Anyone actually happy with their iMac 5K ?

[aevan]

The sacrifice for me wasn't worth it because I much prefer a faster 256/512 GB SSD and easy to replace external HDD storage to a slower 128 GB SSD and hard to replace internal HDD storage which also adds heat and noise to my iMac.

If the sacrifice was worth it to you, that's fine with me.

Sure, the 256/512Gb option + external HDD works great. It is more expensive though, as you have to buy those external drives, but, as I said, it is a fine choice.

The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is not slower than a regular SSD. The reason benchmarks show a lower write speed is because of some clever Apple trickery where they use the drive to cache things and move it to the HDD at the same time. Not quite sure how it works, but the SSD is the same, fast PCIe Sandisk used in MacBook Pros. The read speeds are the same. If you hate it that much, you can separate the two and use the SSD like you would any other, although I don't see a reason for it.

Also, I cannot agree with the heat and noise thing as I really, honestly, don't hear the HDD. Maybe my room is a bit noisier than yours, though. As for heat - according to iStats the SSD part is, actually, generating more heat than the HDD. Maybe because it works more often, not sure about this - but the heat of the HDD is not something that makes the system hotter (it is way below CPU and GPU temperatures, close to RAM temperature levels). I'm sure it adds a little bit to the overall temperature, but let's not pretend it does anything substantial.

Now, let me be perfectly clear. Everyone has their own preferences. Maybe you have better hearing or your perception of speed is more nuanced than mine. Maybe you heard some really loud Fusion Drives and mine is quieter. Maybe it's all in our heads. It really doesn't matter - the important thing is that we're both satisfied with our choices. It's great that you're happy with your setup and it really doesn't matter what I say.

The problem here is that people come here for advice and claims like "FD sucks!" or "FD is crap!", "It's going to break any day now so back up everything" may give people the wrong impression. "Not good enough for me" is different than "Not good at all".

I honestly claim that for most people and most tasks, the FD will be great. It is for me - and I don't "just do email and surf". I don't want to be accusatory, but I do believe some of the people here (let's call them, hm, "advanced powerusers") are misleading others into believing that only maxed up options are worth getting for anything but casual use. And that is just not true, and several users have pointed that out - me included. I, for one, am not a casual user at all, and I work just fine and enjoy my base Retina iMac a lot. Hope this makes it clear and I hope I haven't offended anyone.

 

[Alesc]

Concerning the heat, here are my temps with the Fusion Drive. Hot like hell uh

Much cooler than any riMac with pure SSD...

 

[redheeler]

Sure, the 256/512Gb option + external HDD works great. It is more expensive though, as you have to buy those external drives, but, as I said, it is a fine choice.

The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is not slower than a regular SSD. The reason benchmarks show a lower write speed is because of some clever Apple trickery where they use the drive to cache things and move it to the HDD at the same time. Not quite sure how it works, but the SSD is the same Sandisk used in MacBook Pros. The read speeds are the same.

Also, I cannot agree with the heat and noise thing as I really, honestly, don't hear the HDD. Maybe my room is a bit noisier than yours, though. As for heat - according to iStats the SSD part is, actually, generating more heat than the HDD. Maybe because it works more often, not sure about this - but the heat of the HDD is not something that makes the system hotter (it is way below CPU and GPU temperatures, close to RAM temperature levels). I'm sure it adds a little bit to the overall temperature, but let's not pretend it does anything substantial.

Now, let me be perfectly clear. Everyone has their own preferences. Maybe you have better hearing or your perception of speed is more nuanced than mine. Maybe you heard some really loud Fusion Drives and mine is quieter. Maybe it's all in our heads. It really doesn't matter - the important thing is that we're both satisfied with our choices. It's great that you're happy with your setup and it really doesn't matter what I say.

The problem here is that people come here for advice and claims like "FD sucks!" or "FD is crap!", "It's going to break any day now so back up everything" may give people the wrong impression. "Not good enough for me" is different thatn "Not good at all".

I honestly claim that for most people and most tasks, the FD will be great. It is for me - and I don't "just do email and surf". I don't want to be accusatory, but I do believe some of the people (let's call them, hm, "advanced powerusers") here are misleading others into believing that only maxed up options are worth getting for anything but casual use. And that is just not true, and several users have pointed that out - me included. Hope this makes it clear and I hope I haven't offended anyone.

All I'm saying is that Fusion drive is a sacrifice, and if you're already spending $2499 on a new iMac you might as well spend an extra $100 on good external USB 3 storage to supplement a faster and larger capacity 256 GB SSD in your iMac.

I'm not even that much of an "advanced power user", I just like knowing my iMac is performing closer to it's full potential and saving me a couple seconds of access time every time I perform a hard drive intensive task.

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Much cooler than any riMac with pure SSD...

That doesn't make any sense as having an HDD does add heat to the machine.

 

[aevan]

All I'm saying is that Fusion drive is a sacrifice, and if you're already spending $2499 on a new iMac you might as well spend an extra $100 on good external USB 3 storage to supplement a faster 256 GB SSD in your iMac.

For some people the $2499 is the top limit of how much they're willing to spend. (And good external thunderbolt drives cost much more than $100 where I live) Others don't like external storage. Some people, like me, didn't have much choice (not to go into details, but not everyone can just visit apple.com and configure the thing the way they like, but has to buy it pre-configured out of the store and upgrades cost quite more).

Either way - I'm not debating if 256 + External drive is a fine choice. For a lot of people it may be the better choice. Heck, if I had that choice, I may have gone that route. I'm just saying: Fusion Drive is not bad. In fact, I am amazed how well it works compared to my pure SSD MacBook Pro. It is definitely, totally, 100% not crap, not a marketing gimmick, and not just for casual users. Don't mislead people that it's slow or loud, because it's neither. That's all. Feel free to recommend the pure SSD + External, it actually may be a good advice.

 

[Alesc]

All I'm saying is that Fusion drive is a sacrifice, and if you're already spending $2499 on a new iMac you might as well spend an extra $100 on good external USB 3 storage to supplement a faster and larger capacity 256 GB SSD in your iMac.

With a 100$ USB3 spinner, every access to the data will be slow... And these types of discs are often quite noisy... My Lacie 4To or my IcyBox 3To that I use for my backups are a lot noisier than my iMac. I wouldn't do the sacrifice to have one continuously spinning and scratching near my machine

That doesn't make any sense as having an HDD does add heat to the machine.

Yes, and it doesn't matter. To chose a bigger CPU or a bigger GPU add a lot more heat than a FD, but nobody cares...

 

[redheeler]

Either way - I'm not debating if 256 + External drive is a fine choice. For a lot of people it may be the better choice. Heck, if I had that choice, I may have gone that route. I'm just saying: Fusion Drive is not bad. In fact, I am amazed how well it works compared to my pure SSD MacBook Pro. It is definitely, totally, 100% not crap, not a marketing gimmick, and not just for casual users. Don't mislead people that it's slow or loud, because it's neither. That's all. Feel free to recommend the pure SSD + External, it actually may be a good advice.

The Fusion drive is not slow or loud, I never said any of that. In fact the SSD portion will outperform some lower-end SATA SSDs. However, I did say that is slower and louder than the 256 GB PCIe SSD inside SSD-only iMacs, which is true.

Edit: If you are absolutely unable to spend the extra on pure SSD with external storage then Fusion will work fine, but if you are able to you will benefit from a faster and larger capacity SSD.

 

[steve62388]

Interesting how when the iFixit teardown showed an LG panel worries of image retention peaked. No image retention on my launch-week unit so far, unlike my 2012 rMBP which had it on day 1.

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure only LG makes 5K panels at this point in time, so there isn't an alternative.

 

[joema2]

My upgraded 27" 5k Imac( with i7, M295X, 3 TB fusion, currently only 8 Gb's of ram for now)...When I open up final cut or after effects I see the spinning beach ball quite a bit....I'm assuming the 5k screen means you have to make a few sacrifices...

I don't think the 5k screen or Fusion Drive has anything to do with this. My 2013 iMac 27 with 3TB FD and 32GB RAM launches FCP X (with many libraries) in 5 sec -- even immediately after a reboot. On my 2013 MacBook Air with 8GB RAM, FCP X launches in about 5 sec (1st time) or 3 sec (subsequently).

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With a 100$ USB3 spinner, every access to the data will be slow...

That is correct and what people often overlook. They spend their entire budget on an SSD iMac, then find out the storage is insufficient and hang some cheap slow bus-powered USB drive off it.

There are some faster USB 3 bus-powered drives such as the HGST Touro S, but they're still slower than a typical AC-powered external drive, much less Fusion Drive.

 

[The_beltsander]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum, but have been a reader for quite some time, and having had Mac computers for the last 10+ years, I'm giving it a thought to change out my 2011 iMac for a brand new 5K machine.

However.. although I get the concept of why people often are on a forum, trying to solve their problems, sharing (bad?) experiences, it strikes me that there is a lot of moaning and complaints going on with the new iMac 5K. They may very well be absolutely justified, but I'm wondering - are there actually totally happy new owners here who's got no problems with the iMac 5K?

Surely you can push any machine to it's limits, fire 5K games at it and complain the GPU is getting hot and a fan kicks in while you try to put 8 steams of 4K YouTube video to work, but I think that's not what the iMac 5K is for. My needs are especially photography and their associated apps, 1080p video editing (for now), some light work and a game every now and then.

Before hitting the "Buy button" on a brand new iMac 5K, I'd love to hear if your expectations have been met, how happy you actually are, or are you?

Cheers and thanks for a good forum to read !

[doublepost=1465391862][/doublepost]Bought a brand new iMac 3 days ago.

Out of the box It hasn't worked right.
Unfortunately it came loaded with 10.11.5 and it causes the machine to crash and freeze constantly.
Looking online, plenty of people are having the same issue. Hardware test comes back okay every time so everything points to the OS.

So I've practically spent 2 grand on a broken system.

AppleCare can't do anything so my choices are to wait it out and hope 10.11.6 fixes it or drive 4 hours back to the Apple Store to swap for a new one that may or may not have the same issue.

It's one thing to launch an update with bugs but it's another to ship €2k machines that have an unusable OS.

My faith in Apple is completely gone.

 

[rbart]

You know that thousands of people use the same machine with the same OS without any problem ?

 

[The_beltsander]

You know that thousands of people use the same machine with the same OS without any problem ?

I understand it's not everyone and with all due respect, that brings me little comfort.

There's dozens of people posting the same issue with the same machine.

A brand new 5k iMac straight from the store should work without issue every time.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

Maybe forums should have a checkbox for forum posts where someone could say "So I returned my [fill in blank] to Apple." Sort ONLY on those posts and you'd find people who really are dissatisfied.

What about those who live outside the US and don't have the luxury of returning the machine back to apple within the 14 days period and have to drive to the service center again and again only for the same problem keep reappearing after the service and getting a response that we can't replace the machine only fix it for you for free while in warranty.

And if the warranty expires? Well then you re pretty screwed. You re stuck with a faulty machine from its production day and forced to live with the disappointment. I know cause i am an owner of a faulty iMac with grey smudges inside the screen for five years now.

I really don't understand how people say so easily "oh just return the machine and get a new for free or just take it to the service center and don't complain as long as you have warranty".
Really? What about the hassle of driving all those miles and the time you have to spend and wait for the repair or the return? Or worse what if apple refuses to replace the machine when it is obvious that it is faulty by design.

I know not every electronic device is perfect and often computers fail and that's normal. But iMacs track of hardware issues is enormous and it is extremely frustrating taking every once in a while the computer for service.

And even more frustrating is the fact that Apple refuses to acknowledge the common smudges issue on the iMac screens. Honestly if a machine like this fails so often then maybe it would a be a good idea to stop producing it in the first place?

 

[briloronmacrumo]

AppleCare can't do anything so my choices are to wait it out and hope 10.11.6 fixes it or drive 4 hours back to the Apple Store to swap for a new one that may or may not have the same issue.

As another poster noted, thousands of iMac owners run 10.11.5 with no problem, so expecting 10.11.6 to fix this problem seems unlikely to happen( plus it's possibly a hardware issue which can't be fixed via an OS X update ). However aggravating it might be, my suggestion is take it back to the Apple store and get a replacement and have them take it out of the box and prove to you it works before leaving the store. Be nice, explain you can't afford to take it home and find out it malfunctions.

 

[SD-B]

I have a 27" retina, purchased Dec 28, 2014 so just over a year old now.

Never had one problem with it and I put it through a lot, runs 24/7. Running 10.11.15

Doesn't help you when you are the one with a computer that does not work as expected.
Good Look, I sincerely hope you do get it taken care of.

 

[rbart]

I understand it's not everyone and with all due respect, that brings me little comfort.

There's dozens of people posting the same issue with the same machine.

A brand new 5k iMac straight from the store should work without issue every time.

I think YOU have an hardware issue, and other person also have an hardware issue.
I have a brand new 5K iMac with 10.11.5 and it works perfectly out of the box like 99% of other iMacs.
There is no need to wait for 10.11.6, bring back your Mac to Apple.

 

[varian55zx]

The SSD part of the Fusion Drive is not slower than a regular SSD. The reason benchmarks show a lower write speed is because of some clever Apple trickery where they use the drive to cache things and move it to the HDD at the same time.

Are you sure about this?

I split my fusion drive and it is undoubtedly faster, but blackmagic is still showing the same slower write speed for the pure SSD portion. I'm hitting 1800 mb/s reads.

I had read somewhere that the 128 SSD used with the fusion drive is in the same "line" of SSDs as the 256, 512, etc, but the 128 gb one merely has an inferior write speed.

Not sure if it has anything to do with fusion technology.

 

[rbart]

Are you sure about this?

I split my fusion drive and it is undoubtedly faster, but blackmagic is still showing the same slower write speed for the pure SSD portion. I'm hitting 1800 mb/s reads.

I had read somewhere that the 128 SSD used with the fusion drive is in the same "line" of SSDs as the 256, 512, etc, but the 128 gb one merely has an inferior write speed.

Not sure if it has anything to do with fusion technology.

You are completely right.
It's the same SSD as in full SSD configuration.
By construction (number of chips) small SSD have lower write speeds than bigger ones.

 

[varian55zx]

You are completely right.
It's the same SSD as in full SSD configuration.
By construction (number of chips) small SSD have lower write speeds than bigger ones.

Right it's the same SSD as in it is part of the same line, and it's merely the same SSD in a smaller size.

However, the point I want to make is I am all but positive that person is wrong.

Upon splitting the fusion drive, I am still getting the small write speeds but good read speeds.

If the smaller chip size is the cause of that then I would say that makes sense.


edit: Another question, would the smaller write speeds of the 128gb SSD create any noticeable difference between the 256 in normal use?

 

[rbart]

Smaller write speed is not a big issue.
When you use your computer you read a lot of data and write a very litlle amount.
You can check with the activity monitor statistics.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

What about those who live outside the US and don't have the luxury of returning the machine back to apple within the 14 days period and have to drive to the service center again and again only for the same problem keep reappearing after the service and getting a response that we can't replace the machine only fix it for you for free while in warranty.

And if the warranty expires? Well then you re pretty screwed. You re stuck with a faulty machine from its production day and forced to live with the disappointment. I know cause i am an owner of a faulty iMac with grey smudges inside the screen for five years now.

I really don't understand how people say so easily "oh just return the machine and get a new for free or just take it to the service center and don't complain as long as you have warranty".
Really? What about the hassle of driving all those miles and the time you have to spend and wait for the repair or the return? Or worse what if apple refuses to replace the machine when it is obvious that it is faulty by design.

I know not every electronic device is perfect and often computers fail and that's normal. But iMacs track of hardware issues is enormous and it is extremely frustrating taking every once in a while the computer for service.

And even more frustrating is the fact that Apple refuses to acknowledge the common smudges issue on the iMac screens. Honestly if a machine like this fails so often then maybe it would a be a good idea to stop producing it in the first place?

Firstly apples hardware failure rates are no worse than anyone else and better than many despite the posts in forums, you only see the complaints online.

Secondly if you live in a country where you cannot take full advantage of apples support you buy knowing this. You have made a choice to accept that when you buy the computer, you have endless computes you could have bought with far easier local support and have chosen not to take that route.

So frankly why should anyone care you made that choice when you bought that computer in the full knowledge that you aren't going to get the same ease of support as you would in the US or the UK. If computer support and cheap repair is what you want then why did you buy a Mac???

Thirdly apples support is industry leading, it doesn't matter where you are you can return a machine by post within 14 days anywhere in the world. The same for servicing and fixing you can do it by post and organise it online. Yes this is time consuming and can cost a bit with an iMac but again nothing you didn't know when you bought the machine.

So to put it simply, as with any computer you buy it in the knowledge that it might fail at any time, if being able to get it running again as quickly and cheaply as possible is part of your buying criteria why did you buy a Mac in a country with little or no support???

 

[Miguel Cunha]

Lots of problems with 1st gen apple products

Generally, first generation products of any manufacturer, are known to have issues.
[doublepost=1465463482][/doublepost]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum, but have been a reader for quite some time, and having had Mac computers for the last 10+ years, I'm giving it a thought to change out my 2011 iMac for a brand new 5K machine.

However.. although I get the concept of why people often are on a forum, trying to solve their problems, sharing (bad?) experiences, it strikes me that there is a lot of moaning and complaints going on with the new iMac 5K. They may very well be absolutely justified, but I'm wondering - are there actually totally happy new owners here who's got no problems with the iMac 5K?

Surely you can push any machine to it's limits, fire 5K games at it and complain the GPU is getting hot and a fan kicks in while you try to put 8 steams of 4K YouTube video to work, but I think that's not what the iMac 5K is for. My needs are especially photography and their associated apps, 1080p video editing (for now), some light work and a game every now and then.

Before hitting the "Buy button" on a brand new iMac 5K, I'd love to hear if your expectations have been met, how happy you actually are, or are you?

Cheers and thanks for a good forum to read !

(unfortunately) I don't have an iMac 5K to work with but this is what I can share with you.

I do video 1080p post-production in an iMac 21,5, late 2012, with a minimum of 2 video channels and it runs smoothly. I play Max Payne 3 with reasonable configurations at HD resolution without lag.

It has a 512 MB VRAM GPU an HDD 5400 rpm and I use an external via USB 3, just for media files.
Overall, I'm very happy with the machine.

Now imagine what you can do with an iMac 5K

Tip: use SSD, i7 CPU and don't be cheap on RAM (32 GB if you into 4K) and GPU (4 GB for 4K)

 

[maflynn]

What about those who live outside the US and don't have the luxury of returning the machine back to apple within the 14 days period

I believe Apple is bound by those consumer laws and where ever they bought their iMac, it can be returned there for repair/replacement.

 

[smelly cat]

I think it's been reasonably well established that the performance of fusion drives is close enough to that of SSDs; at least, it's close enough that the deficit won't bother most users.

However, I would still opt for a full SSD over a fusion drive, even at extra cost. Why? Reliability. The iMac's components can only be replaced with great effort. For the sake of maximizing long term reliability, I would opt for an SSD over a mechanical drive any day.

 

[rbart]

I have read a recent study regarding SSD reliability, and it seems to be a lot less reliable than standard HDD ...
Maybe it is based on older technologies ...

 

[maflynn]

I have read a recent study regarding SSD reliability, and it seems to be a lot less reliable than standard HDD ...
Maybe it is based on older technologies ...

So for it seems 2012 MBPs seem to be doing ok, with SSDs, and I've not seen any complaints about the older MacBook Airs. I can't speak about any study and hard drives have a longer history of great longevity. We're only now getting to the point where we can start measure the actual longevity and reliability of SSDs