iMac 27" Retina 4GHz Late 2014?

[pasipple]

B&H is selling the following:

Apple 27" iMac with Retina 5K Display (Late 2014)

• • 27" Retina 5K IPS Display
  • 5120 x 2880 Native Resolution
  • 4.0 GHz Intel Core i7 (Haswell)
  • 8GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
  • 512GB Solid State Drive
  • AMD Radeon M295X GPU (4GB GDDR5)
  • 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
  • 2x Thunderbolt 2 and 4x USB 3.0 Ports
  • FaceTime HD Camera, Dual Mics, Speakers
  • Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

I thought the 4.0GHz and M295X GPU came out in mid 2015? Wondering what the difference is with ordering it directly from Apple? This model is $50 cheaper and no tax. Thanks...

 

[redheeler]

I thought the 4.0GHz and M295X GPU came out in mid 2015?

No, that would be the low-end 3.3 GHz i5 and M290 GPU. The other configurations are from late 2014, which is when I got mine.

 

[pasipple]

No, that would be the low-end 3.3 GHz i5 and M290 GPU. The other configurations are from late 2014, which is when I got mine.

So what's the difference from this B&H Late 2014 to ordering off the Apple website and getting a Mid 2015. Seems like they're identical?

 

[redheeler]

So what's the difference from this B&H Late 2014 to ordering off the Apple website and getting a Mid 2015. Seems like they're identical?

All of the M295X/i7 Retina iMacs are late 2014, including the ones on Apple's website. Only the lower-spec model is mid 2015, because it was added later.

 

[pasipple]

All of the M295X/i7 Retina iMacs are late 2014, including the ones on Apple's website. Only the lower-spec model is mid 2015, because it was added later.

Gotcha. Thank you very much.

 

[olemed]

All of the M295X/i7 Retina iMacs are late 2014, including the ones on Apple's website. Only the lower-spec model is mid 2015, because it was added later.

Thanks for pointing this out. I was wondering about this but it wasn't clear on the Apple website.

 

[dyn]

That's because Apple never discusses it. Whatever you order from the site are their current models (except for the refurbished part of the store).

 

[jerwin]

If you really want to know the ins and outs of each model-- specwise, I'd suggest using this program

MacTracker

It's very useful if your household drafts you as "tech support guy"

 

[bladerunner2000]

The processor (4790k) doesn't actually run at 4ghz, it's downthrottled due to the incredibly poor airflow. Which explains why the iMac scores only 16,500 in Geekbench.

Also, there's no way to overclock it as theres no BIOS control for it, Apple should have put in a standard 4790 CPU in there.

 

[yjchua95]

The processor (4790k) doesn't actually run at 4ghz, it's downthrottled due to the incredibly poor airflow. Which explains why the iMac scores only 16,500 in Geekbench.

Also, there's no way to overclock it as theres no BIOS control for it, Apple should have put in a standard 4790 CPU in there.

You mean, it does actually run at 4GHz, just that it doesn't turbo all that well to 4.4GHz.

Using Intel Power Gadget, I always see that the iMac can consistently maintain a base freq of 4GHz, but doesn't really turbo all that well.

 

[jerwin]

Here's a video showing the 4.0 GHz iMac throttling and turboboosting over time

http://robservatory.com/intel-power-gadget/

Throttles at 4 GhZ when all four cores are in use. Now, the classic turboboosting scheme would only enable the boost if a core was not in use, but apparently not. Wikipedia lists its as 2/2/3/4. 4.2 GHz when all four cores are in use? Must be the "sensibly cooled" configuration.

 

[dyn]

Current CPUs are meant to scale up and down with performance. They adjust to whatever the machine needs. Which is exactly what you are seeing on your machine since the listed temperature is not even near the max of the CPU.