iMac (Late 2006)

Industry watchers had been anticipating Apple moving the iMac to Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor, which is “up to 50% more powerful” (according to Apple) than the Core Duo used in the Early 2006 iMac. As if that wasn’t enough, Apple added the biggest iMac to date to the line, a whopping 24″ model with a 1920 x 1200 pixel display.

White flat panel iMacAll four models (17″ 1.83 and 2.0 GHz, 20″ and 24″ 2.16 GHz) have a 667 MHz bus, three USB 2.0 ports along with at least one FireWire 400 port, gigabit ethernet, and AirPort Extreme.

There’s more variety than ever before in the iMac line. The entry-level 1.83 GHz model uses Intel GMA 950 graphics, carried over from the education iMac introduced in July 2006. This model comes with a Combo drive, 512 MB of RAM (2 GB maximum), a 160 GB hard drive, two FireWire 400 ports, and Apple’s USB keyboard and Mighty Mouse. Because this model dedicates 80 MB of RAM for the GMA 950 video, we strongly recommend at least 1 GB of RAM.

The 2.0 GHz 17″ iMac has 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0, and Apple’s USB keyboard and Mighty Mouse. Like the 20″ and 24″ models, it can accept up to 4 GB of RAM, although it will only recognize 3 GB.

The 20″ and 24″ models shipped with a 250 GB hard drive and had a 2.33 GHz build-to-order option.

The 17″ 2.0 GHz and 20″ 2.16 GHz models use the ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 128 MB of memory, while the 24″ iMac includes Nvidia GeForce 7300GT graphics with 128 MB of video RAM. The 24″ model was the first iMac to include FireWire 800.

The new iMac ships with Mac OS X 10.4.7 and iLife ’06.

What You Need to Know

The stock 512 MB of system memory on the entry-level 17-incher is adequate for OS X 10.4 Tiger, going to 1 GB really improves things, and upgrading to 2-3 GB of RAM will make a further improvement. 1 GB of memory is sufficient to run OS X 10.5 Leopard decently, but you should upgrade to at least 2 GB for really good performance. OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard can run on a 1 GB Mac but cries out for 2 GB of memory and is unleashed with 3 GB. OS X 10.7 Lion wants at least 2 GB of RAM and benefits from 3 GB.

The CPU is mounted in Socket M, allowing upgrades as high as 2.33 GHz (see CPU Upgrade Options for 2006 iMacs).

Intel-based Macs use a partitioning scheme known as GPT. Only Macintel models can boot from GPT hard drives. Both PowerPC and Intel Macs can boot from APM (Apple’s old partitioning scheme) hard drives, which is the format you must use to create a universal boot drive in Leopard. PowerPC Macs running any version of the Mac OS prior to 10.4.2 cannot mount GPT volumes. PowerPC Macs won’t let you install OS X to a USB drive or choose it as your startup volume, although there is a work around for that.

Details

  • introduced 2006.09.06 at US$999 (17″ 1.83 GHz), US$1,199 (2.0 GHz), US$1,499 (20″ 2.16 GHz), and US$1,999 (24″ 2.16 GHz); replaced by a faster model on 2007.08.07.
  • Model identifier: iMac5,1 (iMac5,2 for 1.83 GHz 17″ model)
  • Model no.: A1195 (17″ 1.83 GHz), A1208 (17″ 2.0 GHz), A1207 (20″), A1200 (24″)
  • Part no.: MA710 (17″ 1.83 GHz), MA590 (17″ 2.0 GHz), MA589 (20″), MA456 (24″)
  • Latest EFI Boot ROM: EFI 1.2

Mac OS

Core System

  • CPU: 1.83/2.0/2.16/2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Merom, Socket M makes upgrades possible
  • L2 cache: 2/4 MB shared cache on CPU
  • Bus: 667 MHz
  • RAM: 512/1024 MB, expandable to 4 GB using two PC2-5300 DDR2 SODIMMs, although only 3 GB is accessible.
  • Performance, Geekbench 2:
    • Leopard: 2373 (1.83 GHz), 2596 (2.0 GHz), 2773 (2.16 GHz), 2867 (2.33 GHz)
    • Tiger: 2392 (1.83 GHz), 2649 (2.0 GHz), 2862 (2.16 GHz), 3058 (2.33 GHz),
  • Performance, Geekbench 3:
    • 32-bit single core: 1075 (2.0 GHz), 1153 (2.16 GHz), 1224 (2.33 GHz)
    • 32-bit multicore: 1889 (2.0 GHz), 2028 (2.16 GHz), 2164 (2.33 GHz)
    • 64-bit single core: 1164 (2.0 GHz), 1241 (2.16 GHz)
    • 64-bit multicore: 2054 (2.0 GHz), 2162 (2.16 GHz)

Video

  • Graphics, 17″ 1.83 GHz: Intel GMA 950, supports up to 1920 x 1200 external digital display, 2048 x 1536 analog display, and monitor spanning
  • Graphics, 17″ 2.0 GHz and 20″ 2.16 GHz: ATI Radeon X1600 with 128 MB RAM (256 MB optional), supports up to 1920 x 1200 external digital display, 2048 x 1536 analog display, and monitor spanning
  • Graphics, 24″ 2.16 GHz: Nvidia GeForce 7300GT with 128 MB RAM (GeForce 7600GT with 256 MB optional), supports up to 1920 x 1200 external digital display, 2048 x 1536 analog display, and monitor spanning
  • Display:
    • 17″ 1440 x 900 flat panel display
    • 20″ 1680 x 1050 flat panel display
    • 24″ 1920 x 1280 flat panel display
  • Video out: mini-DVI, VGA, S-video, composite (requires adapter)

Drives

  • Hard drive bus: 1.5 Gbps SATA Rev. 1
  • Hard drive: 160/250 GB 7200 rpm SATA drive
  • Optical drive bus: Ultra ATA/100 (operates at ATA/33)
  • Combo drive: reads DVD at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R at 24x, CD-RW at 16x; reads CDs at 24x
  • SuperDrive: writes DVD±R discs at up to 8x speed, dual layer at up to 2.4x; DVD±RW at up to 4x; reads DVDs at up to 8x, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x, writes CD-RW discs at up to 8x, reads CDs at up to 24x

Expansion

  • USB: 3 USB 2.0 ports
  • FireWire 400: 2 ports on 17″ and 20″, 8W shared output
  • FireWire 800: 1 port on 24″ model only, 15W shared output with single FireWire 400 port
  • Modem: optional 56 kbps USB modem supports v.92
  • Ethernet: 10/100/gigabit
  • WiFi: 802.11g AirPort Extreme included
  • Bluetooth 2.0: included on all but 17″ 1.83 GHz model
  • IR receiver: supports Apple Remote (included)
  • Microphone: internal

Physical

  • H x W x D (17″): 16.9 x 16.8 x 6.8 in/43 x 42.6 x 17.3 cm
  • H x W x D (20″): 18.6 x 19.4 x 7.4 in/47.2 x 49.3 x 18.9 cm
  • H x W x D (24″): 20.6 x 22.6 x 8.1 in/52.3 x 57.4 x 20.7 cm
  • weight (17″): 15.5 lb/7 kg
  • weight (20″): 22 lb/10 kg
  • weight (24″): 24.7 lb/11.2 kg
  • Power supply: 180W

CPU Upgrades

  • CPU can be replaced with faster Socket M Core 2 Duo CPU

Online Resources

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