In praise of the Late 2013 i7 27"

[Zen_Arcade]

My son recently lucked into a Late 2013 27" iMac. 3.5 GHz i7, 32 GB RAM, 3 TB fusion drive, and the 2 GB GTX 775.

Having worked with it a little bit, it's an excellent machine. No, it's obviously not as fast as later models, but so far it's remarkably productive. It managed 81 fps on Cinebench (version 15), with a CPU score of ~650.

Great machine; the lack of the retina screen isn't as significant as I thought it would be.

If anyone is considering one, go for it - assuming it's priced right. Part of my and my son's enthusiasm came from getting it for $400 USD (with box, keyboard, mouse, and an Apple Superdrive (the standalone one, obviously . . . ).

 

[kazmac]

I have a lesser specc’d 2013 27” that is still chugging along (with Hiccups), so not surprised.

Enjoy it.

 

[ScreenSavers]

They are good machines. Apple made a really lame decision in dropping them from Big Sur. Patchers to the rescue though!

 

[CaliPeachy]

Ah! That explains why I haven't seen an update for Big Sur.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

An update: We've compared my son's recently acquired Late 2013 27" to my new 2020 27" i7. And in day to day use, for Office, Photos, iTunes, etc., there is very little difference for the user. When we switched to CPU intensive work, the differences were, as you'd expect, much more obvious - 8 much newer cores vs. 4, SSD vs. fusion, etc.

For those who want a (relatively) affordable 27", though, the Late 2013 is terrific and well worth it.