Neil Hughes
Apple's big-screen iMac will get a doubled-resolution Retina display with a forthcoming update expected to be unveiled at the company's anticipated October media event, a new report claims.
Citing an unnamed source, Jack March reported on Monday that only the 27-inch iMac will be upgraded to a Retina display, leaving out the smaller 21.5-inch all-in-one desktop. The 27-inch model is said to have a 5K screen resolution of 5,120 by 2,880 pixels, which is exactly double the current resolution of 2,560 by 1,440.
The report also claims that the new iMac will be able to be configured with an Intel i7-4790K processor clocked at 4.0 gigahertz. That's a current-generation Haswell processor, as Intel's next-generation Broadwell processors are not expected to be available until early 2015.
The 5K screen is said to be powered by AMD graphics, which would be a switch from the Nvidia GPUs found in current iMac models.
As for the 21.5-inch iMac, Monday's report suggested that Apple might bring a Retina display to the smaller model once Intel's Broadwell chips become available.
Apple's first Mac with a Retina display was the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which debuted in mid-2012. A 13-inch version debuted later that year, in the fall.
The report is the latest to claim that Apple has slotted an updated 27-inch iMac for launch this fall. Signs of a potential Retina display iMac were first spotted in June in Apple's beta release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
Apple is widely expected to be planning a media event in October where the company would presumably introduce the new iMac with Retina display, as well as next-generation iPads expected to sport Touch ID fingerprint sensors. The company is also said to be working on a new MacBook Air with Retina display, as well as a revamped Apple TV, but recent rumors have suggested those refreshes might not arrive until 2015.
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102 Comments
I was just about to build a hackintosh with the same CPU but I guess I'm going to put that on hold for now. iMac retina sounds like a pretty nice deal.
Finally! My over 3 year old imac is on its last legs after falling off the desk and a half inch strip down the side of the display not working and a backlight out, hard drive chugging like its about to fail, but still trudging through with these rumors :)
But how much would such a machine cost? 27 inches of retina sounds prohibitively expensive, and I would want to max out the internals (CPU, RAM) to give it as long a life as possible...
That being said, I don't care about on-board storage (500GB flash would be fine), as much of my media is stored in iTunes in the Cloud.
I am very interested in this product. Having used a Macbook Pro retina for the last few years though, I have grown to like the 16:10 display, and wish the iMac would have a squarer display. But despite that, a Retina iMac would be irresistible anyway. Also wondering if the same event might unveil an iPad Plus.
After what has been done with Maxwell and the goodness of power efficiency, Apple go back to dinosaurs AMD again? This is the most anti-logic decision ever made in the history of tech.