Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part V

Even in the video where the Mac Pro is traditionally at home, Westmere processors marking time: we find the fine balance between the raw frequency and the number of cores, which directly determines the performance for different applications. Handrake, for example, recognizes only core logic: this iMac is fighting against is with four cores to eight cores Westmere Mac Pro to € 3 400. But Handbrake does not take advantage of all the subtleties of Xeon processors, while the raw frequency is a key element of its operation: the iMac, with half of a good heart but more than the gigahertz Mac Pro, dominates with insolence. He can deal with anything against the twelve core Mac Pro to € 8 300: the frequency difference is less important than offset by the use of three times as many hearts.

The very marked differences in the Photoshop tests confirm the very different profiles of these machines. The DHT test uses a lot of old filters, so that the differences are erased in excess of five hearts (real and virtual) so the iMac is the hand with its higher frequency. The RAT test, it is much more realistic and simulates the touch of a photo with the latest filters: Although Photoshop performance peaked with massively multi-core configurations, the Mac Pro are Westmere at this time.

A beautiful iMac € 2 700 can be put in the closet of Mac Pro much more expensive? In most areas, yes, and widely: it shows, once again, the effectiveness of the Sandy Bridge Intel platform. The self in need of power will therefore turn to the iMac, which is not only the most powerful iMac ever made by Apple, but Mac is also one of the most powerful of the current range. The difference between these two lines is therefore not about raw power, but the concept: the iMac is an all-in-one, unlike the Mac Pro, which is still relevant for its scalability, ensuring a sustainability specific to dampen investment, therefore that represent the largest configurations. It also remains the machine of choice for certain niches, here for its computational capabilities, there to him the possibility of adding expansion cards. Still, the iMac is more than ever like the computer to do everything from Apple.

Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part IV

It is indeed one of the great surprises of this model: despite the powerful processor and the summer climate of the test period, the temperature of the iMac Sandy Bridge has remained surprisingly low levels. Most of the time, CPU temperature stays around 30 to 35 °: the ventilation system is effective and extraction points at the top of the screen and behind the foot, once hot, now warm. When exporting Aperture, the temperature rises to 48 °. A video encoding where the four cores are at 100% for 25 minutes? 55 °. The fans always keep the composure of the machine without a voice, a sharp contrast to the previous generation and some MacBook Pro Sandy Bridge.

This discretion only to mask the raw performance of the iMac Core i7: they reach or exceed those of most of the range Mac Pro. This is not the first time we see the top of the range iMac rival the Mac Pro or exceed, but it's the first time that the difference is so great and strong.

The distinction is clear: the common tasks, the iMac Core i7 overwrite the entire Mac Pro. It drives not only its direct rival, the Westmere Mac Pro 2.4 GHz or eight cores (€ 3,400), but offers the luxury of making lousy Westmere Mac Pro 2.93 GHz twelve hearts, a machine ... € 8 300! We cannot even say it's SSD benefit: the twelve core Mac Pro was tested with excellent Toshiba 512 GB SSD So Sandy Bridge architecture that works wonders on the cuts in the Finder or the export Garage Band or Aperture. Match almost zero on the export music with XLD.

A test like Cinebench shows that Westmere Mac Pro keeps the advantage in raw power; the iMac is above the Nehalem Mac Pro. The entire iMac line is better than the Mac Pro graphics side, a habit now.

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Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part III

Intel also provides the chipset of the iMac, a Z68 Series 6, replacing the P67 which had experienced numerous problems in the launch of the platform Sandy Bridge (SATA performance degradation). This chipset manages Smart Response, a new technology to use a SSD (up to 64 GB) as a cache for the hard drive, like the hybrid discs as the Seagate Momentus XT. Apple does not use this function: the SSD and hard drive of the iMac appear as two completely separate volumes. They are both connected to SATA III, allowing them to express themselves to their full potential.

The potential for the SSD is 240 Mb / s maximum throughput of 160 Mb / s of average flow. It's good but not dazzling, especially the hard drive of 1TB provided by Apple (a Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM SATA III and 32 MB cache) is doing very well. The high density of its platters, SATA III interface and 32 MB cache allow it to reach speeds of around 120 Mb / s, with a fine linearity over large files.

Overall more efficient, the SSD, arranged in housing behind the SuperDrive, takes advantage of two areas: its access time and noise level. Fast, fast, fast, these are the three adjectives to describe what DSS quick fix on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, it is also on the iMac. While the scratch disk and is sometimes responsible for a certain delay, the SSD can boot the machine in a few seconds (12-14), forget the color wheel of death, and fluid in general operations, all in a royal silence accentuated by the presence of discrete fans.

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Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part II

The presence of two Thunderbolt ports used to connect the iMac 27 "to two external displays. You'll have no problem to connect two Apple Cinema Display 27": Use two mini-Display Port cable (same connector as the Thunderbolt), and any ... work of 81 inches diagonally. If you use a screen of another brand or a former Apple screen, you will need an adapter: your adapter VGA, DVI, HDMI to Mini Display Port working perfectly. The only problem will come from screens 30 "you should use a dual-link adapter, an active housing costing hundreds of Euros.

Otherwise, the ports are used to little Thunderbolt: devices using this new standard, although promising, will not arrive until mid-summer. Intended primarily for professionals, promises to be cost prohibitive and limited uses for the moment, the interest of this new connector is limited to the general public.

This is not the case for other race horses of the new iMac. The processor is an Intel Core i7-2600, the fastest second-generation Core i7. It has four physical cores, identified as eight logical cores (hyperthreading) clocked at 3.4 GHz. When an application does not use all cores but needs power, the processor can disable cores dynamically to increase the frequency of the remaining cores: it can go up to 3.8 GHz on a heart (Turbo Boost). With all reasonable thermal envelopes in this range, 95 W is worth mention (32 nm etching).

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Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt

Sandy Bridge processors, connectivity Thunderbolt, SSD are the elements that we begin to know well, together or separately, on many Mac. Put everything in a single iMac, and you get a real bomb.

The configuration we are testing today is the top of the line iMac: Screen 27 "of course, 4 GB of RAM DDR3 1333 MHz, an Intel Core i7 Quad 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon graphics card HD 6970M with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, hard drive 1 TB and 256 GB SSD could obviously put more RAM, disk drive 2 TB or the graphics card to 2GB, but as it stands, this configuration costs a whopping € 2699 - € 300 more than the Mac Pro "basic".

This iMac is first ... yes, an iMac. The problems therefore remain the same: a screen can be a bit too bright, an SD card reader a little too close to the SuperDrive ... This new generation, however, offers many small innovations: the webcam is now able to shoot HD 720p (even if the quality is more than average) while the USB 2.0 ports (4) FireWire 800 are joined by Thunderbolt ports. Also, the drives are now connected via SATA III (theoretical maximum of 6 Gb / s, the SuperDrive is in SATA II), and the WiFi card is connected to three antennas, which allows to use the iMac 2011 WiFi 802.11n three channels at 450 Mb / s.

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Apple wants serial number to Install Mac OS X Lion

To install Mac OS X Lion, it is imperative to be connected to the Internet. It was unclear why Apple was keen to see that the Mac is online. With DP4, Apple is no longer hidden. If you need to reinstall for one reason or another the system and you are offline, the following message appears.

For some reason, Apple apparently wants to get the serial number of your computer so you can restore it. This behavior if it were to be confirmed in the final version of Leo is relatively new, at least for the client version. Apple has long used a system of serial numbers for Mac OS X Server.

Finally, as one can understand the discipline need to be connected to install Leo, as it can be difficult in the case of a restore. You do not always choose when your Mac crashes. And this can occur miles away from a connection to the net.

On reflection, it is not impossible that such verification takes place through Find my Mac to ensure that the computer in question has not been stolen.

Final Cut Pro X is not perfect Part.II

Another weakness pointed YakYakYak by this time, the fact that this new version is less able to communicate with other software on the market. It was so far strength of the solution from Apple. Some have already begun to exploit the breach; this is the case of Pro Export FCP that will export the AAF or OMF projects from Final Cut Pro X to the Pro Tools software.

We recently criticized the implementation of the Lion in full screen mode with Final Cut Pro X is the same? It is impossible to use the second monitor. It is too bad.

The list of accusations made in Final Cut Pro X is as long as a day without bread. Apple will address gaps through updates in a more or less near future, as support for multiple cameras. Contrary to what she was doing until now, Apple is committed to providing frequent updates and important software. The Apple brand is expected to propose one to two updates per year, while the renewal cycle was 18 months ago.


If Larry Jordan readily emphasizes the fact that Final Cut Pro 7 is not dead and still has a bright future (two to coexist is also not easy and requires a little planning as the Apple says this note), to him, Apple is right.

For all its faults, this new version meets the objectives that Apple had set. The performances are with go. The management of the 64 bits according to him should also solve many problems in everyday life.


With this release, Final Cut Pro does what it has to be done in the background and lets you work. The new interface, new editing tools or the keyboard shortcuts are generally very useful as long as you want to get used to.

Larry Jordan summed up the situation in one sentence: "If you're looking for speed and high quality image, you have a new love in your life." But love thrives on patience as much as desire.

And it may take a little time to make Final Cut Pro X forget his teething.

Final Cut Pro X is not perfect Part.I

Released yesterday, Final Cut Pro X was quick to get noticed and have been many comments and criticism from experts advised. If the software is Apple's top-selling on the Mac App Store (which is a small performance for an application that costs € 239.99), the changes it introduces are not necessarily unanimity.

On a smaller scale, the situation is comparable to iMovie '08, which was both handy for many things with its new interface and more limited in other respects than its predecessor. What could be annoying with iMovie, is probably much more with a professional tool.

There are first the compatibility issues. OpenCL using Final Cut Pro X does not work for example on a Mac Pro 2009 features an ATI Radeon HD 2600. As noted YakYakYak, to use the latest version of Apple software, you must have one of the following cards (or higher): GeForce 320M, GeForce 330M GT, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce 8600M GT GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GS, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5600, Radeon HD 4670, Radeon HD 4850, Radeon HD 4870, Radeon HD 5670, Radeon HD 5750, Radeon HD 5770, Radeon HD 5870 or Intel Graphics HD 3000.

Some also had problems with their camcorder. Apple maintains a page listing all compatible devices.

Other issues that have thrown some users, there is the impossibility - for the moment at least - to import Final Cut Pro 7. A situation even more comical than Final Cut Pro X is perfectly capable of supporting projects iMovie.

Among the decisions made by Apple, there was the desire to integrate directly Color SoundTrack and Final Cut Pro X. Of course, Apple did not keep the full functionalities of both software.

Larry Jordan, who had already criticized the software before its, Says that these features will be sufficient in many users, but the expert regret certain absences as the ability to record multi track audio.

With this release, Apple is also pushing for a 100% digital workflow. It will not please some, but after all the logic of things. And that's probably why also the Cupertino Company has stopped the development of DVD Studio Pro.

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Apple unafraid of, helping Facebook's Project Spartan

Techcrunch had announced last week the Spartan project, an ambitious project that could allow Apple to compete with Facebook and iOS leaving its own App Store in HTML 5. The site is back on this project, without giving details, but added interesting information about Apple.

According to the site, Apple is not afraid Spartan project, on the contrary. The company would provide technical assistance to the social network to help set up his shop dedicated to applications in HTML 5. Two reasons cited by TechCrunch: Apple is not afraid of Web applications offered by Facebook. According to MG Siegler, native applications are much better, and users will no doubt continue to choose them, at least in the majority. Otherwise, this platform encourages developers to abandon the Flash to create applications for Facebook, in favor of HTML 5. Technological change that is not displeasing to a company that puts itself before the HTML 5.

Remains that Apple underestimated the impact of a boutique Facebook beyond the control of the App Store, however, says TechCrunch, adding that the project Spartan is causing the delay of the application iPad. If its development has taken so long, it is precisely because the social network wants to make it compatible with Spartan.