Hard Cider Index

by w

In my last article I waxed rhapsodic on the new iMac revision "B" that I had just bought for my "horse and buggy" parents. At the time (and as expressed in the article) I had felt that the Revision "B" machine, given its lower price and technological advantages, had the edge over the Revision "C" machine. Sure the newest iMac had a modest speed bump, a larger hard drive and if you were into dramatic coloring schemes you could put a lifesaver colored computer on your desk - but what did you lose by going the "C" route? Mainly the Mezzanine slot and the infrared capacity. As a guy who is drawn to upgrade options I am naturally attracted to the Mezzanine slot which manufacturers can make all manner of things to stick into - graphics cards, SCSI cards, TV tuner, etc, and infrared capability is always a good thing to have.

Already Micro Conversions has a Game Wizard card for the iMac in the works and other card manufacturers are sure to follow with other upgrade options. In my option the loss of this upgrade oportunity in the iMac "C" machines was not worth the speed and hard drive capacity bump you would gain. As far as the color option goes, I come from Switzerland where if you want to paint your fence a non-traditional color you run into all sorts of regulations that insure that the landscape is not marred by the overly iconoclastic - a tangerine iMac was just a no-go (you know Switzerland - every blade of grass in its place, cows without a spec of mud on them, etc, etc)!

Since I wrote the original article I have been "enlightened" to several facts that make the iMac "B" over "C" decision a lot more difficult to make. First of all, according to our friends at MacSpeedZone, the speed bump of the "C" iMac is not all that modest. MacSpeedZone compares all three iMacs; "A" "B" and "C" and their findings are as follows: the revision "C" machine is 15% faster in processing power, 14% faster in floating point calculations, 17% faster in graphics performance and a whopping 47% faster in disk performance than the revision "B" machine! Clearly the cpu, fpu and graphics performance improvement is verging on the significant and the disk performance improvement is significant! I can tell you in all honesty that the drive on our revision "B" machine is already blazingly fast - it makes the Zip drive connected to it seem like a floppy drive ( isn't that what Iomega was after - to be thought of as a floppy replacement? Perhaps the speed comparison was not what they had in mind....). So the drives on the new iMacs must really cook!

I have also read at several different sources that the Mezzanine slot and infrared capability have not been completely removed on the new iMacs, only disabled.

That it may be possible to resuscitate them - though with a certain amount of difficulty. The information on this is a little more sketchy (if anyone can enlight us on this please do).

I had assumed that the speed bump of the "C" machines would be on the order of 5-10% and that drive speed would be little effected. Clearly I was wrong on that score and it is difficult to ignore the allure of the speed improvement of the "C" iMacs. There is about a $200 difference in price between the "B" and "C" machines. The Outpost.com has the "B" machine for $900 and the "C" machines for $1,147. You'll have to decide if the performance of the "C" machine warrants the price premium you'll pay. I clearly think it does. However after much deliberation, I still think, because of the Mezzanine slot, I would opt for the "B" iMac. I am just too eager to find out what they will come up with to put into it.

But it would be a tough decision if I had to do it all over again. Of course in a short amount of time the issue will be moot as all the revision "B" iMacs will be gone!

Think I have been hitting the "hot chocolate" to hard? That I would be crazy to opt for the "B" over "C" machine. Well your opinion is as valid as mine (perhaps more valid!) let me know what you would buy (did buy?) and why. Post your comments on the MacReviewZone community bulletin board and we will all be sure to read them.

William works for a large Internet company and divides his time between Silicon Valley and Bern Switzerland. He feels qualified to comment on all things Macintosh because he often takes potshots at his son's Apple.