Apple's New iMacs Up to 20% Faster Than Previous Models in Geekbench Testing

[bsimpsen]

Meanwhile, the standard 5400RPM hard drive is exactly 0% faster than the one in an 1999 iMac.

This is nowhere near true. The original entry level 1998 iMac HD was 4GB. The current entry level HD is 500GB. I'll have to make some guesses, but let's say that both drives were single platter (more likely today than in 1998). The speed at which you can read a platter is limited by the mechanics (rotation speed, track stepping rate x tracks count). I'd expect a higher track count over the years, but that might be offset by increased track stepping rate. The increased bit density goes entirely to speed. If you can pack 125x more bits/track, you should see the data go 125x faster at the same RPM.

Someone else mentioned that HD cache sizes have increased considerably over the years as well. So, I reckon that a modern 5400RPM 500GB drive is far faster than an old 5400RPM 4GB drive. Probably not 125x faster, but certainly not 0% faster.

 

[chaosbunny]

Not bad though, that multicore score is approaching my 6 core Mac pro.

Just as long as the iMac doesn't overheat, which it will do sooner or later.

 

[ActionableMango]

As I wrote in another post. HDs should no longer be available in any of Apples "consumer" lines

Hey, I'm all for SSDs--I use them in all of my computers. But I imagine there are plenty of people who would prefer the lower cost and larger capacity of a HDD versus the higher cost and higher speed of an SSD.

There are lots of people in the world and undoubtedly many of them will have different preferences or requirements than you and I do.

 

[jamesryanbell]

You can't be serious...

I'm dead serious. If you're spending $1499 on a 4K 21.5" iMac that you're going to use for years, $300 shouldn't matter that much. Just do it and be done with it.

 

[milo]

I still want to see a six core iMac some day.

 

[milo]

Why do people take Geekbench seriously ? For arm cpus it might make some sense since we don't have any decent alternative bot for big os x computers real world benchmarks would be much better.

Such as?

 

[Amazing Ox Space Monkey]

I'm dead serious. If you're spending $1499 on a 4K 21.5" iMac that you're going to use for years, $300 shouldn't matter that much. Just do it and be done with it.

I agree with you up to a point. Once we get to the $2000 mark one may start thinking that another $200 for 16 GB RAM is easy to swallow and so on.

Thruth being said, I am highly surprised that in 2015 SSD is not already standard configuration for the entire line of Apple. HDD should be present only on the econo model. And I am outraged at the prices Apple asks for SSD upgrades.

 

[wallysb01]

I still want to see a six core iMac some day.

That’s only going to happen when Intel moves up to 6 cores in its desktop class chips (not the extreme versions, can you imagine a 140W CPU in an iMac?). And I don’t think intel is going to do that any time soon.

 

[mixel]

"Hard drive sucks". Yes it does. So upgrade it to an SSD when you buy one. It's not THAT much.

Or do what I did and boot from an external TB SSD.. Has its advantages.

 

[wallysb01]

I'm dead serious. If you're spending $1499 on a 4K 21.5" iMac that you're going to use for years, $300 shouldn't matter that much. Just do it and be done with it.

If $300 isn’t so much, how about you mail me check? If $300 isn’t that much, why doesn’t Apple just swallow it themselves?

Nothing you’ve said here makes a damn bit of sense.

Its all on the margin and opportunity cost. It doesn’t matter that I’m going to use THIS computer for years, because I could use a DIFFERENT computer for years too AND have money left over to, I don’t know, mail checks to ******s on Macrumors.

 

[monokakata]

Although somewhat disappointing, those 5400RPM drives on the non-BTO 21" iMacs is obviously purely a money-saving (or profit-preserving depending on your outlook) move by Apple.

Had they included faster drives and raised prices somewhat, people would have complained about those higher prices. Apple likely knows or believes that for the people buying those basic non-upgraded units, these 5400 drives are not too objectionable. Heavier users would obviously upgrade and pay the difference.

At quantity one retail, 1 TB 2.5" drives from HGST show a 5400:7200 price differential of about $20. Even if it cost Apple $20 more for the 7200 rpm drive, and it most surely would not . . . they ought to be able to eat that without spitting up.

Even if you add something on for the labor involved in having an assembly-line worker need to choose from which bin to pick a drive, it's a very small amount.

 

[Statusnone88]

At quantity one retail, 1 TB 2.5" drives from HGST show a 5400:7200 price differential of about $20. Even if it cost Apple $20 more for the 7200 rpm drive, and it most surely would not . . . they ought to be able to eat that without spitting up.

Even if you add something on for the labor involved in having an assembly-line worker need to choose from which bin to pick a drive, it's a very small amount.

$20 times a million machines is a big chunk to an investor who knows you'll still buy the machine regardless. Or even better, spend MORE to upgrade it.

 

[thekev]

$20 times a million machines is a big chunk to an investor who knows you'll still buy the machine regardless. Or even better, spend MORE to upgrade it.

That's way oversimplified, because you could scrutinize every component in that manner. If the drive seems laggier in loading applications, fewer people will buy it. Retail stores also stock the base models, so they are most likely sold in higher volume than anything else.

have to say I am impressed.

Out of curiosity, why are you impressed? 20% on benchmarks isn't a noticeable difference. It's just that when examining year over year, these things tend to scale geometrically over time. If cpus improve in benchmarks 20% each year, you have (1.2)^n times performance after n years even though the difference from one year to the next is trivial. The most hardcore tests are highly parallel things that run for a long time, such as rendering or any kind of numerical solver. Even those will not necessarily finish in 80% of the time when compared to the prior generation.

 

[aidler]

7200 rpm drives are probably thicker then 5400 rpm drives or they are not available in white and aluminium. Both are absolute no-no's for Apple.

 

[tsmercer]

$20 times a million machines is a big chunk to an investor who knows you'll still buy the machine regardless. Or even better, spend MORE to upgrade it.

Yeah, they think I'll buy it regardless, or I'll just keep building hackintoshes. I was going to buy my wife a new 21.5", but no GPU is a no go. I'm just going to build her a Windows machine instead. Apple doesn't make hardware that I want to buy anymore.

 

[monokakata]

$20 times a million machines is a big chunk to an investor who knows you'll still buy the machine regardless. Or even better, spend MORE to upgrade it.

I don't suppose either one of us knows how Apple computes these things. My response, though, was to somebody who thought a faster drive would lead to people complaining about the higher price. My point was that unless Apple behaved as they do with RAM prices (and, yeah, let's face it . . . they probaby would) the incremental cost for a faster drive even if they made people pay for it would not be great.

 

[macs4nw]

At quantity one retail, 1 TB 2.5" drives from HGST show a 5400:7200 price differential of about $20. Even if it cost Apple $20 more for the 7200 rpm drive, and it most surely would not . . . they ought to be able to eat that without spitting up.

Even if you add something on for the labor involved in having an assembly-line worker need to choose from which bin to pick a drive, it's a very small amount.

Even considering they probably sell hundreds of thousands of those entry level 21" iMacs, I agree, they could most certainly absorb that, but they obviously think like a manufacturer with both sales figures and profits amongst other things, as part of a delicately balanced equation.

 

[appledefenceforce]

Well if everyone agrees to stop buying these new iMac maybe Apple will learn its lesson.

 

[840quadra]

The point is you don't forgo a processor upgrade that holds a significant advantage. As far as I can tell Skylake will be a worthwhile improvement.

Ironically, if what you say proves true (about rMBP Skylake delays) you've kinda dis-proven your own argument. Many people said we should forget Broadwell and wait for Skylake on the rMBP. But if Skylake is delayed now, Apple is vindicated in having recently updated to Broadwell. Who's to say Kaby Lake won't be delayed as well?

What argument? I simply stated my feelings about Kaby Lake from which you jumped in and said Skylake has better thermal performance. Apparently you were comparing it to Broadwell (which I never mentioned) which is correct, but not correct when compared to Kaby Lake, which was the context of my post you quoted.

Since they were so late jumping into broadwell, A guy (OK maybe just me) can have hopes that Apple will get it's hands on early copies of the next processor, can't he?

 

[Starflyer]

Nice try. But if you actually read the reviews on Newegg, they just confirm that a 5400rpm drive does not belong on the iMac. And everybody is complaining about the drive performance, because, you know, it comes from the same company that spoiled us with SSDs for 5+ years.

If the 5400rpm drive isn't fast enough for you, there are other options you know.

Im glad that there is a relatively low-cost entry model with a 5400rpm drive that will do just fine for my Mom who wants an aesthetically pleasing computer with an awesome display to sort her pictures, check email and do some word processing.

 

[mytdave]

Awesome! Up to 20% faster CPUs and 3000% slower storage device.

 

[nickeditor]

Meanwhile, the standard 5400RPM hard drive is exactly 0% faster than the one in an 1999 iMac.

Nop, now they have more cache memory: 64MB

 

[Cloudane]

With the help of some direct copper heatsink technology they could also be 20% cooler!

 

[coolfactor]

I am not in favor of 5400 hard drives, whenever I could, I would use 7200 hard drives.
However, the story of 5400 is not as straightforward as it seems, I think.
In 1999, disk cache was probably 2 mb, RAM was 64-128 mb, so disk caching was very, very heavy and performance was not optimal. They were also ATA hard drives.

Yes, now we still have 5400 disks, but they have much larger cache (8-64mb), SATA controllers, and have excellent reviews like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...re=hard_drive_5400_1TB-_-22-236-221-_-Product

So I wouldn't fixate much on RPM only. With much larger RAM (8GB standard), you don't have to use disk drive that much as before. I have OS X on my SSD drive and a reserve installation on usual hard drive 1TB (Seagate), and under normal use, except boot times, difference is not like that much.

Good, sound logic. Those complaining are fixating too much on the spin speed rather than the true performance. Let's see some real-world performance benchmarks!

 

[daneoni]

Meh. Still relatively within range of my Haswell Retina. The new SSD controllers are drool worthy though, plus 5K screen.

Apple please get to releasing a 5K Thunderbolt display its waaaay overdue.