- iMac 21.5" Intel Core i5-2400S
- iMac 21.5" Intel Core i5-2500S
- iMac 21.5" Intel Core i7-2600S (built to order)
- iMac 27" Intel Core i5-2500S
- iMac 27" Intel Core i5-2400
- iMac 27" Intel Core i7-2600 (built to order)
Sandy Bridge CPUs
All of the CPUs used are quad-core desktop chips. Intel's 2500S and the 2600S are lower power variants of the 2500 and 2600 specially designed for all-in-one systems. Apple most likely has chosen these to minimize heat output within the 21.5" case. The real power comes in the built to order models, which sport Intel's Hyperthreading technology. The 4 cores become 8 threads, giving each the performance of eight virtual cores.
AMD 6xxx Graphics
Apple's new iMacs contain AMD Radeon HD 6xxx mobile graphics cards. As we predicted, the drivers are supplied in the 10.6.7 Update for Early 2011 MacBook Pros. Read more details at netkas.org.
We already have initial vanilla kernel support with the Darwin 10.7.3 kernel supplied by the 10.6.7 Update for Early 2011 MacBook Pros.
EDIT: The iMacs are in fact running 10.6.6 build 10J4026 using Intel's unreleased Z68 Chipset.
EDIT2: On May 4th Apple released a 10.6.7 Update for 2011 iMacs with 10.7.4 kernel included.
This should provide desktop Sandy Bridge CPU Power Management, and Turbo support for the first time.
-tonymacx86 & MacMan
For discussions on this and other topics, register today at tonymacx86.com!