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M1 iMac barely better than my 2013 27”

Simgar988

Simgar988

macrumors 65816
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Jul 22, 2009
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I have a the highest tier 2013 iMac with the ram being upgraded after market.

It still performs very well.

The fully speced M1 iMac barely beats it in performance. Obviously a nicer screen, but I find fcpx is a bit faster (but less smooth) than the M1 iMac. A lot of beach balls with the M1.
Also, a big hang up was import times, but the M1 is barely faster! I can hardly tell.

why is my 2013 performing so well still and the M1, almost a decade later, is not blowing it away.

I’m thinking of returning it but I don’t want to be slapped with the open box fee
 
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Unless you’re memory constrained, that shouldn’t be the case. What’s the memory pressure (in Activity Monitor) showing on each machine when running FCPX? Since the machine is new it’s possible that Spotlight May still,be indexing. Again, what does Activity Monitor show in CPU utilization?

If you don’t like it, return it under the two week period and wait for the model with a faster CPU and more memory.
 
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Obviously it depends on useage, but my M1 MacBook Pro is noticeable quicker than my 2015 27” iMac for most things. Whilst sometimes the speed to
complete tasks isn’t as much as you may hope, the real difference that I see is the time it takes to do general tasks (open apps, files etc). It is a much nicer experience, and was a major driver in me updating the iMac now.

If you aren’t seeing that then it is likely either spotlight working in the background or some problem with the computer or setup.

If you can if wait for it to settle down before making a decision. I’m expecting mine to take a while before it has everything organised and indexed before I see it working at its best.
 
You should wait for the 27" replacement. The 24" iMac M1 is the replacement to the 21.5". The M1 is not meant to replace the your 27" iMac. I would wait for a machine that has more RAM than 16GB and more GPU cores.

The M1 has a 8 Core CPU, 4 of which are high-performance cores and the other 4 low power cores.
It also has a 8 core GPU, which is equal to a GTX 1050.

The M1 is meant for ultra-low power laptops and desktops. Certainly is not a replacement for a high tier 27" iMac.

If your not impressed then return it and wait for the true successor.

I don't even know why you bought the M1 iMac when 27" 2020 would have been a much better buy.

The 10th gen i7 and RX Pro 5500XT would destroy the M1 in graphics and cpu performance.

TLDR: If you want PRO level performance wait for the 14"&16" MBP or 27" replacement
 
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Kung gu said:
You should wait for the 27" replacement. The 24" iMac M1 is the replacement to the 21.5". The M1 is not meant to replace the your 27" iMac. I would wait for a machine that has more RAM than 16GB and more GPU cores.

The M1 has a 8 Core CPU, 4 of which are high-performance cores and the other 4 low power cores.
It also has a 8 core GPU, which is equal to a GTX 1050.

The M1 is meant for ultra-low power laptops and desktops. Certainly is not a replacement for a high tier 27" iMac.

If your not impressed then return it and wait for the true successor.

I don't even know why you bought the M1 iMac when 27" 2020 would have been a much better buy.

The 10th gen i7 and RX Pro 5500XT would destroy the M1 in graphics and cpu performance.

TLDR: If you want PRO level performance wait for the 14"&16" MBP or 27" replacement
Click to expand...
The 24" iMac with twice the CPU-performance of the OP's iMac is "barely better", but the 10th generation i7, which is around 25% faster than the M1, will destroy the M1?
 
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Kung gu said:
You should wait for the 27" replacement. The 24" iMac M1 is the replacement to the 21.5". The M1 is not meant to replace the your 27" iMac. I would wait for a machine that has more RAM than 16GB and more GPU cores.

The M1 has a 8 Core CPU, 4 of which are high-performance cores and the other 4 low power cores.
It also has a 8 core GPU, which is equal to a GTX 1050.

The M1 is meant for ultra-low power laptops and desktops. Certainly is not a replacement for a high tier 27" iMac.

If your not impressed then return it and wait for the true successor.

I don't even know why you bought the M1 iMac when 27" 2020 would have been a much better buy.

The 10th gen i7 and RX Pro 5500XT would destroy the M1 in graphics and cpu performance.

TLDR: If you want PRO level performance wait for the 14"&16" MBP or 27" replacement
Click to expand...
M1 (and it’s successors) is going to be powering everything with a fruit logo on it before long.....and that’s a good thing
 
This thread really speaks for Apple’s inherent product longevity from a forward-looking 2013 product, rather than any perceived limitations of a 2021 product.

In 8 years, a good number of 2021 imacs will be running along fine doing iMac type stuff.
 
Some upgraded from their 10 yr old iMac 27' still in good working order, that's the appeal right there for me!
 
I got beach balls setting it up because I was transferring my 2015 5K 27" 11.3.1 to the new 11.3 on the 24". Once I upgraded the 24" to 11.3.1 it's smooth as butter now.
 
Very interesting. I have a late 2012 27 iMac, upgraded memory to max and upgraded 500 gb SD drive. I thought my 2021 24 iMac would blow it away in many areas, but so far barely notice a difference. Still have more testing to do, but don’t understand how a 9 year old computer is still keeping up. Apple really does make things last.
 
Simgar988 said:
I have a the highest tier 2013 iMac with the ram being upgraded after market.

It still performs very well.

The fully speced M1 iMac barely beats it in performance. Obviously a nicer screen, but I find fcpx is a bit faster (but less smooth) than the M1 iMac. A lot of beach balls with the M1.
Also, a big hang up was import times, but the M1 is barely faster! I can hardly tell.

why is my 2013 performing so well still and the M1, almost a decade later, is not blowing it away.

I’m thinking of returning it but I don’t want to be slapped with the open box fee
Click to expand...
How much RAM do you have in the new iMac? Please don't tell me it's 8GB and you're trying to cram in a 32GB job into it.

I also have a late 2013 iMac (3.5GHz i7, 32GB RAM, best available graphics (GTX780?), 512GB SSD). It's a great machine and still holds it own. It's currently living out it's old age as a movie server for my AppleTVs.

But my little 16GB M1 MacBook Air is noticeably faster in every way imaginable.
 
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MistrSynistr said:
I got beach balls setting it up because I was transferring my 2015 5K 27" 11.3.1 to the new 11.3 on the 24". Once I upgraded the 24" to 11.3.1 it's smooth as butter now.
Click to expand...
update to 11.4 it has important security fixes and also fixes ssd write issues
 
Simgar988 said:
The fully speced M1 iMac barely beats it in performance. Obviously a nicer screen, but I find fcpx is a bit faster (but less smooth) than the M1 iMac. A lot of beach balls with the M1.
Also, a big hang up was import times, but the M1 is barely faster! I can hardly tell.
Click to expand...
If your workflow requires running FCPX through Rosetta rather than the native Apple Silicon version that's going to have an impact on performance.

The M1 is a first generation product. It's designed to start getting a user base built up for Apple Silicon so that developer find it worthwhile to produce Apple Silicon versions of their apps. Whilst the CPU is great, the graphics still has significant room for improvement and there are other drawbacks of the M1 products like limited ports and a maximum of 16GB RAM (my 10 year old iMacs can be upgraded to 32GB RAM).

I expect the second generation is going to be a lot better and address a lot of the drawbacks of the first generation.
 
is the 24" imac wifi still 2x2 like the others M1 macs? or its 3x3 like the other imacs ?!
 
xraydoc said:
In what apps? It's not going to open your email any faster...
Click to expand...

Photos, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Plex, etc…. Only thing that is faster is the wireless. Probably returning this week and holding onto my 2012. Just can’t believe it is not noticeable. Bummer, as would like to keep current with iOS, but not worth spending about $1800 to stay current.
 
GDF said:
Photos, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Plex, etc…. Only thing that is faster is the wireless. Probably returning this week and holding onto my 2012. Just can’t believe it is not noticeable. Bummer, as would like to keep current with iOS, but not worth spending about $1800 to stay current.
Click to expand...
You can upgrade the airport card in your 2012 iMac from a newer Macbook for example. I did the same for my 2011, even Watch unlock works after that :) After you install Big Sur, you get all the most recent features, Airdrop, continuity etc... everything works just like in a new iMac.
 
mdgm said:
..The M1 is a first generation product. It's designed to start getting a user base built up for Apple Silicon so that developer find it worthwhile to produce Apple Silicon versions of their apps...
Click to expand...

Really not at all the right answer. The M1 has been around for months now, developers know that's the future across all Apple's products, it isn't as if they need much encouragement to move to it, because they won't be selling much if they don't. And it isn't designed to get a user base built up - they have that already. It's designed to be a highly productive computer system for Apple users to buy and use.

If nothing else, out there on YouTube there are plenty of examples of people testing M1 systems and finding pretty excellent results - including M1 iMacs running Final Cut. The problem here is this specific user has an issue, and how that can be resolved so her/his iMac can work as well as everyone else's.
 
GDF said:
Photos, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Plex, etc…. Only thing that is faster is the wireless. Probably returning this week and holding onto my 2012. Just can’t believe it is not noticeable. Bummer, as would like to keep current with iOS, but not worth spending about $1800 to stay current.
Click to expand...
Are you running the Apple Silicon-native versions of Microsoft Office?
I don't use Plex, but Photos is super zippy on my M1 MacBook Air, and I've got a 90+ GB library.
Office apps are as snappy as I could imagine them to be. Most of the time they just sit and wait for me, but clicks and menu selections are instantaneous.

I'm getting the sense that perhaps your old machine is fast enough for your needs and that even a $15,000 Mac Pro wouldn't do much to improve things. It's not a dig... at some point, more horsepower doesn't mean getting to your destination faster.
 
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