Intel's Coffee Lake Chips Bring Significant Speed Boosts to 2019 iMacs

[PickUrPoison]

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Because if they did, they wouldn't have soldered RAM in a desktop, even an All-in-one desktop. They wouldn't totally ignore the Mac Pro. They wouldn't have removed function keys from their laptops, and I'd like to think they'd have kept a model with a real keyboard.

Let alone the Mac Mini BS.

I hear the frustration you’re voicing, and I have a few comments.

1) Mac mini, iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro; none of these have soldered RAM. It’s all socketed. In some cases it’s not really user-upgradable (like iMac Pro) but it’s all socketed across the desktop lineup.

2) They aren’t totally ignoring the Mac Pro, actually they’re doing the opposite: they’ve been working on a new platform for over two years. Yes, it’s taking longer than anyone who’s waiting for it wants it to take, but they’re not ignoring it.

3) I agree with you re: F-keys; I’d also prefer discrete keys. There’s room to add them on the 15” MBP, even if they keep the Touch Bar.

4) The new keyboard is hardly universally loved; some hate it with a passion, others dislike it; some don’t care and some actually prefer the new keyboard. Apple is well aware of the situation, and I hope they give us a great keyboard with the next MBP platform. I think that’ll be this year but who knows. But until they update the platform, we’re stuck with the current keyboard

5) re: Mac mini, do you refer to the previous model or do you have issues with the 2018 model?

One thing is certain, however: Apple will not be licensing macOS for use on other hardware. They tried that in the 90s and quickly discovered it was a disaster.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

Nothing beats Apple's polish, but, it always comes at a cost. Grab Cinebench R20, and let us know your processor score. You could also grab Intel Power Gadget, and see what frequency it settles to as the load reaches steady-state.

The new IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) seems to be making a bigger difference than even I thought it would. I suppose time will tell, but the results are very encouraging from what I am reading.

Brookzy earlier today posted the results of his Intel Power Gadget test in another thread, which you can see (with graphs) over here:

Stabilises at 3.9GHz and about 93 degrees Celsius. The fans were not audible at the point the first screenshot was taken, but ramped up to an audible level in the second, but were not maxed out at any point.​

He reports that his 2019 iMac with Core i9 and Vega 48 is “impressively silent.”

macduke posted the results of his Cinebench R20 test above. Also see his see his amusing post here describing just what he had to do to get his fans to ramp up to a moderate level.

 

[ROGmaster]

Typing this on my '19 i9 iMac right now. Couldn't be happier. Blazing fast, dead quiet and surprisingly cool. I find it quite humorous the amount of people taking the piss with a machine they do not have in their possession. Maybe it's jealousy, ignorance or trolling. Not sure which...?

Your computer is basically idling, that's why it's quiet and cool. A Modern GPU in a similar use care actually turns off it's cooling fans completely for example. I bet you didn't know this.
Without a beefy cooler the i9 9900k runs quite hot, everybody know this, the internet is full of reviews.
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No, it’s simple physics. The i9 9900k needs proper cooling and the iMac’s fans suck (pun intended). This baby needs water and without it, it’ll thermal throttle. Then again, every Apple computer thermal throttles to some extent.

Yeah also the 9900k in the iMac is most likely limited to 95W so it will definitely be slower on average than 9900k's used in Desktop PC's.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Matte screen on an iMac?

*pukes*

No thanks! They don’t belong on a consumer AIO. No interest in grainy text, washed out colors, and greys instead of blacks.

Matte coating can even make OLED look like trash.

Matte screens are used on pro monitors that are used for soft proofing and assorted calibrations. You can't soft proof for print properly on a glass screen because the glass creates extra contrast.

 

[ROGmaster]

No, actually I'm with you on that. I did some digging around on Anand Tech and yes, this i9 chip consumes far less energy than any 7th gen CPUs. Do you plan on doing anything heavy on it?

LoL, the i9 9900k is basically two 4 core i7's in one chip. Why would it consume less?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

LoL, the i9 9900k is basically two 4 core i7's in one chip. Why would it consume less?

The person you responded to should have been clearer that 9th gen is more efficient per core due to refinement of the 14nm process. Their has been an improvement in that regard. Average efficiency improvement under full load is about 15%. But still not good enough to prevent throttling in notebooks.

 

[ROGmaster]

I got a 1662 in Cinebench R15:

View attachment 829191

Is that any good? I didn't even hear my fans ramp up. I'm not even joking about that. I can make a video if people don't believe me. The only time I heard it ramp up was during setup when I was installing Creative Suite while downloading Microsoft Office and syncing 150GB over LAN from my Dropbox while running a Time Machine backup and it only ramped up moderately for about a minute.

LoL the 9900k gets above 2000 points in Cinebench R15 at stock speeds on Windows PCs.
1662pt = your CPU was thermal throttling.

For the record a Ryzen 7 2700x gets above 1800 points at stock in Cinenebch R15 and the 2700X is definitely a slower CPU than the 9900k.
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The person you responded to should have been clearer that 9th gen is more efficient per core due to refinement of the 14nm process. Their has been an improvement in that regard. Average efficiency improvement under full load is about 15%. But still not good enough to prevent throttling in notebooks.

It doesn't matter, the refinements are minor(they are made on the 14nm node only) and Intel spent all the gains from the 14nm node to get faster clocks.
Also the 9900k CPUs are way better binned in the first place than previous 4 core i7s.

 

[femike]

Cite your source. Have you pulled one apart yet? Funny, I am sitting here with my brand new i9 machine right now and this baby runs as cool as a cucumber, even under heavy load. So you were saying?

Tell me when you are sitting in a warm climate with no air-conditioning with ambient temperature of around 34°C. I know it is fine when sitting in an environment of 22°C in at your home or office. Note Apple rates this as operating in 35°C, so I expect the design to robustly and reliably handle the heat and fan noise and dust particles very effectively over the long term with no issues arising. I don't think that's too much to expect from Apple.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

LoL the 9900k gets above 2000 points in Cinebench R15 at stock speeds on Windows PCs.
1662pt = your CPU was thermal throttling.

True, these multicore benchmark scores are the same as a 8700K OC'd. But the higher 9900K scores on PCs are water cooled systems. Something to keep in mind.

 

[Bboble]

4067 on Cinebench R20:

View attachment 829190

Is that any good? I didn't even hear my fans ramp up. I'm not even joking about that. I can make a video if people don't believe me. The only time I heard it ramp up was during setup when I was installing Creative Suite while downloading Microsoft Office and syncing 150GB over LAN from my Dropbox while running a Time Machine backup and it only ramped up moderately for about a minute.

I've found the 9900k is good for about 4800 stock, with as high as 5250 or so overclocked. Seeing another benchmark, it looks like it's throttling down to ~3.9GHz on full load, whereas intel rates it at 4.7GHz on all cores. This processor is just too power hungry to be crammed in an iMac.

 

[SeaFox]

What did we expect from an entire lake of coffee?

Perkier performance?

I'll show myself out...

 

[ROGmaster]

True, these multicore benchmark scores are the same as a 8700K OC'd. But the higher 9900K scores on PCs are water cooled systems. Something to keep in mind.

The higher scores are still for 9900k.s running at stock speeds. They are achievable with air coolers as well.
The 9900k in the iMac obviously doesn't run at the stock 4.7ghz all core boost and that's why is slower than a 2017 Ryzen 1800X running at stock speeds( 3.6-3.7ghz all core boost).

The cooling solution used by these new iMacs is quite disappointing.

 

[shardey]

Cite your source. Have you pulled one apart yet? Funny, I am sitting here with my brand new i9 machine right now and this baby runs as cool as a cucumber, even under heavy load. So you were saying?

You still haven't provided any sort of screenshots showing how cool your iMac runs under medium/heavy load.

You should also post the CPU frequency as well.

Until then, I'm calling BS on your statements.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

The higher scores are still for 9900k.s running at stock speeds. They are achievable with air coolers as well.
The 9900k in the iMac obviously doesn't run at the stock 4.7ghz all core boost and that's why is slower than a 2017 Ryzen 1800X running at stock speeds( 3.6-3.7ghz all core boost).

The cooling solution used by these new iMacs is quite disappointing.

The PC air coolers are just massive for these CPUs so this is the best that a slim desktop form factor can do otherwise we are arguing against physics. If we must critique the new iMacs then the SSD prices are too high.

 

[mpuk]

Some of those are more important to me than others, but I really don't get why there's no backlit keyboard. That could've been done years ago. A backlit keyboard is a must for me. I hate having to use a 3rd party keyboard (I'm an Apple purist). Hopefully they are just getting ready for an actual redesign within the next year.

...careful what you wish for or Apple may decide to blight us with another rendition of its butterfly keyboard

 

[ROGmaster]

The PC air coolers are just massive for these CPUs so this is the best that a slim desktop form factor can do otherwise we are arguing against physics. If we must critique the new iMacs then the SSD prices are too high.

How do you know? What about the iMac Pro? The 18 core Xeon W has a 140W TDP at stock. It definitely needs a better cooler than an 9900k.

In actually this is what can be achieved by the same cooling system Apple used in regular iMacs for years and didn't truly adapt for the 9900k. The same happened with the i9 Macbooks.
They definitely deserve to be criticized for this.

 

[recoil80]

I'm in the market for a new Mac but the base 27 model has a Fusion drive... still better than the HDD they put on the 21 but I'd rather have an SSD.
The Mini has soldered RAM so once I configure it with 16GB the price gets really high and close to the iMac.
The company is going to pay for that, but I don't have unlimited budget...

 

[57004]

Good news! I really wonder whether the 2019 iMacs also have socketed CPUs so they can be upgraded later. The 2017 did (which was surprising because the previous models didn't).

 

[Bboble]

The PC air coolers are just massive for these CPUs so this is the best that a slim desktop form factor can do otherwise we are arguing against physics. If we must critique the new iMacs then the SSD prices are too high.

A quick Google search brought up a video of someone stress testing the 18-core iMac Pro. It shows 135 watts dissipation, at 85C. Whereas, the new 9900k iMac is only dissipating 85 watts, at 95C. This is comically bad! Apple, themselves, have proven it's possible to dissipate wattage in the iMac form factor. It seems someone at Apple fell asleep while "innovating" this time around. Yes, Intel has failed us at providing a 10nm chip, that would be more energy efficient, but, this doesn't excuse Apple's lack of innovation.

 

[ondert]

I'm in the market for a new Mac but the base 27 model has a Fusion drive... still better than the HDD they put on the 21 but I'd rather have an SSD.
The Mini has soldered RAM so once I configure it with 16GB the price gets really high and close to the iMac.
The company is going to pay for that, but I don't have unlimited budget...

You can still upgrade the ram in the mini. AFAIK, it is not soldered.

 

[StellarVixen]

Typing this on my '19 i9 iMac right now. Couldn't be happier. Blazing fast, dead quiet and surprisingly cool. I find it quite humorous the amount of people taking the piss with a machine they do not have in their possession. Maybe it's jealousy, ignorance or trolling. Not sure which...?

It's a bit of both.


Look at this one person (first page of this thread) who came here to boast about their PC (it's one of their first posts, they are freshly registered, so it is obvious they came here to troll). Who the heck cares about your PC here? This is a decades old ad nauseam "I can build PC for less".

Once again, for the millionth time: Mac. Users. Do. Not. Care.


Thank you and goodbye.

 

[mcnallym]

A quick Google search brought up a video of someone stress testing the 18-core iMac Pro. It shows 135 watts dissipation, at 85C. Whereas, the new 9900k iMac is only dissipating 85 watts, at 95C. This is comically bad! Apple, themselves, have proven it's possible to dissipate wattage in the iMac form factor. It seems someone at Apple fell asleep while "innovating" this time around. Yes, Intel has failed us at providing a 10nm chip, that would be more energy efficient, but, this doesn't excuse Apple's lack of innovation.

And the iMac Pro has very different internal layout possible due to no Hdd taking up space. Externally very similar but very different internal layout. People would then be bitching about the harder ram upgrades.

This refresh is a minimal change, be interesting to see what the chipset is on these etc from when someone finally does a tear down on it.

Going to have to wait for a real internal redesign to get to new cooling system.

Apple have kept the entry non 4K version as well. I wonder how much was due to the number of very vocal complaints about the entry Mac mini disappearing. You know that dual core 1.4 4gb and a hdd that everyone bought in droves.

Apple also kept the t2 out of the iMac, again people been very vocal against that. So you could actually argue that basically did what people asked for. Kept the pointless other then hits an entry price piece that nobody wants to actually buy, kept the ram slots open, kept out the t2.

Not surprised really that apple did the minimum to bring out a refresh, rather then ditch the hdd, put the t2 chip in.

No doubt when they do refresh the forum full of threads about why introduced the tx series chip and the ram slots not accessible.

 

[krazzix]

Couldn't care less.

No larger screens with slimmer bezels -- CHECK
No updated thermal architecture -- CHECK
No PCIe-flash across the board -- CHECK
No 16GB RAM as standard -- CHECK
No 120Hz ProMotion -- CHECK
No Face ID - CHECK
No True Tone Display -- CHECK
No 1080p Webcam -- CHECK
No Tx Security Chip -- CHECK
No Space Grey option -- CHECK
No backlit keyboard -- CHECK
Tim Cook still there -- CHECK

This. Still waiting for the real update.

 

[iPadified]

What is interesting for us that likes the sleek iMac type of computers, is if the iMac 2019 has better performance and reduced noise level compared to i7-2017. If the i9 is not running ""full" speed is completely irrelevant as iMac will always have poorer thermal management compared to liquid cooled or air cooled big box computers (Hackintoshes?).

It seems (from reading various posts) like we have gotten better performance at lower noise levels compared to the i7- 2017 iMac. Mission accomplished, I would say.

Could Apple have built a more powerful iMac that utilises the components better than todays lineup? Definitely, but that is not the point for a product that needs to embrace customers from the very low end to (1099 USD) to a relatively high end (>4k). After iMac top end, it is iMP territory anyway in terms of price.

 

[justperry]

Pathetic results, a Hackintosh with the same CPU (9900k) and proper cooling is about 25% faster.

Yeah, go ahead with stolen software.