27" 2013 BTO - Arrived, Performance & Observations

[bp1000]

Very true, with tight budget many people would rather go for better GPU or better storage - Fusion, SSD rather than seeing a different between i5 and i7 but all depends on the workload.

This for me, preferred ssd and gpu as I doubt the i7 would be a big factor in what I do.

 

[kaellar]

Hey man!
Could you post a screenshot of cuda-z with cores # and gpu/ram clocks?
Thanks!

 

[StephenCampbell]

Actually a bit faster. I just got 14191 in 64 bit mode with Geekbench 2, this with Safari, iTerm2, Colloquy, Mail, Citrix and Tweetbot all open.

That's fantastic! That means my i7 might break 15,000.

 

[kazmac]

OP thanks for posting this

If I go iMac again (and up to 27") buying the 16gb ram and leaving 2 ram bays free is a great idea (I lost 4gb of ram upgrading my 2010 21.5 so...)

OP, may your new iMac last you a long time. Thanks for the review and the RAM tip.

 

[KOTULCN]

Congrats OP. I really wish I had upgraded to an SSD on mine. I'm thinking about picking up a 1tb Samsung 840 EVO while Newegg has them on sale for $580.

 

[ddjohns1]

Wow, those SSD speeds (650/700) are very impressive. How do those figures compare to the prior 2012 non PCIe version, or the MacMini-- I wonder how much of the speed benefit is related to PCIe vs. fast flash?

 

[2Turbo]

Looking forwards to some bootcamp FPS tests with 780m!

 

[bp1000]

Wow, those SSD speeds (650/700) are very impressive. How do those figures compare to the prior 2012 non PCIe version, or the MacMini-- I wonder how much of the speed benefit is related to PCIe vs. fast flash?

Ssd speeds are insane now

In 2011 my MBA was fast at around 250 read

Has PCIe added about 40% speed increases? Seems likely - think ssd doubled in 2012, around 400-500.

Mine is clocking 740MB/sec now

But the 512gb sticks have a slightly faster write it seems

I upgraded to 16gb ram so i can easily install 32gb in future without wasting the stock 4gb sticks.

 

[Serban]

Cinebench for 680MX what was the score?
i think 55.36 fps for 780M is very good right?

 

[mrmarts]

I like the hue those lamps give off in the evening. Nice warm temperature

Image

I am happy to do gaming benches, however do you actually mean in game benches or is there a program i can use?

I dont have bootcamp set up yet, i dont have a copy of windows (it has been a while). But i am planning on setting bootcamp / windows up for some gaming in the near future. I'm sure you will have yours by the time i get around to it.

Like your setup and speaker. I have recently shifted my wireless printer as it took too much space on my glass desk when I get my late 2013 Imac I will be putting it in the middle of the desk and getting two small lamps with warm light.

 

[macdude1985]

Ssd speeds are insane now

In 2011 my MBA was fast at around 250 read

Has PCIe added about 40% speed increases? Seems likely - think ssd doubled in 2012, around 400-500.

Mine is clocking 740MB/sec now

But the 512gb sticks have a slightly faster write it seems

I upgraded to 16gb ram so i can easily install 32gb in future without wasting the stock 4gb sticks.

First off congrats. I'm actually picking up my iMac from the store tomorrow.

Is there reason why you didn't just order the 8GB of RAM then upgrade to 32GB?

Secondly, where did you get that awesome desk?

 

[AdeFowler]

Thanks OP. I will be ordering the same set up in the next couple of months.

 

[bp1000]

Like your setup and speaker. I have recently shifted my wireless printer as it took too much space on my glass desk when I get my late 2013 Imac I will be putting it in the middle of the desk and getting two small lamps with warm light.

Thanks the speakers are really good for simple desktop units. The sub helps but i have sensitive ears and they make a high pitch sound when music isn't playing and they aren't muted. Love working in the evenings with the warm glow.

First off congrats. I'm actually picking up my iMac from the store tomorrow.

Is there reason why you didn't just order the 8GB of RAM then upgrade to 32GB?

Secondly, where did you get that awesome desk?

Thanks, i opted for 16GB, i think it was around £160 more which is about £40 more than if i bought my own kit from crucial. You can fit your own ram on 27" iMacs so it was possible. However, if i went with 8GB stock it would mean when i upgrade i would max my slots at 24GB unless i removed the 2x 4GB stock sticks and got 2x 16GB kits. I.e. for the £40 extra i paid apple i would probably get that on eBay if i sold the 8GB when i upgraded to 32GB. It is swings and roundabouts really... unless you are happy with 24GB. Most probably would be.

Oh and the desk is a simple ikea glossy white, perfectly suited as i needed a corner desk. It joins up to a rectangular desk on the right for my other stuff. Ikea just seems simple, many options and matching configurations such a mine.

edit/ just checked and they dont seem to do this desk anymore

The best desks i've seen are the oak wood blocks which are actually kitchen worktops that people put on those white stands, they look very nice.

 

[Serban]

tell us more about your imac...any test besides your 1st post?

 

[Macsonic]

Congrats on your new iMac and enjoy! SSD read and write are super fast.

 

[hgws]

Thanks the speakers are really good for simple desktop units. The sub helps but i have sensitive ears and they make a high pitch sound when music isn't playing and they aren't muted.

Slight derail... I have the same speakers, they also make a high pitched sound when music isn't playing, but only when I have a certain external HD plugged in and switched on in the same power board as the speakers. Luckily I only use this HD for a once-weekly backup so just play music while I do the backup or turn the speakers off at the power board. I'm guessing it could be a circuitry issue caused by a not so great quality power supply for the external HD. Perhaps you could try unplugging something and see if that makes the noise go away?

Anyway, thanks for this post. Just wondering when you ordered your iMac? I have ordered something very similar that has been in "processing" for the past few days...

 

[bp1000]

Slight derail... I have the same speakers, they also make a high pitched sound when music isn't playing, but only when I have a certain external HD plugged in and switched on in the same power board as the speakers. Luckily I only use this HD for a once-weekly backup so just play music while I do the backup or turn the speakers off at the power board. I'm guessing it could be a circuitry issue caused by a not so great quality power supply for the external HD. Perhaps you could try unplugging something and see if that makes the noise go away?

Anyway, thanks for this post. Just wondering when you ordered your iMac? I have ordered something very similar that has been in "processing" for the past few days...

Thanks for the tips, these speakers have this high pitch whine without plugging anything else in, happens on my MBA too Great speakers tho, i just keep remembering to mute them

I ordered this iMac about 1 hour after they announced it last tuesday. It was in processing until Monday, then within 5 hours went to dispatched and took 2 days to get here. I think logistics are little better than Australia though. I dont think you have a regional assembly over there, i think it's china so it could serve a lot more territories.

 

[bp1000]

iMac unrelated but my Buffalo Drivestation DDR 3TB turned up today

It isn't far off it's clained 297MB/Sec on the Mac at least not in BlackMagic. Curiously, apparently PC users can get 400MB/Sec writes, wonder why that is.

Either way, pretty impressive for a external USB 3 disk / DDRAM combo.

Writes are extremely impressive. Random reads are more like an average external HDD, between 150MB/Sec and 170MB/Sec. Read caching is great though when you are working on 1 thing.

Anyway, should be perfect for time machine backups. It zipped through my 19GB first back up.

p.s.
That read write speed benchmarked is actually faster than my all SSD 2011 MBA. But the MBA would likely annihilate it general use and random access. Something worth remember if looking purely at benchmarks. Still this is good solution for external media, like itunes libraries, Aperture masters and maybe video raws if you dont want to plump for raid 0 setups with very fast raptor drives.

 

[kaellar]

bp1000, dude, what about cuda-z snapshot I asked you earlier?

 

[bp1000]

bp1000, dude, what about cuda-z snapshot I asked you earlier?

Core Information
----------------
Name: GeForce GTX 780M
Compute Capability: 3.0
Clock Rate: 784 MHz
PCI Location: 0:1:0
Multiprocessors: 8 (1536 Cores)
Therds Per Multiproc.: 2048
Warp Size: 32
Regs Per Block: 65536
Threads Per Block: 1024
Threads Dimensions: 1024 x 1024 x 64
Grid Dimensions: 2147483647 x 65535 x 65535
Watchdog Enabled: Yes
Integrated GPU: No
Concurrent Kernels: Yes
Compute Mode: Default

Memory Information
------------------
Total Global: 4095.56 MiB
Bus Width: 256 bits
Clock Rate: 2500 MHz
Error Correction: No
L2 Cache Size: 48 KiB
Shared Per Block: 48 KiB
Pitch: 2048 MiB
Total Constant: 64 KiB
Texture Alignment: 512 B
Texture 1D Size: 65536
Texture 2D Size: 65536 x 65536
Texture 3D Size: 4096 x 4096 x 4096
GPU Overlap: Yes
Map Host Memory: Yes
Unified Addressing: No
Async Engine: Yes, Bidirectional

Performance Information
-----------------------
Memory Copy
Host Pinned to Device: 6266.61 MiB/s
Host Pageable to Device: 5378.67 MiB/s
Device to Host Pinned: 6331.24 MiB/s
Device to Host Pageable: 5139.21 MiB/s
Device to Device: 16.3972 GiB/s
GPU Core Performance
Single-precision Float: 1048.59 Gflop/s
Double-precision Float: 77.8095 Gflop/s
32-bit Integer: 320.241 Giop/s
24-bit Integer: 325.997 Giop/s

 

[Tanax]

It's still quad core, hence four threads. The i7 has two threads per core, thus eight. I believe. Someone correct me.

You are right, however, I pointed out above CB is calling it out as a dual core, hence the confusion of 4 threads. I think its just a CB display error.

Ah, I got a bit confused since it says 2 cores. Thanks!

 

[Serban]

so they raised the Clock Rate: to 784 MHz from 771 MHz

 

[Nirurin]

so they raised the Clock Rate: to 784 MHz from 771 MHz

I'm not so sure about this... according to some sources, the clock speed of a standard 780m is 771mhz (with boost up to 797).

BUT
On notebookcheck (and a couple other places) the clock speed is stated as being 823mhz. Which is faster than the iMac one.

Strange?

 

[kaellar]

bp1000, thanks man!
Looks like the only thing to write home about is vRAM 4gb, the rest is almost the same as last year's 680mx. Increased amount of vRAM for 1440p display is always a welcome, however
p.s. a little bit off-topic, but I'm a bit frustrated Apple didn't come up with some graphics bump option for hi-end 21.5incher.

 

[Serban]

I'm not so sure about this... according to some sources, the clock speed of a standard 780m is 771mhz (with boost up to 797).

BUT
On notebookcheck (and a couple other places) the clock speed is stated as being 823mhz. Which is faster than the iMac one.

Strange?

Maybe an app that tracks the core speed while you are using heavy task will tell us the maximum speed