iMac 21" 4K

[blufrog]

Hi,

What is the graphics performance of this system like in 3D applications? If I understood correctly it uses Intel Iris Pro graphics instead of AMD?

For comparison, I would consider my rMBP 13" acceptable, so if it is at least as good as that, that would be fine.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi,

What is the graphics performance of this system like in 3D applications? If I understood correctly it uses Intel Iris Pro graphics instead of AMD?

For comparison, I would consider my rMBP 13" acceptable, so if it is at least as good as that, that would be fine.

It's a lot faster than that. In open cl apps it is very fast, but if it will benefit from CUDA or similar acceleration then it's not nearly as fast as a dGPU.

Do Remember that the 21 inch has soldered ram and a max amount of 16gb this may not be what you want going forward for 3D applications. By the time you add a decent fusion size (you'll want 2tb minimum as the 1tb only has 24gb SSD compared to the 128gb in the 2&3TB fusion drives) or an SSD upgrade and put the ram to 16gb. You'll be pretty close to the price of a 27 inch that has user upgradeable ram and dedicated graphics to go with that class leading 5k screen, not to mention much better real estate for 3D apps.

 

[Goody13]

It's a lot faster than that. In open cl apps it is very fast, but if it will benefit from CUDA or similar acceleration then it's not nearly as fast as a dGPU.

Do Remember that the 21 inch has soldered ram and a max amount of 16gb this may not be what you want going forward for 3D applications. By the time you add a decent fusion size (you'll want 2tb minimum as the 1tb only has 24gb SSD compared to the 128gb in the 2&3TB fusion drives) or an SSD upgrade and put the ram to 16gb. You'll be pretty close to the price of a 27 inch that has user upgradeable ram and dedicated graphics to go with that class leading 5k screen, not to mention much better real estate for 3D apps.

Funnily enough, that's exactly the same thought process I went down. I started off looking at the mid-range 21.5", then thought 4K would be nice for an extra £150, but I would go for the 2TB fusion drive for speed and would also pay Apple for 16GB RAM, just in case as I could not upgrade later.

In the end, I went for the mid-range 27" with 2TB fusion. I have kept the RAM at 8GB in the knowledge that I can easily upgrade it myself if I feel I need it at some point in the future.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Funnily enough, that's exactly the same thought process I went down. I started off looking at the mid-range 21.5", then thought 4K would be nice for an extra £150, but I would go for the 2TB fusion drive for speed and would also pay Apple for 16GB RAM, just in case as I could not upgrade later.

In the end, I went for the mid-range 27" with 2TB fusion. I have kept the RAM at 8GB in the knowledge that I can easily upgrade it myself if I feel I need it at some point in the future.

Yeah that's what I would go for if I was in the market for an iMac.

 

[blufrog]

Strangely, I was heading in that direction, too!

Interesting points on the graphics - thanks!

I'll look at the 27" again!