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."

Re:They are still damn overpriced

[bemymonkey]

It *is* pretty though. And that's what counts for many people... I'm currently sitting in front of three relatively cheap FullHD monitors hooked up to a monster PC with wired peripherals, a laptop, a pair of studio monitors, a small mixer, a mic preamp and a USB audio interface - lots of bang for my buck and it does a ton of shit that an iMac couldn't, but damn does it look cluttered. Some people just prefer a sleek all-in-one with brushed metal (no glossy fucking plastic like you'll find on many other all-in-ones) and wireless input devices...

Re:They are still damn overpriced

[gordo3000]

yes, but monitor quality is a huge difference. I have a cheaper 25**x 1440 display and a 27 inch mac display, and without the doubt, while the apple display cost about 300 dollars more, the quality of the is far superior (and the cheaper display is being driven by a much more powerful machine).

And if you work in a world where super high quality displays are in high demand, you pay up. there are other sellers of equivalent quality, but it turns out they price to within 5% of the apple display. I'm never certain where the talk of the apple tax comes from. For phones, mp3 players, monitors, and laptops I found them very competitively priced.

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

[Solandri]

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.

It was a bigger issue 7-10 years ago when keeping a computer for longer than 3-4 years was, quite frankly, stupid. Build quality mattered less, and it was silly to pay extra for good looks because if you didn't replace your computer by year 3 and definitely by year 5, it was too slow to run any modern software. Heck, I occasionally run across a person using a computer from back then, and I implore them to upgrade because the extra electricity they burn in 2-3 years will be enough to pay for the new computer.

Now that even low-end CPUs are "fast enough" for most people, keeping a computer for 5-7 years is a real possibility. That means paying an extra $500 for good looks or better build quality is cheaper because it'll be amortized over 6 years instead of 3 years.

At least that's the viewpoint of the casual user. The hard core computer geek who insists on state of the art is probably still on a 3 year upgrade cycle. So for him, dropping an extra $500 for good looks or better build quality is still an extravagance.

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.

5 years ago I bought my non-techy dad a Lenovo Thinkpad. Since then I've had to do almost no interventions. Anecdotes are a dime a dozen.

And incidentally, Apple doesn't make the Macbooks. They're made by Quanta [wikipedia.org] - they're the ODM (original design manufacturer) that Apple uses. Normally the ODM also designs the laptop while the vendor just provides the specs and requirements, so I'm not even sure if Apple even designs the Macbooks.

Quanta also makes most of HP's laptops.

That's the dirty little secret about the laptop industry - the vast majority of laptops aren't made by the brand they're sold under. So it's pointless arguing build quality or reliability based on brand name. To figure out some sort of correlation, you have to know which ODM made which particular model.

Re:Fast shiny expensive thin computer is fast

[dfghjk]

"Is "insightful" nowadays the same as "conforms to my baseless prejudices"?"

Not just nowadays.

Democratic moderation, in all its forms, only furthers tribalism. It exists due to laziness and the desire to play to people's egos. It is rarely used as "intended".

Friction-stir welding is interesting

[GlobalEcho]

It's always interesting to hear of novel (to me) industrial processes Apple uses to make its product. Case in point: the article mentions Apple has switch to friction-stir welding [caranddriver.com].