I think this is serious enough cooling. It sure beats having to waterproof everything when I used to freeze em to -35 c.
Posted on 11/24/2009 9:03:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
A number of complaints are swirling around the Internet today about issues with Apple's new Core i7-based iMacs -- among them, reports of units showing up dead on arrival or even with cracked screens.
New iMac users are reporting that their unit chimes as it should when the power button is pressed, but the display is blank and nothing else happens. Adding insult to injury, these customers are discovering that after returning their dead units, they face a lengthy wait of up to two weeks for a replacement.
Apple's discussion support forum is filling up with such complaints according to AppleInsider, and tech blog Engadget also received a quad-core unit that failed to boot straight out of the box.
The Core i7 iMac is the new top-of-the-line desktop Mac, a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 860 processor available only as a $200 build-to-order option on the new 27" model. As such, it's an online-only item that can't be purchased in retail stores, making any returns or exchanges particularly thorny.
In addition to the DOA boxes, scattered reports claim that there are cracks in the new iMac display, in the bottom left-hand corner. Those customers are reporting that the units arrived in such condition right out of the box, and are pointing the finger at Apple for having a flaw in their package design.
"There's no apparent damage to the styrofoam or box so it looks like that's a weak spot in the screen and how they are being packed in the boxes," user 'scopro' reports via AppleInsider. "Hopefully Apple will improve their packaging for these larger iMacs as it may take until December 7 for my replacement to arrive."
(Excerpt) Read more at maclife.com ...
I think this is serious enough cooling. It sure beats having to waterproof everything when I used to freeze em to -35 c.
| Qty. | Item | Your Cost | My Cost | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gigabyte X58-UD4P Mother Board | $ 259.95 | $ 257.25 | $ 2.70 |
| 1 | Yours: i7-920 2.66 Intel Quad Core Processor Mine: i7-975 3.06 GHz Intel Quad Core Processor |
288.99 | 574.99 | 286.00 |
| 3 | Yours: OCZ Platinum 3 X 2 GB Triple Channel DDR3 RAM (6GB) Mine: Crucial 3 X 2 GB Triple Channel DDR3 SDRAM (6GB) |
94.99 | 230.00 | 135.01 |
| 2 | ATI 4890 Radeon HD Graphic Cards | 519.98 | 420.00 | 99.98 |
| 2 | 1 TB WD Hard Drives | 209.98 | 220.00 | 9.98 |
| 1 | 500MB WD Hard Drives | 0.00 | 57.00 | 57.00 |
| 1 | LG BluRay Lightscribe DVD burner | 109.99 | 90.00 | 19.99 |
| 1 | HD TV tuner | 95.99 | 88.00 | 7.99 |
| 1 | ASUS 25.5" 1920 x 1200 LCD Monitor | 349.99 | 330.00 | 19.99 |
| 1 | Yours: Cosmos 1000 Case Mine: Cosmos 1000 Case with four fans |
189.99 | 199.00 | 9.01 |
| 1 | Cosmos 1000 Case window | 29.99 | 49.00 | 19.01 |
| 3 | SILVERSTONE FM123 120mm Case Fan | 50.97 | 0.00 | 50.97 |
| 1 | Mushkin 800W Power Supply | 139.99 | 135.00 | 4.99 |
| 1 | Wifi card for Desk top | 0.00 | 20.00 | 20.00 |
| 1 | Firewire 400/800 card | 0.00 | 54.00 | 54.00 |
| 1 | Bluetooth card for desk top | 0.00 | 20.00 | 20.00 |
| 1 | Webcam | 0.00 | 20.00 | 20.00 |
| 1 | Wireless Keyboard and Mouse | 0.00 | 40.00 | 40.00 |
| 1 | Yours: Windows 7 Beta Mine: Windows Vista Ult or XP Pro 64 bit OEM |
FREE | 140.00 | 140.00 |
| TOTAL | 2,340.79 | $ 2,944.98 | $ 604.19 |
Some things I found were less expensive... but some were more expensive. Those were because I assumed you started with a faster i7, and, matching the specs of the iMac, I used much higher quality memory than your no-name memory, opting instead for top of the line Crucial made RAM.
If we replace those with current priced versions of the same stuff you used, (surprisingly your OCZ memory is 50% HIGHER now!) we find that the pricing is $2577.97 including an OS, and the additional IO to meet iMac specs which total $294.00 extra on a PC... not including a suite of integrated software. Subtract that out, and the total six months later is $2,383.97.
That's only $43.18! So, CaboJoe, yeah, you did damn good... but it still ain't as good as an out of the box iMac. ;^)>
But I think you proved Itsahoot's point... that a close to equivalent PC is not 1/4 the price of a Mac. Remmeber, what Mysterio claimed was that the Apple 27" iMac cost four times as much to which Itsahoot replied:
"Show me any PC with specs anywhere close to the Core i7 iMac for the same price, let alone one for $600.00 and I will eat my new mouse."What you very ably demonstrated is that it takes pretty much equal money to make a pretty much competitive computer... if you ignore form factor, esthetics, monitor quality, warranties, support, software, and a host of other engineering considerations. While your homebrew machine may exceed the 27" iMac's specs in some areas, it fails miserably to meet the specifications in areas such as having capabilities such as Firewire, WIFI, BlueTooth, wireless keyboards and mouses, built-in webcam, microphone, Integrated Software suite, available hardware and software support, integrated hardware and software warranties, product liability assurances, etc.
I have firewire. I also smoke performance wise. Are you going to add in eSATA for the iMac? “Show me any PC with specs anywhere close to the Core i7 iMac for the same price, let alone one for $600.00 and I will eat my new mouse.” I did that. Quit twisting and turning. I’m here to watch a guy on the internet eat his mouse. Now.
Are you calling OCZ memory no name memory??? What planet are you from?
Why so you do. I missed that. I stand corrected. Deduct $54 from the difference.
One that works in professional circles, not in gamer or over-clocker circles.
A bluetooth dongle is 15 bucks. Wireless keyboard and wireless MX Revolution mouse were already here from previous builds. Available hardware and software support? That's for "amateurs" that need their hands held. I am my own support staff. Wifi is on my router, serving my phones, laptops, and pmp's...you know, portable stuff. My monitor is unbroken and doesn't flicker. And it doesn't run on a (mobile?)4850...lol.
I don't understand what you are doing with your price list either. What I posted is what I paid. My total is 2500. What did the iMac cost with shipping and CA tax?
And who made you the judge? That's like having the fox guard the fracken hen house. You are about as impartial as Barney Frank at a gay pride festival.
What I have been working to hear you say is that this mid range iMac with a hobbled dual channel i7 is better than a Mac Pro, or better than a PC more powerful than a Mac Pro. I figured that would make my day. And that's what you just did. Amazing. Thanks for playing.
Optical audio out? Yes. "Optical digital audio output" Has been for years. On sound? You seem to forget that Apple and Macs are the choice for professionals in video and audio mixing. It has all of that. Didn't you read that Wired Magazine stated that the 27" iMac supports over clocking to 4.0GHz??? Apple itself officially supports it to 3.46 Ghz.
USB ports? How many do you need built in? Why have a dedicated HDMI port? The Mini Display port supports it and is now an official standard port. The Mini Display port to HDMI cable sells for about the same as a good quality HDMI cable... so what's the point? The triple Channel DDR3 at 1600 is supported on the Mac Pros as are even faster and more powerful professional grade Xeon processors than the consumer grade i7s. PCIe slots. Had them for years on the Mac Pro.
Is your PC have all of its components inside an Aircraft Grade Aluminum machined uniblock Monitor sized case? Does it operate virtually silently? Does it take up minimal desk top space? Minimal cabling? No. Then it doesn't meet the challenge of meeting the specs.
And it doesn't run on a (mobile?) 4850...lol.
That ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory simultaneously supports the built-in 27" at 2560 by 1440 pixels and an external 30" at 2560 by 1600 pixel both with 16.7 million colors. It can easily handle the 1GB per second of video data flow demand and buffering that the two monitors require. That's more than adequate when combined with Apple's Core Graphics, Core Image, and Core Animations technologies.
My monitor is unbroken and doesn't flicker
The broken monitors and the flickering is being reported on a small number of shipped 27" iMacs. the vast majority are being delivered without incident or problem. The flicker is probably related to defective components considering the very small number of reports ... and the cracked screens most likely to mishandling given Apple's almost anal dedication to packaging design and testing. Those are problems that appear in almost any new product roll out and will be handled as Apple is handling them: replace the broken ones, and update/fix the issue with the flickering under warranty. WE could bring up the math errors in the Intel 286 processors of a couple of decades ago... remember those? What's an numerical error a few places to the right of the decimal point among friends?
The iMac's and your PC's Sales tax in California is irrelevant to the cost comparison. . . omit it from both. . . and the iMac's shipping is always free.
It is YOU who is claiming, against evidence, that an Intel i7 is a better processor than an Intel Xeon processor in the Mac Pro. Not me. It's you who tried to claim that virtual cores were the same as actual cores. You keep trying. I have not said that. Intel would disagree with you. There is a reason Intel differentiate their i7 and Xeon brands and charges more for the Xeon. There's a reason why the Xeon's use more expensive Buffered, error correcting RAM. The i7 is a intended to be a consumer grade DESKTOP processor. The Xeon is a professional grade, workstation class processor...
Just exactly what do you use your speed demon PC for, Joe? Gaming?
Intel claims six channels multiplexed for the Gainestown. It’s not in the extra QPI, but it’s part of the multi-processor setup related to the extra QPI.
Where do you get that? My two year-old iMac still has the best screen I've used.
That’s a pretty nice setup. Now, if you were a freelance computer tech, how much would you charge per hour? How many extra hours did it take for you to set all that up, including the overclocking? How much money is that?
I have simply grown beyond the phase where I want to put any of my time into messing with computers. Remember, I come from the days where you penciled-in connects between L1 contacts and set jumpers on the mobo in order to overclock. Now I just want to buy a good computer that I can turn on and it just works for a long time. That’s my Mac.
I know I’m getting nitpicky here, but is it 6-pin powered FireWire? FireWire 800?
People not used to Macs tend to miss those things, since they aren’t often used in the PC world.
That memory is actually pretty high quality, as it must have the ability to overclock without losing stability.
However, we are talking two completely different markets here — the general/professional market and the enthusiast overclocker market.
Think of it like cars. Yes, you can have the guy with a Dodge Neon who has tweaked it all out to be very fast, and it is. But it’s still a Dodge Neon.
It carries audio. The equivalent on the Mac is a third-party cable that plugs into the Display Port and the audio out (or USB) and ends in an HDMI plug for the TV. It's the kind of hack you wouldn't expect to have to do on a Mac. If my Mac were plugged into my TV it would also be plugged into the stereo for the audio, so HDMI audio would be useless for me. Horses for courses.
Of course, I don't know anyone who even makes a 1600p TV yet, which is the equivalent resolution to 27" iMac. The reason for HDMI on a monitor these days is more for you to be able to plug your game console or DVR to your monitor and use it as a small TV. But you won't find a TV sold as a TV with 1600p that you can plug your computer into. That's probably because no TV is broadcast 1600p, no videos are delivered 1600p and no game consoles support 1600p. You won't get the equivalent picture on a TV that you do on a monitor until 1600p content becomes available.
You have always been one of the nicer militant apple guys. Sorry I got harsh with you. Just don’t call me names and we are cool. Yeah I remember the pencil tricks and golden fingers.
Probably because I'm a long-time PC user who relatively recently switched to Mac for my personal use, plus I still use Windows a lot in work. Still, 99.9% of my frustration comes from the PCs, and even did when I was a Mac newbie. It was easier to learn OS X than to keep dealing with Windows (which I've been using since the version 2).
Basically, there has to be an immediate or potential monetary return for me to deal with a PC anymore, unless a family member is begging me for help and I'm in a generous mood.
Otherwise I'm sticking with my Mac. The platform won me over on its merits with quality and attention to detail.
To hit on the cooling subject again, it looks like the iMac's heat could be causing the screens to turn yellow, adding to the problems of flickering and blacking out screens. I think there is going to be a quiet recall. There's lots of video on YouTube now of the problems.
Let’s see if I have this about right. You ordered a bunch of parts and a case. You got some tools and took some time installing everything and plugging it together. Then you installed Windows, installed all the drivers, and checked that everything is working as expected.
Then you installed AV, etc., until it was at a base level you liked. You got it on the network, downloaded and installed the updates.
Then you rebooted and played with the timings until you got your desired overclock, went into Windows and made sure everything was still stable.
Do I have that somewhat right?
After I got my iMac out of the box, I plugged in the power cable, plugged the keyboard into the iMac, plugged the mouse into the keyboard. I turned it on, put in my username and password. My wireless doesn’t broadcast SSID or do DHCP, so I went to the network preferences, typed in the SSID and a password, gave it an IP and I was online (notice nothing about selecting encryption standard or MTU, that was automatic). It would have been “Pick a network and type a password” if I broadcast SSID and used DHCP.
It was less than five minutes between it being out of the box and me happily using my computer.
Now do you see the difference?
I have also flawlessly done an in-place upgrade of the OS twice since then. You never do that with Windows.
The difference is freedom. Do it my way. Whatever quality components I want. Screaming fast. Kicks major Apple butt. Doesn’t look gay. Worth the effort. See the difference? Plus, I don’t sit around all night advertising for Apple on FR’s dime, which is all certain people use their overpriced Corsair slow ass ram for. And for the record, those people that feel the need to allude to being professionals, on the internet, usually aren’t.
“...your compulsion to invade Mac threads to tell everyone how stupid they are.”
Puhleeeez! If that’s not the pot callin’ the kettle black...
Or a grand case of projection.
Believe me, 99% of the time it’s Macult members castigating the PC users for daring to give their money to someone other than their savior: Steve Jobs.
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