Why iMacs Will NOT Be Updated Before 2009

The buzz was ignited by Apple spokesman Bill Evans who told Macworld: “Our holiday line-up is set”. In summary, do not expect new products before the next MacWorld in January in San Francisco. If this was expected for the Mac Pro, as Intel did not release any Xeon Nehalem yet, many Mac-dedicated websites were expecting to get the current iMac models updated.
However, when thinking twice, and looking at the current and future hardware evolutions and mobile architectures, it perfectly makes sense of NOT updating now the iMacs. Yes, Apple could install the same NVidia chipset used in new MacBook models. However, it would not be interesting performance wise, despite bringing NVidia 9600 GT GPU in our iMac. Indeed, the current Centrino architecture in our iMac does not require as a desktop to be improved for offering enhanced power management.
Below are some reasons why apple will wait longer before updating the iMac:
- As the iMac is a desktop no need to improve power consumption as for the MacBooks
- The GeForce 9400M, while being faster than the Intel GMA, would not be able to compete with the current entry level Radeon offered in our iMac.
- Having 2 GPUs does not offer a real interest in a desktop computer for the time being; and if you plan to use GPGPU in the future you better wait for more powerful GPU-based hardware.
- Intel did not released Penryn CPUs with much higher clock speed.
In summary, if Apple would release new iMacs based on the architecture being used in new MacBook Pro models, it would not be faster performance wise, and might even be more expensive as current DDR3 modules while having larger bandwidth have poorer latency.