Introduction

Apple 17" iMac Core Duo

Manufacturer: Apple (product page)

Price: US$1,299 (shop for this item)

The Big Switch has been publicly underway for a mere seven months, and it has borne fruit in the form of a new iMac and laptop, the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro is due to hit store shelves at some point in February. The iMac is available now, and we've had a 17" Core Duo iMac up and running at the Ars Orbiting HQ since we were able to get our hands on one.

Tech specs

Externally, the iMac appears identical to its PowerPC predecessor. There's the small camera above the display, the same array of ports in back, and the same white keyboard and Mighty Mouse. It's the inside that's different. Instead of the venerable PowerPC 970 CPU, there's the latest from Intel: the Core Duo T2400.

The Core Duo is the second 65nm CPU from Intel (the first being the 65nm version of Presler), but the first to be widely available. Unlike the transition from 130nm to 90nm, which was the source of nightmares for engineers at both IBM and Intel, the move to 65nm appears to have gone nearly flawlessly for Intel. As a result, Apple was able to speed its transition from IBM to Intel as its primary CPU supplier to just under seven months from the announcement, and according to Jobs, the transition across the entire Apple product line will be completed by the end of 2006.

The Core Duo T2400

At the heart of the new iMac is the Intel Core Duo T2400 (or T2500 in the case of 20", 2.0GHz iMac). As mentioned previously, the T2400 is a 65nm part. It is rated at 1.83GHz, and because I like my warranties, I'm not about to see how fast I can get it to run. By the way, in the Intel processor branding system, the "2" after the T indicates a dual-core CPU. The Core Solo that will presumably be used in the iBook and Mac mini will use a T1xxx designation.



Yep. Intel Inside

The Core Duo T2400 employs Intel's Smart Cache with its Advanced Transfer Cache Architecture. What it amounts to is 2MB of L2 cache shared across both cores of the CPU. It also has Intel's SpeedStep technology, which ramps down the processor speed in order to save power. That's not going to be terribly important for the iMac, but the MacBook Pro should be able to take good advantage of the technology.

FSB-wise, the Core Duo line is respectable: it's a 667MHz, bidirectional bus. As is typical for Intel, the memory controller sits out on the chipset's northbridge. This is not as efficient as current-generation dual-core Athlons, which have their memory controller integrated into the CPU. However, for a platform that has relied on the bandwidth-choked PowerPC 7400-series for so long, the Core Duo is a breath of fresh air.

Rumor has it that the iMac Core Duo uses a custom chipset designed by Intel. From looking at pictures of the chips, we were able to do some deduction from the chip numbers. The northbridge chip looks to be an 82945GM, which identifies it as the Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipset. According to the S-Spec number (SL8Z2), it's a standard Intel chipset and therefore not an Apple-specific variant. The southbridge appears to be an ICH7-M, which has support for a Trusted Computing module.

Graphics

Apple has gone with ATI for the new iMac, and like its G5 predecessor, it uses a 16x PCI-Express interface. The Core Duo iMac sports an ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB of GDDR3 RAM. The X1600 is ATI's middle-of-the-road card, featuring the RV530 GPU, fabbed at 90nm. It has 12 pixel shader processors and five vertex shader processors, and should provide decent 3D performance once universal binary games start to appear.

The 1.83GHz iMac sports a 17" LCD with a resolution of 1440x900, same as its predecessor. Unlike previous iMacs, you are not limited to mirroring if you hook up an external monitor. Using a mini-DVI connector (not included), you can hook an external monitor up and use an extended desktop. You'll be able to run a 23" LCD at 1920x1200, or a CRT (yuck) with an analog adaptor at 2045x1536.

The only other significant hardware change (aside from the whole Intel thing) is the use of PC2-5300 DDR2 instead of PC2-4200 DDR2 for the system RAM.

Complete tech specs:

Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz 2MB L2 cache 667MHz FSB

512MB PC2-5300 DDR2 (2 slots, 2GB max)

160GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive

8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Connectivity 10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet Built-in 802.11g Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR

17" LCD @ 1440x900, supports extended desktop via mini-DVI connector (140º horizontal viewing angle), Brightness: 250 cd/m Contrast ratio: 500:1

ATI Radeon X1600 video card, PCI-Express (128MB)

Built-in iSight camera

Apple Pro USB keyboard with 2 USB 1.1 ports

Apple Mighty Mouse

Apple Remote

Size: 16.9" x 16.8" x 6.8"

Weight: 15.5lb

Ports 2 Firewire 400 3 USB 2.0 2 USB 1.1 (keyboard)

Audio Built-in stereo speakers Internal 12-watt digital amplifier Headphone/optical digital audio out Audio line input Built-in microphone

Software included Mac OS X 10.4.4 iLife '06 (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, iWeb) Front Row Photo Booth



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