Apple has finally brought the Retina Display to the big time, taking the wraps off a new iMac. Dubbed simply the iMac with Retina Display ($2,499), it features a new “Retina 5K” display featuring 5120 x 2880 pixels in a 27” screen, for a total of 14.7 million pixels, making it the world’s highest resolution display. Announced at Apple’s October 16th event, alongside the release of OS X Yosemite, the new iMac with Retina Display will be available starting today.
With the push to the Retina 5K Display, Apple had to create a number of additional new technologies, including a custom-designed timing controller with four times the bandwidth to drive the new display, a new Oxide TFT material for faster pixel charging, and new technology to save energy and produce sharper images with new power-efficient LEDs. The end result is that despite displaying four times the pixels of the prior version, the new display promises to use 30% less power. The iMac includes additional improvements, including CPUs ranging from 3.5GHz quad-core i5 to 4.0 quad-core i7, GPUs ranging from AMD Radeon R9 M290X upgradeable to an R9 M295X, ThunderBolt 2 support and Fusion Drive technology.
