Macworld on the Intel iMac

wow that is really exciting. I would love to have one of these its just the price is so expenisve.

That is exactly why i'm going to wait at least a year to get one of these new macs--i want everything to be native. running rosetta isn't going to cut it for me. if i'm going to plop down that money i want my computer to be fast, now. not fast in a year.

Did anyone else read the fine print on Apple's site? Claims of 2-4x faster were based on voltage and heat. IOW, the claim of 2-4x faster was based on a G5 running slow enough to avoid heat issues in a compact machine. Those qualifiers are buried somewhere in the test report pages. Heck, I'm a geek and actually took time to read through the whole thing.

According to the independent review of ArsTechnica, the new iMac with Intel inside it's much faster and a better machine than the last iMac.

Maybe the guys at MacWorld are not happy that Apple left IBM.

How can the website compare iMac G5 running native PPC apps against iMac Core Duo running apps in Rosetta? Anyone else think thats a bit dense?

To above poster,
Actually, Macworld did their tests on programs that were already universal so there shouldn't have been a speed penalty with the Core Duo iMac.

Why are iMac's so expensive? For the hardware and specs that you get, they are WAY overpriced. I'd like to try one out, but not at a base price of $1299. Apple makes good products....I just don't get why they have to gouge the customer.

they are so expensive because they are not super mass produced by many many companies. its just apple. they cant keep up with mass producing. their technology is generally better too, and thus.. more expensive

We're a small office currently using networked iMac G5s (6 of them). Need to upgrade software (OSX, latest Helix, Quark etc.) to keep up with the rest of the world. We were just advised we may be better off upgrading entire office to new iMacs w/intel. (More cost-effective, efficient etc.). Above reviews don't seem to support this suggestion. Any advice from anyone????

To the small office - at the end of the day you'll want to take a system for a test drive and make your own personal comparisons. It really is the only way to get a feel for a new machine.

About expense: I feel your pain - these machines are not cheap. The reasons are simple. First, Apple does not sell a commodity product. They are not trying to convince you to buy on price. Instead, they sell on the strength of excellent software/hardware integration (macs really are quite easy to use and they integrate well with audio-video peripherals.). They try to sell you on its style and look. They only use high-end LCDs so they tend to have a very sharp and vivid screen. Their software suites are excellent as well.

Finally, they're also a high profit item. I believe I once saw the claim that Apple makes a margin of 30% off macs - which it was said was quite high compared to the margins in the commodity PC market.

The curious thing about the iPod is that it also was not sold as a commodity product. The initial responses when the first iPods were sold were that these hard-drive based music players were too expensive and would have their clocks cleaned by the flash-based players of the time (cheaper and smaller). In that case ease-of-use and quality design showed that a relatively expensive product line could actually take on the commodity market and win.

The last point I would like to make about the mac (and it is no small point). I got rid of my Norton virus program for the mac because it just got in the way and it wasn't needed. I would never do such a thing on my PCs. Quite the opposite - I've gotten a bit paranoid on those boxes - it scares me to scan my daughter's system for fear of what I'll find :)

But let's be honest. The decision to buy a mac is very much dependent upon what you do. If you are trying manage the accounting for a construction firm, you'd be a fool to buy a mac. You'll just end up buying Virtual PC and some Windows accounting software. But if you surf, mail, and like to play with yours digital cameras - well, in that case these machines can go pound for pound with their PC brothers.

But yes, a top-of-the-line 17 inch PowerBook will cost you more money than a top-of-the-line Dell XPS laptop. I know, I've purchased both. The Powerbook will be half the weight of the XPS and is a delightful machine. But I do my development on the XPS - and its got a pretty rockin' LCD as well.

One man's meat is another man's poision. So pick your poison :)

The MacWorld comparison's were done with applications that were very disc and memory intensive. In that context, how do you justify comparing an Intel iMac with 512 MB against machines that have 2.5 and 4.5 Gig?

I have seen test comparisons that actually seem to back up the speed claims, but the program had to first be fully optimized for the operations in question, such as iSquint being optimized specifically for processing h264 video. That universal binary comparison showed about a 3X increase over a comparable iSight single processor PPC iMac.

Biased comparisons pitting mismatched machines and mismatched software cannot be trusted and MacWorld's motives cannot be trusted in this matter.

>I have seen test comparisons that actually seem to back up the speed claims, but the program had to first be fully optimized for the operations in question, such as iSquint being optimized specifically for processing h264 video.

I have to correct my statement here. This was the universal binary beta release of the program "Handbrake" not "iSquint." I do stick with the claim of 3X faster than the latest G5 iMac.

Read the fine print on Macworld. The iMac's used in the comparison test had the same amount of RAM and were on the same version of OS X. The only difference was one had the Intel chip and the other had the Power PC. MacWorld tested using Apple software that is already native on the Core Duo Mac. I certainly did not see a 2x-3x performance boost. More like an average of 1.2x faster. I agree it's unfair to pit the Core Duo against the G5 for apps that are run with Rosetta. I've been throwing those numbers to the wind in my research. The Core Duo is faster but not by that much. In most instances, the speed difference is only a few seconds. What mainstream computer user is actually going to realize that espn.com loaded 2 seconds faster on the core duo than on the G5. I have seen a few comparisons done where the reviewer used a 1.8 gHz G5 against the Core Duo. Let's get real. Apple is comparing the Core Duo to the most recent generation of iMac G5's. A comparison to a G5 that came out in late 2004 and early 2005 is not real. That is more of a marketing scheme to force users over to the Core Duo. State the real facts and let the consumer make the final say on what is good for them.

I have read many reviews on the new Intel Imacs, and in all the posts I see the same thing, "the Intel Imac is not 2-3x faster." I realize on apples website it states- "2x faster, twice as amazing." But you have to consider what Steve Jobs said at Macworld 2006. He never said everything was going to be 2x faster, he said the two most important things are 2-3x faster.
I have recently tested one of these Intel machines (17" 512 RAM, 160 GB harddrive, standard hardware) at the Future Shop. I am a long time Windows user and as soon as I tried it, I have convinced myself to make the switch. The Imac left my Windows XP in the dirt. I will be purchasing a new 17" Intel Imac ASAP. The only thing I will be chaing is the RAM, for such a powerful machine, Apple should have put more RAM (512) in, but for the extra $90 for a 1GB RAM who cares.
Do not trust some reviews, for these are amateurs, the Intel is a beautiful machine.