# bought the new iMac



## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

*bought the new iMac (it's here!)*

Well, I just put some money down on a new 24” Al iMac. Added the 2.8GHz processor and will buy a 2GB stick of RAM from a third party. 

I wasn’t sure about the glossy screen but the windows in the room that the iMac is going into are behind the iMac, so I’m not too worried about glare.

I did a bit of poking around and found out the processor is the Core 2 Duo Extreme X7900 2.80GHz. Not too many benchmarks on the internet yet for the X7900.

I’m pretty excited. The expected delivery date is Aug. 20-24.


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## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

Congratulations on the purchase! Post photos of the beast when it arrives.


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## mojoprofilms (Nov 17, 2002)

They have one of the new iMacs on display at the Eaton Center and in there glare was no issue at all. It looked stunning. I'd get one myself, but I can't bring myself knowing that 10.5 comes out in a couple months...


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## Fen (Nov 26, 2004)

I think I'll go look at it 

I'll wait until Leopard aswell. Still tempted though.


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

*Same here*

coreLlama, I bought the same machine. Upgraded the HD to 750 GB though. The wait will be a pain but much shorter than the two years or so I've already been waiting. Picked up the free iPod also.

Thought about waiting for Leopard but figured there would be another rush and a wait. It will be faster to buy and install a copy.


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## infinity8 (Feb 19, 2006)

Since where on the topic of new purchases. I just recieved my refurbished Macbook 2.0, superdrive, and I tell you what a machine. I already own a imac and couldn't resist the great prices in the refurbished section of apple... got an extra 512mb of memory for free also.


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

bringonthenite, it's a race then!

I just saw the iPod deal now... I don't qualify anyway. I did think about waiting for 10.5 but naaaaaa...

Just saw this as well. iMac Software Update 1.0 for new iMacs. I hope this isn't fortelling anything. Out the door one day before a software updated.Apple - Support - Downloads - iMac Software Update 1.0


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

I think you'll win.  Purolator is slow to deliever here in the Maritimes.

We're heading to Boston tomorrow so of course the Apple Store will be our first stop. Can't wait to see one as they probably won't show here for a little while.

UPDATES... already.... 




coreLlama said:


> bringonthenite, it's a race then!
> 
> I just saw the iPod deal now... I don't qualify anyway. I did think about waiting for 10.5 but naaaaaa...
> 
> Just say this as well. iMac Software Update 1.0 for new iMacs. I hope this isn't fortelling anything. Out the door one day before a software updated.Apple - Support - Downloads - iMac Software Update 1.0


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## lindmar (Nov 13, 2003)

These new imacs have really got my attention..

When does the 30" come out


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## Fen (Nov 26, 2004)

I'd get a 30" iMac so fast the Apple Store cashier's head would spin.


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## teknikz (Nov 20, 2006)

bringonthenite said:


> I think you'll win.  Purolator is slow to deliever here in the Maritimes.
> 
> We're heading to Boston tomorrow so of course the Apple Store will be our first stop. Can't wait to see one as they probably won't show here for a little while.
> 
> UPDATES... already....


If you drive 1hour away to salem NH , TAX FREE !


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

teknikz said:


> If you drive 1hour away to salem NH , TAX FREE !


Yeah, I thought about it. With the education discount, free iPod and great Apple prices on Canadian iMacs I didn't really need to.

Mass is having a tax free holiday Sunday & Monday. Plan on getting a Brenthaven case for my wife's MacBook and speakers for the iMac. Any suggestions?


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## Crewser (Jun 12, 2007)

bringonthenite said:


> Yeah, I thought about it. With the education discount, free iPod and great Apple prices on Canadian iMacs I didn't really need to.
> 
> Mass is having a tax free holiday Sunday & Monday. Plan on getting a Brenthaven case for my wife's MacBook and speakers for the iMac. Any suggestions?


If you trust eBay, you can bid or buy Brenthaven cases there at substantially lower prices than any retail stores. eBay - Laptop Accessories, Apple Not sure what the warranty is like for purchases like that, but what can go wrong with a case?

Steve


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

Crewser said:


> If you trust eBay, you can bid or buy Brenthaven cases there at substantially lower prices than any retail stores. eBay - Laptop Accessories, Apple Not sure what the warranty is like for purchases like that, but what can go wrong with a case?
> 
> Steve


True. Thanks for the tip. Never thought of ebay for the case.


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

it's a little closer today... my 24" just left SHANGHAI CN.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Same here, mine just left Shanghai a few hours ago... Now I'm starting to get excited


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## Fen (Nov 26, 2004)

I just saw my second iMac 24", this time from a friend's place not the Apple Store. Sadly, while the colours appear great and blacks very deep... the damn thing is a mirror (especially with black on the display).

I really wanted one, but now I think it's not in the cards.


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## green_ears (Feb 26, 2005)

mojoprofilms said:


> They have one of the new iMacs on display at the Eaton Center and in there glare was no issue at all. It looked stunning. I'd get one myself, but I can't bring myself knowing that 10.5 comes out in a couple months...


Just got one myself: 2.8Ghz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HD, Wireless keyboard & mouse with iWork'08 and .mac preloaded. I'll get 2 more GB RAM later if required.

I was going to wait for Leopard, but since I got everything discounted thanks to my union group discount, I'd rather pay the 150$ later to get it now. :love2:


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## comprehab (May 28, 2005)

Going to purchase 24" w/ wireless KB+M but don't want to wait 3-5 weeks. I think I will head over to the Eaton Centre store tomorrow and pick one up with the wired KB+M.


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

Fen said:


> I just saw my second iMac 24", this time from a friend's place not the Apple Store. Sadly, while the colours appear great and blacks very deep... the damn thing is a mirror (especially with black on the display).
> 
> I really wanted one, but now I think it's not in the cards.


My wife and I were at an Apple store in Boston yesterday and even with all the lights we were quite pleased with what we saw with the 24 inch. Too bad you didn't like it Fen. Maybe MWSF will see another screen. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that there won't be an iPhone docked next to it like the demos.  

Our new iMac has also left China and we won't be back for delivery.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

The tracking of the new iMac changed to "delivery on August 15th", which is much earlier than the 20~24th original delivery estimate... I'm getting even more excited now


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

just checked mine as well... "delivery on August 15th"

I choose standard shipping ($0) did anyone else choose the express 3-4 days ($43?). Standard definitely isn't taking as long as they estimated.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

I chose standard shipping as well, and it's indeed quite fast. I'm not sure the expedited shipping would have brought us our iMacs much faster...

coreLlama, I think our parcels are traveling together to Ottawa  
Mine arrived in Mississauga last night, so I believe it could make it to Ottawa for tomorrow, or at least, as planned for Wednesday!


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

I also chose the free shipping. My order is still tracking for the 16th but I am hoping for a delay as we won't be arriving home till the evening of the 16th. 

No change on the location just that it left Memphis a couple of days ago.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Mine arrived at the local Fedex facility this morning, so I'm hoping they'll put it on a truck for delivery today, otherwise it will be tomorrow for sure. Getting really close now!


[EDIT] 08/14/07 09:15 am
On Fedex Vehicle For Delivery[/EDIT]
:baby: :love2:


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

ya... mine says the same thing. They must be traveling together.

Unfortunately no one is home today, so it looks like tomorrow is the day for me.
SWEEETT

Also today Bare Feats has a some benchmarks on the 2.8. Video card and gaming disapponting :yikes: but that's what my xBox 360 is for
iMac Aluminum versus Others


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

Mine arrived today also but we're in Boston.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

We have 2.4s due in Thursday :clap:- hoping the screen is a bit better than the 20".


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

Well... IT's HERE!
I'd have to say the FedEx guy is pretty legendary for service as we missed the 11am delivery but he came back at 5:30 to see if we were home. Way to go FedEx...
It's a big box... I'll write more about it tomorrow.


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

coreLlama said:


> Well... IT's HERE!
> I'd have to say the FedEx guy is pretty legendary for service as we missed the 11am delivery but he came back at 5:30 to see if we were home. Way to go FedEx...
> It's a big box... I'll write more about it tomorrow.


Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Writing my first post on my new machine too. It was there this morning around 11am, and I've been doing a few things on it already... I'm going to love it!!
It's fast, nice, sharp... Still a lot to discover and test...


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## tizerfish (Jun 8, 2002)

coreLlama said:


> Also today Bare Feats has a some benchmarks on the 2.8. Video card and gaming disapponting :yikes: but that's what my xBox 360 is for
> iMac Aluminum versus Others


only thing i could fathom is that the 2600 hd pro (HDCP compatible) was cheaper for apple. the 7600GT HDCP version would have worked just like the 2600 HD pro but would have actually been better both are aprox. the same temperature (7600gt HDCP runs a bit hotter) even the same size,


i guess it just seems apple looked for the coolest cheapest product it could fit in the new slimmer case that wouldn't be an integrated :lmao:


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

*thoughts*

Well, I’ve used the 2.8GHz 24” iMac for a couple of hours. So here’s my thoughts.

Great screen. It really makes the 20” iMac look small. The colours are good, although I haven’t calibrated it with my MonacoOPTIX yet. Didn’t notice too much colour shifting at angles. No issues in my room with regard to glair. Although when the screen is off it really does look like a mirror.

Much faster than my G5 iMac. The G5 2.0GHz scored an 72 using Xbench and the Intel 2.8GHz scored 160. When I added an extra 2GB stick of RAM and did Xbench again the results changed only by .5. So I’ll look into that later.

Love the Al keyboard. I think it’s the best keyboard I’ve used yet. I’ve always like laptop keyboards so this new fits me nicely. It feels very solid. If you don’t like the F1, F2 etc. being brightness, volume etc. by default it’s just a check box away from changing back.

RAM was very easy to install. One screw, pull the plastic tab, insert the RAM and screw back together.

Haven’t used anything that would push the video card yet.

Yes, I miss the sleep light. It was a visual signal that my Mac was on and sleeping. I'll probably hook my PowerMate back up so it will glow when sleeping.

Tonight I’ll be using the migration assistant to move things over.
So far I’m really liking the new iMac. :clap:


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

coreLlama said:


> the Intel 2.8GHz scored 160. When I added an extra 2GB stick of RAM and did Xbench again the results changed only by .5.


I'd like to compare scores, as my Xbench score was 120 (compared to 50 on myt G4 MDD, so I really feel the difference ). I had poor scores in the last section of the test (I think it was random hard drive tests). Maybe I should rerun it.

One thing I tested and I'm liking a lot is Fusion 1.0 running XP from a newly created 32Gb Bootcamp partition. Everything is supported, and the iSight quality is awesome. At least, Live Messenger is somewhat supported on a Mac  
The speed of this "integrated virtual PC" is really good too.

I haven't been impressed so far with Halo (just downloaded the UB version) and X-Plane, but I guess I need to find the right setting for this machine and (somewhat poor) graphic card.

I hooked it to a second screen too, with the same vertical resolution (1200) so it's making a huge wide desktop. I need to calibrate booth screen though to get them to be as similar as possible. It also gives me the best of both world with one glossy and one mat screen.

I have a few pictures of the unboxing / setup posted on flickr:
iMac 24 - a photoset on Flickr


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

bringonthenite said:


> Mine arrived today also but we're in Boston.


yours is probably knocking at the door, but no one is home... I think it feels rejected


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

harzack86 said:


> I'd like to compare scores, as my Xbench score was 120


ya I'll post my results later tonight. I ran mine a couple of times after the Software Updates were done.



harzack86 said:


> 120One thing I tested and I'm liking a lot is Fusion 1.0 running XP from a newly created 32Gb Bootcamp partition


I haven't tried any of the XP stuff on a Mac yet but I will when I have the Mac setup properly. Thanks for the Fusion tip.


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## coreLlama (Aug 5, 2005)

Here's my Xbench results

Results	160.02	
System Info 
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.4.10 (8R4031)
Physical RAM 1024 MB
Model iMac7,1
Drive Type WDC WD3200AAJS-40RYA0
CPU Test	141.79	
GCD Loop	330.26	17.41 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic	158.88	3.77 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT	108.41	3.58 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library	103.46	18.02 Mops/sec
Thread Test	280.55	
Computation	254.38	5.15 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention	312.73	13.45 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test	144.56	
System	161.26	
Allocate	160.55	589.61 Kalloc/sec
Fill	158.02	7683.14 MB/sec
Copy	165.38	3415.81 MB/sec
Stream	131.00	
Copy	122.75	2535.42 MB/sec
Scale	128.28	2650.32 MB/sec
Add	137.22	2923.07 MB/sec
Triad	136.88	2928.26 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test	188.28	
Line	175.73	11.70 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle	217.06	64.80 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle	206.06	16.80 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier	190.91	4.82 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text	162.13	10.14 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test	155.97	
Spinning Squares	155.97	197.86 frames/sec
User Interface Test	486.60	
Elements	486.60	2.23 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test	80.44	
Sequential	122.38	
Uncached Write	136.52	83.82 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	124.47	70.42 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	93.53	27.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	150.76	75.77 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random	59.91	
Uncached Write	23.93	2.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	147.90	47.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	87.38	0.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	147.55	27.38 MB/sec [256K blocks]


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Here is mine:

Quite similar overall, and the difference is indeed with the hard drive: I had mine changed for a 750Gb, which apparently is a Seagate, and the random tests are really poor. The rest is really similar. I may run a few more tests to see if it's consistent.

Results	120.62	
System Info 
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.4.10 (8R4031)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model iMac7,1
Drive Type ST3750640AS Q
CPU Test	143.42	
GCD Loop	327.80	17.28 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic	156.85	3.73 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT	113.89	3.76 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library	103.27	17.98 Mops/sec
Thread Test	275.52	
Computation	251.75	5.10 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention	304.24	13.09 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test	156.09	
System	150.62	
Allocate	145.61	534.73 Kalloc/sec
Fill	151.37	7359.93 MB/sec
Copy	155.19	3205.48 MB/sec
Stream	161.97	
Copy	151.03	3119.53 MB/sec
Scale	155.92	3221.28 MB/sec
Add	171.24	3647.68 MB/sec
Triad	171.79	3675.05 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test	187.73	
Line	174.99	11.65 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle	219.85	65.64 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle	206.78	16.86 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier	188.10	4.74 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text	160.81	10.06 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test	154.86	
Spinning Squares	154.86	196.44 frames/sec
User Interface Test	482.06	
Elements	482.06	2.21 Krefresh/sec
Disk Test	36.81	
Sequential	110.16	
Uncached Write	115.97	71.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	105.76	59.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	87.80	25.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	146.16	73.46 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random	22.10	
Uncached Write	6.54	0.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write	97.20	31.12 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read	91.16	0.65 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read	144.45	26.80 MB/sec [256K blocks]


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## West Coast Boy (Sep 3, 2004)

My wife ordered a 2.4 GHz 20" to replace an old HP Pavillion running Win98 at her office, it arrived last night and I spent about 3 hrs setting it up and transfering files for her. Man that thing is a beautiful machine, found the keyboard took a little getting used to but thought it was a great.

BTW, also managed to get her HP LaserJet 1018 working on it just fine using foo2zjs setup.


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## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

West Coast Boy said:


> My wife ordered a 2.4 GHz 20" to replace an old HP Pavillion running Win98 at her office, it arrived last night and I spent about 3 hrs setting it up and transfering files for her. Man that thing is a beautiful machine, found the keyboard took a little getting used to but thought it was a great.
> 
> BTW, also managed to get her HP LaserJet 1018 working on it just fine using foo2zjs setup.


I just ordered one yesterday. How long did it take to arrive after it shipped and who sent it?


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

Mine was ordered the day of the announcement (7th) shipped from Shanghai on August 10th, and it arrived on August 14th with Fedex, just one week after the order.
I was quite impressed, as this was 6 to 10 days ahead of the initial schedule (shipping between 10 and 14th, and delivery between 20 and 24th).


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## psxp (May 23, 2006)

mojoprofilms said:


> They have one of the new iMacs on display at the Eaton Center and in there glare was no issue at all. It looked stunning. I'd get one myself, but I can't bring myself knowing that 10.5 comes out in a couple months...


I Saw them at the Sherway.. Major glare. Yikes! but in your house I gues you have control on the lighting etc so should not be a big issue?


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## West Coast Boy (Sep 3, 2004)

Vandave said:


> I just ordered one yesterday. How long did it take to arrive after it shipped and who sent it?


She ordered it last Friday (express shipping), it left Shanghai on Monday via Fed Ex (with stops in Anchorage, and Memphis before making its way to Vancouver) and Arrived Wednesday Afternoon.


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## bringonthenite (Aug 7, 2007)

Vandave said:


> I just ordered one yesterday. How long did it take to arrive after it shipped and who sent it?


I ordered mine on the 8th. It actually arrived before the iPod did! (20 min) .


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