New Apple Hardware: iMac, Mac mini, AirPort, RAID

August 8th, 2007

Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple released a new thinner iMac with a matching thin keyboard, a revised Mac mini, bumped up the AirPort Base Station to support Gigabit Ethernet, and introduced a new RAID card for Mac Pro and Xserve systems.

[What’s New in iLife 08]
[What’s New in iWork 08]
[New Apple Hardware: iMac, Mac mini, AirPort, RAID]
[New in .Mac: Web Gallery, Disk Size, Bandwidth]

iMac Hardware Specs:

• 2.0 GHz 20-inch, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 VRAM, 250 GB SATA drive.
• 2.4 GHz 20-inch, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM, 320 GB SATA drive.
• 2.4 GHz 24-inch, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM, 320 GB SATA drive.
• 2.8 GHz 24-inch, ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM, 500 GB SATA drive.

• Intel Core 2 Duo or 2.8 GHz Core 2 Extreme.
• Option for 1 TB SATA drive.
• 1 GB PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory occupying one of two SO-DIMM slots.
• Supports up to 4 GB RAM.
• 8x Dual Layer DVD +/-R, +/- RW burner.
• 20-inch: 1680 x 1050, 24-inch: 1920 x 1200.
• 3 USB ports on iMac, two on keyboard.
• 1 FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port.
• External monitor support for 1920 x 1200 digital or 2048 x 1536 analog display.
• Minijack analog and digital optical audio input and output.
• Built-in mic and iSight camera
• Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

New Wired and Wireless Keyboards
The iMac comes with a new ultrathin keyboard with and aluminum frame and keys that look like the Mac Book’s. Three of its F keys are now mapped to playback controls.

Powered by 3 AA batteries, the Bluetooth version lacks the numeric keypad.

Mac Mini Hardware Specs:

• 1.8 GHz 20-inch iMac, Intel GMA 950 shared RAM graphics, 80 GB SATA drive.
• 2.0 GHz 20-inch iMac, Intel GMA 950 shared RAM graphics, 120 GB SATA drive.

• Intel Core 2 Duo.
• Option for 160 GB SATA drive (uses a laptop sized drive).
• 1 GB PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory occupying both of two SO-DIMM slots.
• Supports up to 2 GB RAM.
• DVD play, CD burner combo drive or 8x Dual Layer DVD +/-R, +/- RW burner.
• 4 USB ports.
• 1 FireWire 400 port.
• External monitor support for 1920 x 1200 digital or 1920 x 1080 analog display.
• Minijack analog and digital optical audio input and output.
• Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g wireless, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.

Airport Extreme Base Station
Gets an upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet for both the WAN all of the built in switch ports.

New Xserve, Mac Pro RAID Card
Apple also introduced a new RAID card for Mac Pros and Xserves. It’s only available as a configure to order option, and is priced at $999. It comes in two form factors:a PCI Express expansion card for Mac Pro and a backplane card for Xserve. It provides RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10, with a 256MB RAID cache for internal storage applications.

What’s Missing?
It’s cool to see digital audio ports on all Mac hardware as well as Gigabit Ethernet. It’s odd Apple decided to leave 802.11n networking off the Mac mini however. If you have plans to buy new hardware online, consider clicking through my Amazon links to throw me a commission.

Continues: New in .Mac: Web Gallery, Disk Size, Bandwidth

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