Apple 27-inch iMac With Intel's Haswell Inside Tested

MojoKid writes "Apple's late 2013 edition iMacs are largely unchanged in external form, though they're upgraded in function with a revamped foundation that now pairs Intel's Haswell 4th Generation Core processors with NVIDIA's GeForce 700 Series graphics. The Cupertino company also outfitted these latest models with faster flash storage options, including support for PCI-E based storage, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology, all wrapped in a 21.5-inch (1920x1080) or 27-inch IPS displays with a 2560x1440 resolution. As configured, the 27-inch iMac reviewed here bolted through benchmarks with relative ease and posted especially solid figures in gaming tests, including a 3DMark 11 score of 3,068 in Windows 7 (via Boot Camp). Running Cinebench 11.5 in Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks also helped showcase the CPU and GPU combination. Storage benchmarks weren't nearly as impressive though, for iMacs based on standard spinning media. For real IO throughput, it's advisable to go with Apple's Flash storage options."

Comments

Re:They are still damn overpriced

[Camembert]

Sour grapes, much? Why does it get so much on your nerves that other people may buy something that not only works well with little headaches but is also a lot prettier than most computers on the market?

I've left my ikea days long behind. Nowadays, when I buy something I want it to be good AND beautiful in my house. Yes it costs more than generic products, but I am happy with my previous gen iMac. And when whiners think that it costs too much, I won't lose sleep over it. My life quality is worth something.

Similarly two years ago I bought my non techy parents a Macbook Pro. Since then I've had to do almost no interventions, what a change compared to their previous Windows on HP experience. Their life is better and I sacrifice less time. IT's worth something for me.

First hand experience

[teg]

I bought one - 27 inch, with all available upgrades except for the max memory. Memory is user replaceable, and it's cheaper to buy it elsewhere. Here are my impressions

• Unpacking it and setting it up is, as always, a breeze. Take off the top lid, lift the surprisingly light computer to a desk, put in the power chord. Done. Initial setup of the computer is then done in a minute.
• Restoring my user profile from a time machine hard drive, to get applications, user data etc. was fast and smooth
• The high res screen is gorgeous. It's also very well calibrated out of the box - my calibration hardware hardly changed anything this time around. Compared to earlier iMacs -and most other screens today - there are no reflections, even though it is glossy.
• Fusion drive - Apple's automated tiering solution - works very well. For most practical purposes, it worked just as well as my last SSD-based iMac - but this time, I don't have to do manual file management of SSD vs. HD.
• The computer is noiseless
• Performance is good (photo and movie editing), but that's obviously to be expected. My Linux VMs are very happy too.
• The games I tried work well on high settings, but the Witcher 1 doesn't work at all - first, a bug causes it to believe that the system doesn't meet minimum requirements (the older, slower one did). Some editing of config files later, it starts - but videos don't display (sound only) and the 3D display have all objects except text rendered black.
• While the sound coming out of the chassis sound surprisingly good, you really want separate speakers or good headphones if you are listening to music while you work.

Re:They are still damn overpriced

[fatphil]

As someone who has bought a real DEC Alpha workstation for serious work, and who was given a high-end Mac, and has used so-called high-end pee-cees (branded HP and Dell boxes), but who has mostly owned cheap-arse no-name budget pee-cees, I can assure you that build quality was always directly related to the price. The Alpha was a bomb-proof brick, with beatiful damping that made it not even hum or whirr at all. The Mac was specced with enough cooling for worst-case and partitioned internally such that the components that were temperature sensitive got the lions share of the airflow, a very clever design. The HPs had the cooling, but sounded like a helicopter the whole time - they had over-specced cooling, but with braindead internal sensors, shitty bearings, and no damping. Dell was just an overpriced but lame HP-wannabee. And we all know how shitty shitty PCs are. Look at the benchmarks, and they were all pretty similar (the Alpha clearly blew any intel machines out of the water at the time for floating point stuff, but that didn't last for more than a few years), but there was an entire order of magnitude, between the most expensive and the cheapest. However, the build quality - which is not just the components, but has a purely mechanical aspect - was just as broad in range. People like you keep saying "but it's the same RAM, the same HDD, the same optical drive, the same processor, ...", but you completely overlook build quality. I'm no Apple fan-boi - I run linux on the Mac that Apple gave me (I was sworn into not insulting them as part of the agreement, which did mean I had to bite my lip a few times, as I hate OSX) - but I did, and still do, like their build quality. I also liked their choice of CPU - the POWER architecture - sigh.

Re:They are still damn overpriced

[Arkham]

Let's let that dominate the discussion.

There's always some Apple fanboys (jo_ham, where you at?), who insist the machines are higher quality etc etc, but this is mainly nonsense.

They use almost the exact same components for PC's, and are ridiculous overpriced.

Not to mention the barriers to self-repair, amping up the cost over the lifetime of the machine.

The only value they have is in the aesthetics, or if you need OS X for some reason. Generally not worth the cost except to people who like to burn money.

The same people who buy a $100 burger in a restaurant that costs $12 to make, cause it costs $100.

1. I've got a degree in computer engineering. I have designed and built CPUs and motherboards. I don't repair my own computers. It's not worth my time.
2. Aesthetics are important. Anyone who hasn't realized this is living in the past. There's a reason that Apple is the most valuable company in the world. The real genius in Apple's products isn't the performance and never has been; it's the fusion of design, style, and functionality.
3. Need OS X for some reason? How about because it's the best OS on the market for nearly everyone? Linux is a great dev OS, but my mother could never use it. Windows is an adequate OS, and had gotten better with Windows 7, but it's still far, far more obtuse than OS X, and it's less powerful for a power user with a UNIX background too.
4. A Mac is not a $100 burger. It's the $10 burger that's clearly better than the cheaper Big Mac. Both will fill you up, but there's no question in my mind which one I want to eat. You get what you pay for.