Ondrej Holzman New iMacs that Apple presented on Monday at WWDC, are primarily about better displays, faster processors and also much more powerful graphics cards. A detailed analysis of technicians from iFixit of course she revealed one more interesting change, replaceable parts that could not be replaced in recent years.
Geeks and inquisitive users will be delighted to learn that both the CPU and RAM can be swapped out in the smaller iMac. It's definitely not an easy operation and not everyone can do it, moreover, it's such an intervention that you lose the warranty, but still - the option is there.
In the 21,5-inch iMac, the operating memory could not be replaced since 2013, and even since 2012, the processor was also soldered directly to the board, so the user always had to deal with how he configured the machine when he bought it. Newly, however, the smaller iMac, following the example of its larger colleague, the 27-inch 5K iMac, also has these two (key for upgrade) components replaceable.
To get to them, you first have to remove the display, power supply, drives, and fan, but it's still a significant departure from Apple's approach to user-replaceable components in the iMac. However, it is possible that not soldering the processor to the board was not a completely voluntary choice by Apple.
Indeed, in the breakdown iFixit notes that Kaby Lake's current chip lineup doesn't offer any BGA chips that can meet the demands of desktop performance, so Apple had to go with a socketed, and therefore replaceable, CPU. Immediately, however, iFixit adds that if Apple really wanted to, it could pressure Intel to prepare the relevant processor for it; in addition, there is still the replaceable operating memory, where Apple did not limit anything in this regard.
Up to 64GB of RAM even for the weakest 27-inch iMac
An interesting finding about the 27-inch 5K iMac was then provided by OWC, a storage manufacturer for Macs. In the basic version of the 27-inch iMac, Apple only offers a maximum of 32GB of RAM in its store, although higher configurations allow you to select double the capacity.
However, OWC tested that even the least powerful 27-inch iMac (3,4 GHz) can work without problems with 64 GB of RAM. And since replacing the operating memory on a larger iMac is not nearly as problematic, it is more advantageous to purchase a weaker configuration directly from Apple and then, for example, from OWC, as a well-established supplier, to purchase higher RAM more cheaply.
I do not know. It doesn't seem very realistic to me that Apple would have the opportunity to put pressure on Intel with its percentage ratio of the order of magnitude in the market.. So maybe it was more likely that Intel pressured Apple to at least allow the replacement of the CPU when it last updated after two years.
Overall, in this context, it seems to me more like a variant of pressure from the shareholders - to at least get closer to customer complaints. As long as they still have some in this segment.
And now an upgradeable Mac Mini with RAM + SSD slots and an external adapter... and Apple will once again be valuable hardware, not just a fashion accessory.