Apple Insider has scored some new and rather exciting information pertaining to product announcements at the upcoming Macworld. The insider information comes from an Nvidia insider claiming Nvidia based iMacs are coming to Macworld, as well as a 28″ model. On top of that, the insider also leaks that the newer Intel core i7 chips could become part of Apple’s lineup much sooner than expected! Click though to get a ton of information regarding Macworld!
Accounts from Ryan Shrout (PC Perspective) claim Apple will be showing us at least four new iMac models using Nvidia’s new 9400M chipset. Even more interesting is the claim of a 28″ iMac being released! Two of the iMacs will be 20″ models with the higher end 20″ using the 9600M; the same card used in the 15″ MacBook Pro. There would also be two 24″ iMacs using the 9600M as the base card and moving up to the faster 9800M for the higher end model. Again, the claims of this source reveal that a 28″ is possible. It gets even more interesting when Ryan says that the 28″ iMac won’t use the 9400M chipset but instead the newer X58 chipset and a processor from Intel’s new core i7 (aka Nehalem) architecture. Because of the way the Core i7 is designed it would not just be a simple 4-core chip. It is also rumored that this chip will have Hyper Threading support making the 4-core i7 act and perform more like an 8-core I sure hope this materializes as a 28″ would make my choice between a much more expensive Mac Pro and an iMac much easier.
These updates are slated to spread throughout Apple’s entire line up eventually. In the now, the Mac Mini is supposedly slated to get updated to the MCP79 chipset, though it will be slower than that of the MacBook and MacBook Pro models which also use the same chipset but faster than the MacBook Air.
The Mac Pro, Apple’s Big Kahuna, will also see Core i7 upgrades early this year, however instead of using the more consumer oriented parts will rely on the Core i7-based Xeon processors. Again, my choice between a Mac Pro and high end iMac gets much closer if the 28″ iMac materializes. The differences between the two systems would be very small. The Mac Pro having a beefier graphics card such as a variant of Nvidia’s GT200 series graphics cards would be the only big advantage. Now if you’re in the market for the bigger iMac or update Mac Pro don’t get your wallet ready just quite yet as those two models could see release dates pushed into February while the more minor updated Mac Mini and smaller iMacs would see release dates closer to Macworld.
Again, all of this mouth watering information is merely speculation and rumors. The real deal will be known in just two short days. Only then will we know the credibility of the source. Until then try to contain yourselves!
Source: Apple Insider
