I returned my iMac Retina 5k, did you?...

[UncleGuido]

Unboxing and plugging it in, the first thing I noticed was the fan sound.

Very different story here. I have had a Retina iMac for several weeks, and I have yet to hear the fan come on. This one has the 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM (Crucial), and the 295X GPU.

Perhaps this model runs considerably hotter with the HD or Fusion Drive, and for hard-core gamers who are driving the CPU and GPU hard. I use the computer for coding, Photoshop, and routine email/surfing.

 

[redheeler]

Yes, the fan is audible at idle, but I still find it much quieter then the hard drive noise made by my 2010 27'' iMac or my 2012 15'' rMBP (the fans on it spin up fast, even with basic HD video).

As for the lag, the M295X graphics upgrade seems to fix most of it. The Retina iMac with this upgrade is just as smooth as the rMBP if not more so.

 

[tillsbury]

I'd say you weren't hearing the fan. Going for the base model is not the way to get the best experience. The maxed out model is i7/295/32Gb/1Tb SSD. There are a lot of in-between options, but on the maxed out one you certainly can't hear the fan unless you get into some serious graphics processing. And even then it's hardly intrusive...

 

[vir3l]

One thing we do know is there is going to be a lot of software updates that need to fine tune these machines. How much this is going to help things in the future is a guess. I snagged a Base unit for $2300 which should arrive soon so ill give it a whirl and hopefully it improves with updates and fine tuning settings.

wow this is sad. hope for a non-beta version in a year.

 

[tillsbury]

wow this is sad. hope for a non-beta version in a year.

Sorry you're having such a bad experience with yours. Mine's brilliant...

 

[teerexx52]

I did buy the stock one. No problems

Oh yes..I have heard that for sure...

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Did you get the stock i5 one?

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Yes I would say that is the higher end one with the i7 + 4GB GPU.

I too have a PS4 and game on that all the time. I don't game much on my iMac..but do on occasion. I'd like to have the option though, I'd want my new iMac to do it all. And would not expect much less buying a new 2014 machine. I have heard about the fan sounds and the high temps, and yes that would make me uneasy as well. I never got to the point of testing games on the iMac before returning it.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

is the noise the fan or as the person above you suggests, the fusion drive which he suggests is annoying?

I don't have a fusion drive in mine. The barely perceptible, ever-so-faint sound is the fan and it doesn't bother me at all.

Bryan

 

[macmee]

Mine is amazing for xcode, hangouts and everything else I need.

 

[desireek]

I returned my iMac 5k for a 27" late 2013 me088.

I think it was waste of money since i only use it to browse internet, stream video and store pics, listen to music, wright documents a few times on a year and print it.

The 2013 27" iMac have quad hd, a good screen, better than thunderbolt screen.

Fan sound is the same on the 5k and late 2013, sata 7200rpm is slower of course but not so slow that i notice it, use 45 sec to boot up vs 20-22 on 5k.
The late 2013 open programs fast also.

I miss the 5k a bit because of the screen but i can't use so mutch money just because of that, the 2013 still have quad hd, wore if it only had full hd.

Side by side comparison they almost look the same if you stand a meter from the screen, a regular guy on the street could not see witch is 5k or 2.5k i think, but when you are close up you easy see that 5k is more sharp

2013 vs 2014 retina imac is a hard choice, not easy to choose between them at all.

 

[fathergll]

wow this is sad. hope for a non-beta version in a year.

That's only to be expected. You're dealing with both a new OS and cutting edge new hardware.

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I returned my iMac 5k for a 27" late 2013 me088.

I think it was waste of money since i only use it to browse internet, stream video and store pics, listen to music, wright documents a few times on a year and print it.

The 2013 27" iMac have quad hd, a good screen, better than thunderbolt screen.

Fan sound is the same on the 5k and late 2013, sata 7200rpm is slower of course but not so slow that i notice it, use 45 sec to boot up vs 20-22 on 5k.
The late 2013 open programs fast also.

I miss the 5k a bit because of the screen but i can't use so mutch money just because of that, the 2013 still have quad hd, wore if it only had full hd.

Side by side comparison they almost look the same if you stand a meter from the screen, a regular guy on the street could not see witch is 5k or 2.5k i think, but when you are close up you easy see that 5k is more sharp

2013 vs 2014 retina imac is a hard choice, not easy to choose between them at all.

What was the price difference?

 

[seasurfer]

I absolutely love it. After using 5K screen, you can't go back to the normal 27', everything looked suboptimal on my old 27' iMac.

 

[sven gali]

For folks who hear the fan upon unboxing (this applies to most Macs) - if you've restored your backup the Mac will work harder in the beginning while it indexes this data. This can take from minutes to hours, depending on how much data you have.

So don't judge the machine until it had a chance to settle in

 

[desireek]

That's only to be expected. You're dealing with both a new OS and cutting edge new hardware.

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What was the price difference?

Price difference is a what a new MacBook air 13" from Apple cost, littlebit more and you get a 13" pro retina on sale..

Yeah, almost every fan run on full power when it restart when you have set it up or install osx. The 5k dosn't have any louder fan than the 2013, they are the same! So dont worry about the fan sound.

 

[lcseds]

Return? No freakin' way. Great machine.

 

[jimgeo68]

happy with new Retina iMac but

Hi,

moved from a 2009 apple iMac dual core that was running Yosemite - to the new 27" iMac 5K -

I am pleased overall - i create a great number of home videos of my kids and this baby renders the output very quickly -

it also imports movie footage into iMovie very quickly.

I did have some initial problems - that seem their were as a result of bad ram modules (after market install) - i had bought 16 GB of ram, but not a "kit" - 2 individual packs - i had read something about that might be an issue - and it was - they were returned and i ordered a new "kit" of 16GB - and the problem has not re-surfaced.

jim

 

[robgendreau]

No return here.

I've been buying and maintaining whole rooms of Mac since the Plus. I think the riMac I got is one of the best out of the box Macs I've ever bought. No issues whatsoever; even the system software is behaving. No noise that I notice. But frankly, if I did mixing of classical music or something I wouldn't even think of buying a machine with a spinning drive, and would go for sure with a nMP or MP and shove that in a cabinet somewhere. Horses for courses.

 

[CouponPages]

Mine has 512GB SSD, so it's almost entirely quiet, except for the fans when I crank out stuff in Final Cut Pro X, but even then, it's pretty quiet.

I think the sound you are hearing is your Fusion Drive. There's not much you can do about mechanical drives. Their constant spin adds some sound, and some heat, which means the fans turn on a bit more too.

 

[maj71303]

No return here since I didn't buy it anyway. I just went for the regular 27" iMac as I couldn't justify what i would use the 5K one for and the price to pay didn't mesh with the features. Maybe when it's more mainstream I can think about it then.

 

[CouponPages]

...
I'll tell you my story.

Have: 27-inch Late 2012 iMac, 3.4GHz i7, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 680MX 2GB

Got: Base model iMac 5K Retina, 3.5GHz i5, 8GB RAM, AMD M290X 2GB


...After some basic use over the next hour, I noticed the 5k did not seem as smooth, with web browsing, popping up a finder, using mission control. Just slight millisecond pauses here and there, granted I was trying to torture test it, but I was expecting it to be more like my 2012 but only faster.

.... Or maybe I should have added more RAM like I planned. Or I should have waited the month for the top model to ship to me.

I just noticed your base 5K vs beefed up 2012 reference.

It's pretty clear. That's entirely what happened. A general rule of thumb is RAM is the single biggest thing to speed up any system. Period. A 4GB system vs 8GB system is like night and day, because just about everything involves a re-read from disk.

If you compare the responsiveness of any computer with 8GB with any other computer with 32 GB, the system with 32GB is going to crush the 8GB system, because almost everything you will do will be buffered to physical RAM rather than virtual memory swap files or re-loading from disk.

Even with a 10-15% speed increase from a 2012 3.4 Ghz i7 to a Haswell 2014 3.5 Ghz i7, the gap between 8GB and 32 will still give the advantage to the older system.

I was tempted to get a stock model from the Apple Store because I could get it the same day, and I knew I could add RAM in a couple of days from OWC or Crucial, but since they don't stock models with the upgraded CPU, GPU or SSD drives, I simply had to wait for a custom build. I ordered the 4.0 Ghz CPU, 512 SSD and the upgraded GPU... It was clearly worth it.

This iMac 5K is smoking fast. The upgraded GPU has more than enough horsepower for the 5K screen. I think it's rated at about 3.5 Teraflops, which is on par with the mid-level Mac Pro's D500 GPU performance.

I did one of my own benchmarks and this iMac was more than twice as fast as the entry level Mac Pro in Final Cut Pro X at background rendering, and several times faster at H.264 compression. I admit the compression test was unfair, because Xeon chips don't have Quick Sync, which is hardware based H.264 compression.

That said, a 2012 or 2013 iMac with an i7 is still a great system. If you tried at least more RAM, you would've had a fair test, but it's hard to see drastic improvements in speed in a move to a model only 2 years newer.

I had a similar issue. My 2011 i7 MacBook Pro 17" cost $3000 and had all the upgrades, and I even added more afterwards by jumping to 16GB and adding a third party SSD. It was hard to justify spending another $3500 since the old one was pretty fast.

The only thing that made me pull the trigger was that 2011 MacBook Pros are having GPU failures, and when mine started showing signs, I made the move.

 

[Firmin]

Back to the store !

Hello,

I just received my 5K i7 withe the 290x and a 3To Fusion Drive.
I think im gonna send it back

The lags, the small bumps and hesitations when i move a window or just scroll a safari page are awful to me. It's like i'm back 10 years before.
I used Capture One Pro 8 for photo and it's not smooth at all, every time i make a change the image go blury for half a second, so i get dizzy very quickly. Nothing is really smooth actually…

I called apple to tell them, they made me alt+cmd+P+R… confused
So i looked on the web and i saw this GPU issu, i confirm : it's not acceptable !

It might be a soft adjustment (from apple or third party) but i really feel bad so i'm gonna get it back or maybe change for a ssd and the 295x…

 

[frankmcma]

Price difference is a what a new MacBook air 13" from Apple cost, littlebit more and you get a 13" pro retina on sale..

Yeah, almost every fan run on full power when it restart when you have set it up or install osx. The 5k dosn't have any louder fan than the 2013, they are the same! So dont worry about the fan sound.

I have set up many Macs..I have yet to hear a fan kick into a higher gear when installing or setting up the OS. I sure hope just booting and installing is not taxing the CPU/GPU so much that the fan kicks in.

 

[Vapor matt]

Hello,

I just received my 5K i7 withe the 290x and a 3To Fusion Drive.
I think im gonna send it back

The lags, the small bumps and hesitations when i move a window or just scroll a safari page are awful to me. It's like i'm back 10 years before.
I used Capture One Pro 8 for photo and it's not smooth at all, every time i make a change the image go blury for half a second, so i get dizzy very quickly. Nothing is really smooth actually…

I called apple to tell them, they made me alt+cmd+P+R… confused
So i looked on the web and i saw this GPU issu, i confirm : it's not acceptable !

It might be a soft adjustment (from apple or third party) but i really feel bad so i'm gonna get it back or maybe change for a ssd and the 295x…

Before you return your rImac i would do a fresh install and then see if you have issues. I was expecting lag, and nothing smooth on this rImac after reading all the quirks and issue's. but i have to say mine has been faultless in operation.

its as smooth as silk, runs quiet and i don't even hear the fans, I have a 2013 3.5g 780 maxed out and can't hear any difference between them, both are smooth in operation. maybe i got lucky with my rimac i don't know. was the delay in delivery purely parts related or did they have a schooling lesson for the builders in how to apply thermal paste!

one things for sure its staying with me, as the screen is just outa this world clear and crisp, no light bleed either. I didn't purchase it for gaming, but what I've seen of it online its ok for gaming. and does beat the 780m in most benchmarks.

I think both the 3.5g 780m combo and retina iMac's are great machines. to get the best out of them an SSD drive seems to be a must, also memory as much as you can afford. GPU and CPU again if you need, but would go SSD and memory first in my opinion.

its a keeper! and the screen blows anything away on the market today!

 

[frankmcma]

Mine has 512GB SSD, so it's almost entirely quiet, except for the fans when I crank out stuff in Final Cut Pro X, but even then, it's pretty quiet.

I think the sound you are hearing is your Fusion Drive. There's not much you can do about mechanical drives. Their constant spin adds some sound, and some heat, which means the fans turn on a bit more too.

Was not the Fusion Drive. I had the old 2012 iMac and the new 2014 5K iMac together. The 2014 runs the fan higher and more audible. Most would not notice it in a quiet room, but it definitely runs a bit louder just "doing nothing"..nothing running or anything.

 

[frankmcma]

I just noticed your base 5K vs beefed up 2012 reference.

It's pretty clear. That's entirely what happened. A general rule of thumb is RAM is the single biggest thing to speed up any system. Period. A 4GB system vs 8GB system is like night and day, because just about everything involves a re-read from disk.

If you compare the responsiveness of any computer with 8GB with any other computer with 32 GB, the system with 32GB is going to crush the 8GB system, because almost everything you will do will be buffered to physical RAM rather than virtual memory swap files or re-loading from disk.

I was tempted to get a stock model from the Apple Store because I could get it the same day, and I knew I could add RAM in a couple of days from OWC or Crucial, but since they don't stock models with the upgraded CPU, GPU or SSD drives, I simply had to wait for a custom build. I ordered the 4.0 Ghz CPU, 512 SSD and the upgraded GPU... It was clearly worth it.

This iMac 5K is smoking fast. The upgraded GPU has more than enough horsepower for the 5K screen. I think it's rated at about 3.5 Teraflops, which is on par with the mid-level Mac Pro's D500 GPU performance.

I had a similar issue. My 2011 i7 MacBook Pro 17" cost $3000 and had all the upgrades, and I even added more afterwards by jumping to 16GB and adding a third party SSD. It was hard to justify spending another $3500 since the old one was pretty fast.

The only thing that made me pull the trigger was that 2011 MacBook Pros are having GPU failures, and when mine started showing signs, I made the move.

Excellent..thanks for detailed information.

Since I did the post, and returned my 5K base model, Best Buy has set up a base 5K model and I was playing around with it. I noticed that if I was running just one program, it was fairly smooth, but once I ran 2 or 3, there would be some stuttering, especially mission control. Now I am sure a faster CPU, maxed out ram, and higher GPU would fix this. It's just that the base model of most any apple product is typically pretty good. I should not have to max it just to get the basic functionality. More interesting is there was a 27 inch non-retina right next to it. That one, a base model, was super smooth.

So I am starting to think that the 5K screen takes a lot of resources, and it sometimes might be hard for the base model to catch up, especially with "only" 8GB of ram. It's only because I am used to say a 13 inch Macbook pro with retina with 8GB of ram running super smooth. Can't really compare, I know, but still.

I still may consider the maxed out retina 5k. And just suck it up and wait the 3 weeks. I realized I always get the max amount of RAM (from crucible) and install it before I even boot up a new iMac when I purchase one every few years. This was the first time I did not do that.

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Hello,

I just received my 5K i7 withe the 290x and a 3To Fusion Drive.
I think im gonna send it back

The lags, the small bumps and hesitations when i move a window or just scroll a safari page are awful to me. It's like i'm back 10 years before.
I used Capture One Pro 8 for photo and it's not smooth at all, every time i make a change the image go blury for half a second, so i get dizzy very quickly. Nothing is really smooth actually…

I called apple to tell them, they made me alt+cmd+P+R… confused
So i looked on the web and i saw this GPU issu, i confirm : it's not acceptable !

It might be a soft adjustment (from apple or third party) but i really feel bad so i'm gonna get it back or maybe change for a ssd and the 295x…

That is EXACTLY how I felt! Interesting that even with the i7 (I had the i5) you still felt this. I had the same experience...it felt like a computer from a few years back..slight pauses..hesitations..etc. Was not expecting it.

Let me ask..how much RAM did you have?

 

[5kIMAC]

I got mine in last Wednesday, and I am considering returning it as well.

Compared to my 6 year old Windows PC, it runs less smoothly and requires more restarts due to things stopping to work correctly. Yesterday mission control would not open until I restarted.

I periodically even get a delay while typing or scrolling, having to wait for the letters to appear or for the page to move.

I have not found a way to disable animations which slow down my workflow (compared to instantenous actions). When I click for fullscreen, I want it to go to fullscreen instantaneously.

I find it confusing that I am not able to minimize a full screen window with one command. I have to first leave full screen, and then minimize from there. Why is this two steps?

I bought this for the 5k screen, and as I posted in the other thread, I have found that Apple's own programs do not support 5k. I am a bit surprised that the 5k integration received such glowing reviews. I remember seeing the word "seamless" used. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1823702/

I found the iPhoto app a little buggy in regards to syncing with my iPhone. My photos actually synced better with my Windows computer.

I have a bunch of images on my computer, and wanted to try to change the ginger bread man icon at the logon screen for something else, but this seems to be impossible without having iCloud enabled. I don't understand why I cant chose any image file on my iMac.

I still might keep it. The screen is very pretty, and I love having iMessage and FaceTime on my desktop. I also like the Safari browser so far.