are keeping the base iMac Pro (8-core Xeon) at it's existing price-point. After configuring the new iMac into an 8-core with equal RAM, SSD and Vega 48 8GB (since no Vega 56) to try to match the existing base iMac Pro, the price difference between the two isn't huge. Whereas the iMac Pro has more Vega compute units, 10Gbit Ethernet and that Space Grey everyone loves . So that might ease any cannibalization between the two product lines.

 

[okubo-show]

Without T2 chip is very good news for us. Hackintosh will be ensured till new iMac to obsolete.. Can we enjoy hackintosh for more 5 years?

 

[juantrix]

If not T2, you can change: (if similar to the previous 27" Imac)
NVME drive (samsung 970 Pro+adaptor)
SATA drive for a SSD
Upgrade to a i9 9900k
Update to 64Gb

if need more GPU power, remember you can use eGPU (Vega 56, 64, VII some day)

 

[Ecchi Nutuano]

Without T2 chip is very good news for us. Hackintosh will be ensured till new iMac to obsolete.. Can we enjoy hackintosh for more 5 years?

Pretty safe guess. They need at least a 3 year run before whatever excuse for macOS CityName cut-off, and with the T2 being absent looks like at least another year before the next iMac will feature it (though Apple occasionally has 2 releases a year for the same product - example MBP mid 2018, and MBP late 2018).

The likely conclusion on why the T2 was absent was due to Apple still using Mechanical HDD in the iMacs (all the other Macs mentioned with T2 are SSD-only), and with SSD prices these days it's a little baffling why they still offer HDD.

 

[okubo-show]

Perhap T2 chip control NVMe SSD and other audio or video signal processing via “pcie” for bandwidth reason, so T2 can not handle SATA HDD or SATA SSD.

 

[avtor]

Such a shame to sell basic package for $3700 usd without even SSD option! And pay $100 and get 512gb SSD - quater size ...

 

[DrKoNfLiCt]

Apple is such a joke at this point. ZERO innovation.

 

[YoshiyukiAsakura]

If not T2, you can change: (if similar to the previous 27" Imac)
NVME drive (samsung 970 Pro+adaptor)
SATA drive for a SSD
Upgrade to a i9 9900k
Update to 64Gb

if need more GPU power, remember you can use eGPU (Vega 56, 64, VII some day)

the CPU is likely to be swappable but not for sure yet. Since APPLE have BGA CPU for MacMini, they could do the same to iMac. I wish what you said is true because i also want to buy a base model and upgrade it on my own.

And here is a hint for everyone with similar thoughts, if you buy a iMac and choose a only-SSD model, the sata slot will be empty and no cable for it, you have to buy your own cable(which is a APPLE Customized, tricky to buy)

 

[YoshiyukiAsakura]

Apple is such a joke at this point. ZERO innovation.

No innovation for price, kind of good news, compared to Mac mini 2018