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iMac 2020 Reviews And Benchmarks - The Last Intel iMac

Homy said:
[automerge]1597771552[/automerge]
10-core 5700XT

www.macworld.com

27-inch iMac 2020 review: The latest Intel iMac leaves a lasting impression

The 2020 27-inch iMac is built to be a top performer, with a processing boost, SSD storage, and updated graphics. It has other features to take into consideration, but the emphasis is on speed.
www.macworld.com www.macworld.com

www.macworld.com

27-inch iMac 2020 review: The latest Intel iMac leaves a lasting impression

The 2020 27-inch iMac is built to be a top performer, with a processing boost, SSD storage, and updated graphics. It has other features to take into consideration, but the emphasis is on speed.
www.macworld.com www.macworld.com
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I'll have to give those a watch.

Had this Intel iMac had a redesign with better cooling it would have been a slam dunk.

Azrael.
 
Would you say the fan noise at idle is ‘pleasant’ (for the 5700xt with i7 or i9 config), like you can faintly hear the whooshing of air moving? Also what’s the noise like under load for an extended period, are we talking delta fan level of screaming?

I’ve been spoilt with the silence going iPad only, but am itching for a desktop again. My last one was a full tower case filled with noctua fans and an AIO that had loud stock fans, was getting on my nerves when I just wanted to do low power tasks. Though I did manage to sleep with it in the same room doing 24/7 VrayRT render with 2 GPUs for a week straight.

I’m surprised I haven’t destroyed my hearing form years of riding bikes with full race exhausts.
 
ErikGrim said:
Finally set up my 8 core i7 with the 5700 XT 16Gb. XCOM 2 is indeed laughably unoptimised. 5K it runs 10-15fps at Maximum. But I've found if you dial down a couple of sane settings (no AA, directional shadows etc.), I can get a very enjoyable ~40fps at 4K. Especially since I've been gaming 2000+ hours on the 5-20fps on 1440p low settings on my 2014 5K iMac.

I haven't tested it under the Wintendo yet so I may get some improvements from that.

Civ VI runs perfectly smooth at 50-60fps with absolutely everything maxed out at 5K native (just remember to scale the UI 200%). In the super-stress test GTS benchmark with the late game everything on it hovers around 25fps, but again everything looks smooth to my eye still (i.e. 100s of windmills turning at a good clip without any hiccups) so I doubt it would bother me to play a full game at those settings.
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Why don't you just use 1440p as resolution? Even a 2080 Ti can't do solid 5K gaming, but scaling to exactly half of 5K should give good results and should still look awesome. Would be intersting to see some 1440p results.
 
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jobinhosyntax said:
Are you keeping your iMac? I sense those fans and the heat are grating at you.
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Hello jobin'.

Well. Saints and Sinners time.

I love this iMac. And no one wanted a new design with iMac Pro style cooling more than me. (Apart from my wife and a few of her friends...)

I did want 10 cores. I did want 5700XT. I wanted power! MOAR!

And I got what I wished for.

The old saying? Be careful what you wish for.

'You are indeed powerful...as the Emperor foretold..'

The fans and heat don't grate on me 'most of the time.'

But, if you want to do ten core renders you're going to hear them on eg. Blender stress test (the loudest they've been.)

And my answer to myself is. What did I expect? Complete quiet on a thin enclosure iMac doing Blender stress tests?

Cinebench. A momentary 'whrrrrr' whilst it benches.

Gaming? Unigine 1080p and 1440p?

Ultra? Np. No fan noise.

Playing my old game from 2004? In HD? Np.

Depends. If you're going to do blender renders for 24 hrs straight ? Then you've bought the wrong machine.

If you're doing gaming, occasional rendering, video work, 3d modelling? You'll be just fine. I fall into the latter category.

The fans are interventionist. Do something 'ballsy'? You're going to hear them.

eg. 5k on WoW? 15 fps and the fans saying? What are you doing? Just play the bleeping game in HD or QHD. Don't be a greedy sod.

Azrael.
 
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It's about expectations. Rationality.

This won't be iPad quiet whilst doing Blender renders.

Azrael.
 
It does whizz on Unigine Ultra in 1080 and 1440p.

With the utmost discretion.

Azrael.
 
I am keeping it. Its solid iMac with good internal hardware update and stable design.

While I really appreciate new designs forecasted, but 1st generation may not be good :) as 2020 iMac
 
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jacklivehere said:
I am keeping it. Its solid iMac with good internal hardware update and stable design.

While I really appreciate new designs forecasted, but 1st generation may not be good :) as 2020 iMac
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AS has great promise. But that day is not this day.

There are people that want to work and play right now.

Anyone keeping it knows they need this power right now. It torpedoes the iMac Pro and entry Mac Pro for a whalloping value proposition.

To those that need that? What are you waiting for? Anyone on a dead iMac has little choice (me...). Anyone who is crawling with an early 2012 iMac would be very well served by it.

If you have a working iMac or Mac. You can judge for yourself if you want to wait for AS. Still some ways off yet. If you can or want to wait. Wait away.

I'll probably buy one of those AS well as this machine which doubles a dual Mac/PC workstation for £3400.

A bargain. The £1300 LG 5k display is £1300 for that alone. And you can use this in 'PC' mode as well as 'Mac' mode.

Azrael.
 
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Azrael, are you an Adobe user? Would you (or any other new imac owners) be willing to run Pugetbench for After Effects? Very curious how the i9 stacks up. It should be amazing. Torn between the 2020 iMac i7 and i9.
Either would be faster than a much more expensive imac pro or mac pro. Pretty stoked on these new models!
 
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oncilla said:
Azrael, are you an Adobe user? Would you (or any other new imac owners) be willing to run Pugetbench for After Effects? Very curious how the i9 stacks up. It should be amazing. Torn between the 2020 iMac i7 and i9.
Either would be faster than a much more expensive imac pro or mac pro. Pretty stoked on these new models!
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Pugetbench. As long as I don't have to give my inside trouser measurement to get it. I could have a look at it.

Either the 8 or 10 core will serve you well. Even the 6 core multi-threaded runs the previous 8 core a hard race.

Any Tier 1, 2 or 3 iMac will eat Adobe Apps.

The tier 3 iMac kicks the iMac Pro and Mac Pro around. At less than half the price. £2300. It's a parting gift to iNtel iMac customers. It's a great value. That 8 core with 5500XT will drag around Adobe apps.

I used Adobe PS back on version 4. With a Power Mac. It was great.

But I run Affinity Photo, Design and Publisher now.

Any one who wanted to do 2D Adobe and 3D Maya? I'd say? Get the Tier 1 iMac I you're on a budget. If you can go the extra? Get the Tier 3. You get 8 cores and a decent gpu. The sweet spot.

And yes. You can game in HD or QHD.

If I said to you before the launch you could get something that would demolish an iMac Pro or Mac Pro for £2300 you'd probably say, 'Where do I sign up?'

Now you can.

Azrael.
 
iMac20,2

Geekbench 5 Score

1250
Single-Core Score
8085
Multi-Core Score
Geekbench 5.2.3 Tryout for macOS x86 (64-bit)

More results in.

Here's my system running Geek Bench 5 in 'Try Out.'

I think that's decent. 8 gigs of ram. Didn't have time to fit my RAM today. Tomorrow.

Azrael.
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The fans 'only' kicked in gently towards the end of that Geek Bench test.

Azrael.
 
iMac20,2

Geekbench 5 Score

55205
OpenCL Score

Here's my gpu's compute score.

I'll take that. ;)

Azrael.
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No fans that time. :)

Azrael.
 
ErikGrim said:
XCOM 2 and Chimera Squad on windows is smooth as butter in 5k with sane settings
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That's great to hear, Erik.

I think the thing is. With this iMac you get outstanding HD and QHD gaming.

But I had the feeling that you 'can' 4k game on it...or even 5k game on it...if 'sanity' prevails in user game settings.

eg. In the 4k games I saw in the YouTube video benching the 2080Ti vs the 5700XT?

The 5700XT is doing 4k gaming just fine. With settings tuned and set up accordingly. 35-45+ fps? More? Again, varies according to the age of the game and settings.

So yes. This 'can' 4k game. With the caveat that running that resolution brings and the age of the game along with the settings.

Azrael.
 
oncilla said:
Azrael, are you an Adobe user? Would you (or any other new imac owners) be willing to run Pugetbench for After Effects? Very curious how the i9 stacks up. It should be amazing. Torn between the 2020 iMac i7 and i9.
Either would be faster than a much more expensive imac pro or mac pro. Pretty stoked on these new models!
Click to expand...
Did you miss the review I posted? It's also in my first post among other reviews. 10-core 5700 XT crushes 10-core iMac Pro Vega 64 in Puget for AE!

27inch-imac-review-02-large.jpg
 
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It's a good old fashioned beat down.

Got to love dem graphics.

Feeling better and better about this iMac all the time.

It's a performance monster.

Decent review. This iMac is? Mr. Right Now. And he's all out of gum and ready for some kick az.

Azrael.
 
Azrael9 said:
It's a good old fashioned beat down.

Got to love dem graphics.

Feeling better and better about this iMac all the time.

It's a performance monster.

Azrael.
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What are the idle temps you are seeing with your machine without any load and just web browsing?
 
mlykke said:
Why don't you just use 1440p as resolution? Even a 2080 Ti can't do solid 5K gaming, but scaling to exactly half of 5K should give good results and should still look awesome. Would be intersting to see some 1440p results.
Click to expand...
I've been 1440p gaming for six years. It's time for an upgrade. 5K looks MUCH better than 1440p.
 
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quagmire said:
What are the idle temps you are seeing with your machine without any load and just web browsing?
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If you tell me where to get an iTemperature. It's not something I've bothered with.

I listen.
I feel.

If the fans kick up. That means it's running hotter.
If the back is hot? That means it's running hotter.

The only time that has happened is when I've been running the Blender Test. Loud and hot. I felt the back with the warm to hot air coming out. I wouldn't push this thing 24/7 doing that.

I ran unigine. It's standing still state? 52 degrees. After the 1440 ultra bench? 68 fps. And 93 degrees. After a slow but irrevocable climb to latter number.

Link me an iGadjet temp reader and I'll see what I can do. But this is cool and silent most of the time.

Azrael.
 
ErikGrim said:
I've been 1440p gaming for six years. It's time for an upgrade. 5K looks MUCH better than 1440p.
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1440p gaming or HD for the great many is where gpus have been stuck for a long time.

I'm glad you're getting some '5k' gaming performance out of your iMac.

Azrael.
 
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Azrael9 said:
If you tell me where to get an iTemperature. It's not something I've bothered with.

I listen.
I feel.

If the fans kick up. That means it's running hotter.
If the back is hot? That means it's running hotter.

The only time that has happened is when I've been running the Blender Test. Loud and hot. I felt the back with the warm to hot air coming out. I wouldn't push this thing 24/7 doing that.

I ran unigine. It's standing still state? 52 degrees. After the 1440 ultra bench? 68 fps. And 93 degrees. After a slow but irrevocable climb to latter number.

Azrael.
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macsfancontrol would be a good free app to see what the system is doing( if it can work with the 2020 iMac without updating which in windows it appears to need an update). Intel Power Gadget would at least tell us what the CPU is doing. There is also iStat Menu's, but that is payware.
 
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