derek derek derek

As I’ve been waiting for many months for the iMac refresh, I didn’t hesitate for a second in ordering Apple’s latest offering.  My PowerMac desktop is aging, though it has been an incredible workhorse.  Never in my life outside of Apple have I ever owned a computer that five years later still met my speed and productivity needs.  But it uses much more wattage than I would care for, and since I’m not doing video processing work anymore, I don’t have need for a PowerMac.  The hardware being used in the iMacs following Apple’s switch to Intel has just been fantastic, and the latest round is no exception.  I took the opportunity to also upgrade to the new, flat 802.11n Airport Extreme Base Station, replacing my equally old AEBS (orb/pyramid style 802.11g).  So here’s what I’m looking forward to in a few short days:

(24” iMac 3.06Ghz Core 2 Duo)
2GB memory (upgrading to 4GB after receipt)
6MB shared L2 cache at full processor speed
1066MHz frontside bus
500GB SATA hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS w/512MB memory
And everything else you’d expect with an iMac.

Apple hasn’t updated the Support docs yet to include this new line released just today (since when, btw, does Apple refresh hardware on a Monday?), so I don’t know if this is a Penryn processor and notebook memory, or a desktop processor and memory.  I was expecting the former, but the latter is what’s being rumored since the speed and bus specs don’t match up with the mobile processor.  If anyone knows, drop me an email and I’ll update this entry (and go ahead and order my extra RAM!)

Update: Reports confirm this is not just a Penryn, but an almost-Montevina.  Woot!