iMac 2020 Reviews And Benchmarks - The Last Intel iMac

[ADGrant]

That puts your i7 w/5700XT at 92.8fps just a little slower than an i9 w/ 5700XT at 96.2

View attachment 950410

Well given this is a GPU Benchmark, that isn't so surprising. I am actually a little surprised there is any difference at all. The whole benchmark can probably fit in the 5700XT's video ram.

I would be interested to see the performance difference in a real game with some CPU load (like Civ 6 perhaps).

 

[oneafour]

@oneafour How much system ram do you have, and is it running in dual channel mode?

128gb so 32gb x 4
So it’s definitly running dual channel.

But the iMac does not support quad channel like the pro


also I tried running the blender benchmarks all night... and they never finished I don’t think im doing it right can someone eli5?

Essentially I installed blender. Download the BMW blender files
Double click the bmw gpu blender file and clicked render video.

From there it starts rendering different frames but this morning it completed like 250 frames or something but was still running after 9+ hours

Fortunately I feel a lot better about the g.skill ram I got, as the entire system was taxed all night and not a single kernel panic or a reboot.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

You want to render image, not video. You basically told your computer to render 250 images when you told it to render video.

 

[Maclife80]

Yes it sure should but I haven’t been able to test it yet as I don’t have access to a 5700xt

if someone else has a 5700xt and i7 and wants to work with me with some benches I am happy to test

Can you share your test results for Mac OS Heaven benchmark ??

 

[Maclife80]

Hey I just want to share my benchmarks. Really not satisfied with it. Thinking about returning it.

Imac 2020 i7 cpu, 5700 XT 16 GB GPU, 32 GB Ram

Mac OS:

- Geekbench 5 Open CL: 53484
- Geekbench 5 Metal: 59433
- Geekbench 5 Single Core: 1295, Multi Core: 8441

so far so good but now it is getting strange

Unigine Heaven benchmark 4.0 in Mac OS with Extreme Presets

FPS: 76 , Score 1915. ( I see from other benchmarks they get 96 fps !!!!)

Cinebench r 20 (also strange):

4204 pts. I see from others with this cpu 4800 pts.

What do you think... can you please put your benchmarks in comparison.

Also in bootcamp with the crapy old amd drivers I am also not satisfied... Most games even on 1440p have like micro lags all the time. I think something is wrong with the hardware.

 

[getrealbro]

...What do you think... can you please put your benchmarks in comparison....

I reported several benchmark results (with Intel Power Gadget, Activity Monitor CPU History and Macs Fan Control windows open) on a friend’s 2020 iMac i7 w/ 5500XT and only 8GB of RAM (before RAM upgrade) in the following thread

Alarmingly High CPU Temperature on 2020 27" iMac

For comparison to my 2018 Mini i7… Cinebench running on a 2020 iMac, 3.8GHz 8 Core i7, Radeon Pro 5500 8GB, 8 GB RAM, 2TB SSD. iMacBench1 — Core temps a little over 40C with a fan at 1,200RPM under minimal load. iMacBench2 — Under full load All 8 cores increase quickly to turbo boost then...

forums.macrumors.com

In the three Cinebench R20 tests I got 4570, 4467, 4382.

GetRealBro

 

[Maclife80]

I reported several benchmark results (with Intel Power Gadget, Activity Monitor CPU History and Macs Fan Control windows open) on a friend’s 2020 iMac i7 w/ 5500XT and only 8GB of RAM (before RAM upgrade) in the following thread

Alarmingly High CPU Temperature on 2020 27" iMac

For comparison to my 2018 Mini i7… Cinebench running on a 2020 iMac, 3.8GHz 8 Core i7, Radeon Pro 5500 8GB, 8 GB RAM, 2TB SSD. iMacBench1 — Core temps a little over 40C with a fan at 1,200RPM under minimal load. iMacBench2 — Under full load All 8 cores increase quickly to turbo boost then...

forums.macrumors.com

In the three Cinebench R20 tests I got 4570, 4467, 4382.

GetRealBro

thanks for that so cinebench now I have 4340.
Can u plz run the Unigine Heaven on macOS in extreme presets

 

[Maclife80]

OK what I just found out I have a 2nd Monitor connected to the iMac 2020 via usb-c DisplayPort cable. Before I had 76 fps in heaven benchmark in macOS preset extreme. If I unplug the2nd monitor I get 97 fps.

very strange. So having a 2nd monitor connected gives you 20 fps less ????????????

 

[getrealbro]

Can u plz run the Unigine Heaven on macOS in extreme presets

Sorry. I ran several benchmarks when I was configuring an iMac for a friend. But I only ran benchmarks that would help me decide what configuration to get when my wife’s 2013 iMac finally dies. I didn’t run Unigine Heaven etc. because gaming performance isn’t even on our nice-to-have list.

GetRealBro

 

[wdahab]

So, my i7 5700 XT experience has been great. I've been only gaming in bootcamp, so can't speak to MacOS gaming performance. But I'll assume the performance is significantly better in Windows. This is all with the stock AMD drivers (19.50).

Witcher 1440p@Ultra I easily maintain 60 fps. Can't push that one to 4K, for some reason. Probably because DX11 isn't as good as DX12 performance on this card? Especially since Doom Eternal I'm actually to play at 4K@Ultra and hold 60fps almost all of the time. If there's any game out right now that should really push graphics cards, it's that.

My Passmark score is a 13584, with a DX12 score of 57 (that's a 4K rez test) so yeah, the 5700XT can definitely handle everything thrown at it. And I don't have any fan problems with this, I barely ever hear the fans, even when they should be cranking. Might be because of how much cooler the i7 runs than the i9 (definitely glad I didn't upgrade that).

 

[John90976]

Oddly enough I feel like my 5700XT is getting worse in performance. Was averaging 60FPS in red dead at 5k with .5 scale and ultra textures when I got it. Now it gets about 41fps average in 5K scaled or 1440 native, really vexxing me. I want to try the BootcampDrivers for newer drivers, AMD control panel, and hopefully some more power but those don't seem to be melding well with the Pro 5700XT as of yet. A shame right now. I've ocassionally seen the flicker while in Windows and that's just a 57000XT thing apparently, based on some quick googling. I doubt we'll see a fix. The beta version of Macsfancontrol for Windows supports the 2020 iMac and I have been using it to help keep my temps rather normal while gaming but perhaps that is inadvertently throttling me when I dont need it to, when I just want my internals cooled. For clarity, the hottest it gets during gaming is 75c but usally sits at 65-70c, a somewhat good temp, and so I'd assume the more fan power I apply the LESS throttling the lower I'm able to keep temps, but maybe I'm a dumb dumb. It's all I can come up with as it's all I've changed that could potentially mess with performance. Hope everyone else's orders are delivered or are coming along nicely.

 

[oneafour]

Blender benchmark on an i7 and 5700xt

bmw gpu w/ blender 2.83
[automerge]1599408365[/automerge]

 

[Homy]

It's a shame that only the tier 3 iMac has configurable GPU. If I only want a better GPU than 5300 in the tier 1 iMac I have to pay an extra $673 for 5500XT, $1265 for 5700 or $1551 for 5700XT in Sweden. That's more expensive than RTX 3080. At least with previous iMacs I could choose the tier 2 model for better GPU, but not now.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Blender benchmark on an i7 and 5700xt

bmw gpu w/ blender 2.83
[automerge]1599408365[/automerge]

If you have a Windows install, run Blender there. The macOS version can’t use the GPU and even though the i7 CPU has 16 threads, the GPU is still about 3x faster in Windows, according to my test renders.

As an extra bonus, the fans don’t crank up as high since GPU rendering leaves the CPU basically idle.

 

[miretogo]

Heaven benchmark 4.0 in Mac OS with Extreme Presets

FPS: 76 , Score 1915. ( I see from other benchmarks they get 96 fps !!!!)

[...]

Also in bootcamp with the crapy old amd drivers I am also not satisfied... Most games even on 1440p have like micro lags all the time. I think something is wrong with the hardware.

1. Are you sure the others use the exact same settings and macOS instead of Windows? Maybe the Windows version runs faster.

2. You can use the unofficial drivers from bootcampdrivers.com. These are the very new AMD drivers made to work on a Mac. I got a significant FPS boost with them (at least 10% more performance on my 2017 iMac). If you don't want to use them, you can also get drivers directly from AMD's website (https://www.amd.com/de/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp). The drivers from bootcampdrivers.com will probably be the fastest, then the drivers from AMD's website and then the "normal" drivers that come with Boot Camp.

 

[jobinhosyntax]

It's a shame that only the tier 3 iMac has configurable GPU. If I only want a better GPU than 5300 in the tier 1 iMac I have to pay an extra $673 for 5500XT, $1265 for 5700 or $1551 for 5700XT in Sweden. That's more expensive than RTX 3080. At least with previous iMacs I could choose the tier 2 model for better GPU, but not now.

Yes with what Nvidia just announced the 2020 iMac isn't such a great proposition for GPU duties

 

[rkuo]

Yes with what Nvidia just announced the 2020 iMac isn't such a great proposition for GPU duties

Yeah the honeymoon period for an iMac having an actually decent GPU lasted about a month!

 

[CE3]

No, the 5700XT is still quite decent and a big leap forward for the iMac.

 

[oneafour]

If you have a Windows install, run Blender there. The macOS version can’t use the GPU and even though the i7 CPU has 16 threads, the GPU is still about 3x faster in Windows, according to my test renders.

As an extra bonus, the fans don’t crank up as high since GPU rendering leaves the CPU basically idle.

That test was used to compare with a different benchmark for contrast.

But i've also done the windows blender 2.9 w/ i7 5700xt attached below

 

[Maclife80]

Can anyone please do me a favour and test something on their iMac with a 5700 XT.

Please run the Heaven benchmark in Mac OS in extreme presets. When it is done write down ur FPS. And then connect a second monitor to the iMac and run the benchmark again.. What kind of FPS do you get now ??

For me just having a second monitor connected without running anything on it drops my FPS from 97 to 76 !!!!

So I loose 20 FPS by just hooking up a second monitor to the iMac which is freaking ridiculous !!!!

 

[Homy]

Can anyone please do me a favour and test something on their iMac with a 5700 XT.

Please run the Heaven benchmark in Mac OS in extreme presets. When it is done write down ur FPS. And then connect a second monitor to the iMac and run the benchmark again.. What kind of FPS do you get now ??

For me just having a second monitor connected without running anything on it drops my FPS from 97 to 76 !!!!

So I loose 20 FPS by just hooking up a second monitor to the iMac which is freaking ridiculous !!!!

You may see a slight performance decrease since the GPU has to drive more pixels on two monitors but -20 fps feels two much. If you're not doing anything on the second monitor it should be fine but if you do other things it can definitely has an impact on the frame rate. In your case it seems very odd since you're not doing anything and have 16GB VRAM.

Does it make a difference on which monitor you run Unigine? Maybe it's something with Unigine. Do you get worse results in other apps too, like Geekbench Metal or other games?

Does Having a Second Monitor Affect Gaming Performance? - Answered After Test - Gaming Simplified

Having two monitors is something that is common today. One monitor is simply not enough. We play our games on the primary monitor while watching a video or surfing the

gamingsimplified.com

 

[BuCkDoG]

Can anyone please do me a favour and test something on their iMac with a 5700 XT.

Please run the Heaven benchmark in Mac OS in extreme presets. When it is done write down ur FPS. And then connect a second monitor to the iMac and run the benchmark again.. What kind of FPS do you get now ??

For me just having a second monitor connected without running anything on it drops my FPS from 97 to 76 !!!!

So I loose 20 FPS by just hooking up a second monitor to the iMac which is freaking ridiculous !!!!

Depending on the resolution of the connected external monitor, I can see that. The higher the resolution, the more pixels the GPU has to drive thus lowering the FPS.

 

[costica1234]

I've ocassionally seen the flicker while in Windows and that's just a 57000XT thing apparently, based on some quick googling.

Are you seeing the same white horizontal lines that folks have reported here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-2020-5700xt-graphical-glitch.2251034/ ? It's very concerning if the graphical glitch also happens under Windows...

 

[Maclife80]

Depending on the resolution of the connected external monitor, I can see that. The higher the resolution, the more pixels the GPU has to drive thus lowering the FPS.

second monitor is 1440p resolution. Nothing is displayed on the monitor at all just the background. But common 20 FPS for just having a second monitor connected. I just tried it in bootcamp did the same benchmark with and without second monitor. There I have no FPS lost.

So it is definitely a Mac OS driver issue

 

[BuCkDoG]

second monitor is 1440p resolution. Nothing is displayed on the monitor at all just the background. But common 20 FPS for just having a second monitor connected. I just tried it in bootcamp did the same benchmark with and without second monitor. There I have no FPS lost.

So it is definitely a Mac OS driver issue

Then yes I would agree it’s probably a driver issue most likely. This GPU is very new though so I’m assuming new drivers will be available soon.