So the cat is out of the bag. I have been telling the wifey to get ready for some plastic burn the day they drop new iMacs on us. I am ready to buy a new one “as soon as they announce quad-core iMacs” I said. So today the new iMacs are out and guess what, Apple has managed to close the gap between iMacs and the Mac Pro for sure, but they did it by making the Mac Pro much less appealing and by making only minor changes to the iMac. Let’s look at what they announced today:
| Model | CPU | RAM | HD | Video Card | Price |
| Mac Pro | (1) 2.66Ghz Quad-Xeon | 3GB Ram | 640GB | nVidia GeForce GT 120 | $2,499 |
| Mac Pro | (2) 2.26Ghz Quad-Xeon | 6GB Ram | 640GB | nVidia GeForce GT120 | $3,299 |
| 20” iMac | 2.66Ghz Core2Duo | 2GB Ram | 320GB | GeForce 9400M | $1,199 |
| 24” iMac | 2.66Ghz Core2Duo | 4GB Ram | 640GB | GeForce 9600M | $1,499 |
| 24” iMac | 2.93Ghz Core2Duo | 4GB Ram | 640GB | nVidia GeForce GT 120 | $1,799 |
| 24” iMac | 3.06Ghz Core2Duo | 4GB Ram | 1TB | nVidia GeForce GT 130 | $2,199 |
| Mac Mini | 2.0Ghz Core2Duo | 1GB Ram | 120GB | nVidia GeForce 9400M | $599 |
| Mac Mini | 2.0Ghz Core2Duo | 2GB Ram | 320GB | nVidia GeForce 9400M | $799 |
Now, obviously I am out of luck on the Quad-Core iMac. That leaves me very little reason to upgrade my 2.13Ghz 24” iMac now doesn’t it.
It also makes me VERY happy that I bought my Mac Pro a few months ago. I purchased the $2,799 Dual 2.8Ghz Quad-Core Xeon model with 2GB of Ram and 320GB hard disk. Today, that leaves me quite a bit short on the new 8-Core model. If I drop $300 and go to the new base model, I lose a quad core CPU, some speed and 24GB of RAM capacity. WHOA! That’s quite a big drop!
So now the gap between the a $2,199 24” iMac and a $2,499 Mac Pro and if you cancel out the upgrade slots, upgrading for $300 gets you a better processor, 1GB LESS Ram and you lose a 24” Monitor. That’s not a very compelling upgrade story if you ask me.
Now I realize that Mac Pros and iMacs have completely different audiences, or do they? I have both. I have the big Mac Pro for all of my recording studio needs, but my daily driver is a 24” iMac. Was it really beneficial to water down the Mac Pro line instead of giving the iMac enough power to be a contender with games and graphics apps?
The last and biggest complaint with all of the Apple offerings is that they really seem to have no clue what a current video card is. The nVidia GeForce GT 120 is the rebranded 9500GT which retail for around $50-60 and the nVidia GeForce GT 130 is the rebranded 9600 GSO that bring around $80-100 retail. Of course we all know that Apple would never pay retail, so let’s say that on the far end that they pay 80% of retail (which is VERY high) then that $2,499 computer is sporting a video card that’s probably worth $40. Sheesh. And this is considered a GRAPHICS WORKSTATION right? $2,500 gets me a bargain video card?
The iMac suffers from the same thing, but I consider it a bit worse. The unfortunate Apple customer that really is into gaming, get’s the top of the Apple consumer line get’s at best a $65 graphics card for their $2,200.
Where oh where is the “Mac,” the Quad-core capable mid-sized desktop with moderate expansion. Give us a single PCI-X slot, max it at 4-8GB of Ram, 500GB or so of stock hard drive with a single bay for expansion, and a full compliment of FireWire and USB2. Price it starting around $999 with a dual-core CPU and max it around $1,999 with with a Quad, a hefty helping of RAM and a smoking video card. You still get your glorious profit margin. Something is telling me that if HP is selling a 2.6Ghz Core 2 Quad with 4GB of RAM, a 750GB HD and a 768MB nVidia GeForce 9600GS for $1,159, Apple could squeeze out something similar for $1,999.
Apple has got great design skills, they are sharp at making operating systems, they just seem to really be sliding lately on choosing the actual components that make up their PCs.
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Gee what a surprise. This is a classic example of what a rip-off Apple hardware is to begin with.
OSX is an awesome operating system.
But not THAT awesome.