CULT OF MAC5 Hours Ago

Retina iMacs are "incredibly likely" to appear at next Apple event

by Buster Hein

Buster Hein (8:03 am PDT, Sep 29th)

Apple’s desktop beast is the last machine that hasn’t gone Retina, and while the rumor has been claiming Apple’s ready to launch the first ever Retina iMac for year, a new report from Jack Marsh claims the wait is almost over, as Apple is “incredibly likely” to announce its new Retina iMac at next month’s event.

A source familiar with Apple’s plans tells me that Apple is indeed planning to launch a Retina iMac at their next press event, however the 27″ Model will be the only model that gets this feature. The source says the new 27″ iMac will use a 5120 x 2880 panel as leaked in the OSX Yosemite code a few months ago.”

The 5120 x 2880 resolution matches up withprevious supply chain leaks and would be double the current resolution of the 27-inch iMac. The report also claims that the design of the iMac won’t change at all, and it also won’t get reversible USB Type-C yet. Basically, all that’s new is the display and the processor.

For the processor, the iMac will supposedly stick with Intel’s Haswell processors for now, and will use the new Intel i7-4790k configuration with a base clock speed of 4.0GHz, rather than using the new Broadwell CPU’s which will “likely be added in an update next yet.” Intel’s already stated that the more powerful and energy efficient Broadwell processors won’t be available in wide supply until 2015.

Marsh’s report also claims that the AMD graphics will be used on the new iMacs instead of the Nvidia GPUs currently in the iMac lineup with a secondary report from9to5Mac adds that the new machines will also pick up improved WiFi antennas. Apple is rumored to have an event planned for October 21st where its expected to unveil a new iPad Air and a new Mac mini to go with the Retina iMac update.