New Mac on the block

[Zeus_Hunt]

Apple has taken the wraps off the first desktop Mac to be powered by an Intel processor.

The new iMac runs on a Core Duo chip said to be twice as fast as the PowerPC G5 that it replaces. It includes the new iLife '06 suite of applications, which with its Universal Binary code is optimised to run natively on the new hardware.

'The iMac has already been praised as "the gold standard of desktop PCs", so we hope customers really love the new iMac, which is up to twice as fast,' said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. 'With Mac OS X plus Intel's latest dual-core processor under the hood, the new iMac delivers performance that will knock our customers' socks off.'

The new model also has faster RAM than its predecessor and a mini-DVI slot for adding a second monitor. The 1.83Ghz with 17in screen version costs £929 and the 2GHz with 20in screen is £1,299. Both will begin shipping by the weekend.

For full details Click here..

With the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems.

On Tuesday at Macworld, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said the company would not specifically block the use of Windows on Mac hardware. Instead, limitations in Windows itself will prevent its use on the new MacBook Pro laptop and iMac.

With the switch to Intel processors, Apple also moved from Open Firmware to EFI, which is an updated BIOS specification developed by Intel. Advanced features include the ability to boot into an EFI shell and run diagnostics and power up the CPU into a fully functional state immediately.

EFI also separates the control of devices from the operating system, meaning it can initialize hardware before loading the OS. This feature would allow for a system to connect to the Internet and download updated drivers before booting up.

Intel initially deployed EFI as part of its Itanium architecture. As such, Microsoft only included support for the BIOS replacement in its IA64 and later x64 operating systems. While Microsoft plans to add EFI support in 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, a final release isn't due until the end of the year.

Microsoft's 64-bit versions of Windows will also not work despite supporting EFI, because Apple's Intel platform is strictly 32-bit at the moment.

For its part, Microsoft encouraged Apple to build hardware compatible with Windows.

Check out the specs they are really cool

iMac At a Glance

    * Up to 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo processor

    * Click, squeeze and scroll Mighty Mouse

    * Get the big picture with a 17- or 20-inch widescreen flat-panel display

    * Elegant, modern design

    * Play fast with PCI-Express ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor

    * See and be seen with built-in iSight camera and iChat AV 5

    * Enjoy truly personal theatre with Front Row and Apple Remote

    * Burn DVDs or CDs with 8x SuperDrive

    * Banish clutter with built-in wireless

    * Connect your digital life with three USB 2.0 ports and two FireWire 400 ports

    * Extend your desktop on your TV, display or projector with optional adaptors

    * Connect to a Windows network

    * Organise and share music, movies and photos with iLife ’06 featuring iWeb

    * Enjoy Mac OS X Tiger, the world’s most advanced operating system

According to their website iMac Core Duo 2.0GHz runs 2-3 times faster than iMac G5 2.1GHz.

[Guest elc0173]

mac... going.... intel...... :unsure:

[Zeus_Hunt]

Who cares as long as it works better than the previous version...

While Microsoft plans to add EFI support in 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, a final release isn't due until the end of the year.

I guess that line says that Vista might be able to run on Mac... :unsure:

[Nemesis]

Who cares as long as it works better than the previous version...

While Microsoft plans to add EFI support in 32-bit versions of Windows Vista, a final release isn't due until the end of the year.

I guess that line says that Vista might be able to run on Mac... :unsure:

Mac OS's are crappy, My advice, stick with a non-Mac.

[Zeus_Hunt]

I m not sure about that ...

I m waiting for Lite to answer that....

[Lite]

Mac OS's are really good. They are miles ahead of MS in many aspects, MS are CATCHING up on the market still, with vista they are GETTING there. Mac OS's are generally much more stable than non-mac OS's.

[nsane]

exactly, like the 'alpha blending' MS introduced in XP, the ability to make windows semi-transparent. that's been apart of the MacOS since like 7.0 or 8.0 and some linux distros have had it for even longer ;)

and honestly, who here has physically, in person, watched a MacOS crash...i know i haven't? ;)

edit: and aren't they introducing another feature with Vista that's also been apart of MacOS for some time now (that glassy effect thing, i think)? :unsure:

[Zeus_Hunt]

Mac OS's are crappy, My advice, stick with a non-Mac.

I think that takes care of things... :unsure:

I was expecting those answers ;)

[erRor67]

Meh, I already got a Mac OS on my computer (PC) months ago.. Im just going to save enough money to buy an actual mac. :unsure:

[Zeus_Hunt]

Meh, I already got a Mac OS on my computer (PC) months ago.. Im just going to save enough money to buy an actual mac. :unsure:

I did not know Mac OS was compatible on PC... ;)

Whats ur PC spec ?

Now if that was true I would start searching for a download ;)

[erRor67]

Its uh... not offically "compatable"

You can find more info here:

http://www.win2osx.net

http://www.osx86project.org

[Zeus_Hunt]

After the first benchmark comparisons between the old and new iMac began appearing, Walter Mossberg has published his own comparison of the two.

The two computers are almost identical and the differences are mainly on the inside. From the outside, there is nothing to distinguish one from the other. When used for exactly the same tasks, Mossberg reports: “The two machines behaved almost identically in our tests. Compatibility is excellent. The new model easily handled all the major consumer software we threw at it. We never noticed the translator software, called Rosetta, and any slowdowns it imposed were so slight as to be indiscernible.”

At this point, things begin to get the perspective they need. The iMac was never expected as one of the first Intel based Mac, mainly because of the fact that the G5 version has been so recently released. Then when Jobs

took the stage and presented the new Intel iMac, saying it was two to three times faster, many of the people who had bought the then new iMac probably had a pang of anger hit them, after all, they had bought the inferior model… Or so it would seem.

The fact that the vast majority of software has not reached Universal Binary status has also been a problem on the minds of many. Everybody who has used Microsoft’s VirtualPC knows how slow and laggy emulating can be, and they suspected Apple’s Rosetta to suffer from much of the same problem.

While it is hard to gauge exactly how good the emulation in Rosetta is, the fact that it can run application in an emulated mode without any performance impact being perceived by the user is nothing less than extraordinary. As for the new iMac not being two to three times as fast as the old one, the fact that it lets Rosetta emulate software with no significant performance impact, and the fact that it is a 32-bit processor, unlike the G5 which is 64-bit, means that it is indeed faster. Sure, those numbers Steve Jobs gave out were not based on real life tests, but ones needs to look at this in perspective… The new iMac has a 32-bit processor that runs emulated software without any perceived slowdown. It’s all good, and when Intel rolls out the new 64-bit versions we will really have something to test against.

Furthermore, as more and more software goes Mactel native, it will run faster because Rosetta will not be used to run it. As it stands at this time, Apple has made a very clean first step on the road of this transition. Older iMac users are not cheated by having been given an inferior product, and the new iMac users have a machine that is the equal of the old one and can only stant to get better as time goes by.

The conclusion? In the words of Mossberg and Boehret themselves: "This is a terrific computer. It's still the best consumer desktop on the market. It still runs crisply, still is free of viruses and spyware, still has the best operating system and the best built-in software of any desktop we've tested. Given how smoothly the new machine works, and how likely it is to get even better, we would prefer it today over the iMac G5, which Apple is still selling for the same price until inventories are gone. The G5 is still a fine machine, but the Intel model has a brighter future."

[Zeus_Hunt]

Benchmark values Steve Jobs presented were vaporware and have no place in the real world. Many have said that the original G5 iMac was faster and other have said that the new Core Duo machines are faster. As expected, actual comparisons are beginning to arise and both with benchmarks and ‘real life’ tests.

From the initial results it seems that the new machines are indeed faster than their predecessors, although not as fast as the ads say. True

enough, at the moment, there are not that many universal binaries out there, which will run native, in order to have a clear image of real life performance. Also it is noteworthy that while the new machines have two processors, they are 32-bit, and the G5 was 64-bit, so while it is a big step forward, it is also a big step backwards.

Compared to the previous iMac, the new Intel based one is faster, but the new model pales when compared to Dual and Quad G5 machines. This is, of course, normal, and it is for this reason that the PowerMac G5 will still see a lot of use until the new Intel based Power Mac models come out.

See the test results from MacInTouch and ArsTehnica .