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Mid 2020 iMac — The last x86 Mac?

chumps

chumps

Cancelled
Original poster
Sep 2, 2020
71
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What's the likelihood of Apple releasing a new x86 iMac? Even if it's in the old chassis. I know it is slim but I need a new computer that can run Windows and the thought of building out a PC doesn't fill me with joy.

My main computer is an M1 mini and right now I use a 2014 iMac as a dual-boot and GPU rendering machine.
 
I'd peg it at below 1% honestly.
A final Intel Mac Pro, maybe. But no other Mac will get another Intel upgrade.

That said, the 2020 iMac is genuinely fantastic, and Intel's newer CPUs offer little to no improvement. Like literally, the 11900 is worse than the 10910 Apple has in the highest end iMac. AMD have newer GPUs that offer actual meaningful benefits, but Intel hasn't done anything worthwhile on the CPU side, though Alder Lake might change that later
 
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Very slim, considering that the 2020 iMac with 10th gen Intel CPU and 5700XT GPU is an awesome machine.

I doubt Apple will update the CPU or GPU, considering that the 11th gen Intel processors provide very modest performance improvement and actually have less cores, and GPUs are currently in very short supply.

My guess is that Apple will sell Intel iMacs in parallel with M1 iMacs for a while, just as they are currently doing with MacBook Pros. But keep an eye out for Apple reducing inventory, so you don't get surprised by a discontinuation like the iMac Pro. If it gets discontinued, I expect prices for used 2020 Intel iMacs could temporarily increase rapidly (as there will be others like you panicking to get a fast Intel iMac.)

If you need an Intel iMac, there does not seem to be a good reason to wait.
 
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chumps said:
What's the likelihood of Apple releasing a new x86 iMac?
Click to expand...
No one knows for sure, but looking at history, the final PPC iMac was announced only three months before the first Intel ones.

A big difference between then and now is that the first Intel iMac was among the first Intel Macs to be launched, and there wasn't any new PPC Macs that was released after the Intel Macs launched.

Compare that situation to today's, we already have M1 Macs, so probably no more Intel Macs....

Unless you want to believe this:
www.macrumors.com

Mac Pro: Should You Buy? Advice, Features, Price

Apple released its new high-end, high-throughput M2 Ultra Mac Pro in June 2023. It starts at $6,999, so this machine is only for the most serious...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
The currently-available 2020 iMacs are likely to be the "last ever" iMacs with Intel inside...
 
jardinager said:
^ This is exactly why I just bought a specked-out 2020 27” iMac.
Click to expand...

It’s a smashing Mac. - My last iMac before it was the late 2014 Retina, and I’m continually amazed how bloody fast the 2020 is while being so quiet, in situations where the 2014 blasted at full speed and still wasn’t anywhere near as fast. - Especially on the GPU site, AMD knocked it out of the park with the Radeon Pro 5700XT. So so much more efficient than the R9 M295X.
 
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casperes1996 said:
It’s a smashing Mac. - My last iMac before it was the late 2014 Retina, and I’m continually amazed how bloody fast the 2020 is while being so quiet, in situations where the 2014 blasted at full speed and still wasn’t anywhere near as fast. - Especially on the GPU site, AMD knocked it out of the park with the Radeon Pro 5700XT. So so much more efficient than the R9 M295X.
Click to expand...
Indeed! The Radeon Pro 5700XT is fantastic.
 
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casperes1996 said:
It’s a smashing Mac. - My last iMac before it was the late 2014 Retina, and I’m continually amazed how bloody fast the 2020 is while being so quiet, in situations where the 2014 blasted at full speed and still wasn’t anywhere near as fast. - Especially on the GPU site, AMD knocked it out of the park with the Radeon Pro 5700XT. So so much more efficient than the R9 M295X.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear. The Intel iMac I'm replacing w/ the 2020 is the same as yours, and after 6mo of M1 life it was kind of shocking to hear the fans go crazy so often. I do a lot of graphics/3D stuff...

I know the 2020 iMac is still a high TDP computer but I really am hoping it's at least somewhat quieter. Don't exactly have a choice!
 
chumps said:
That's great to hear. The Intel iMac I'm replacing w/ the 2020 is the same as yours, and after 6mo of M1 life it was kind of shocking to hear the fans go crazy so often. I do a lot of graphics/3D stuff...

I know the 2020 iMac is still a high TDP computer but I really am hoping it's at least somewhat quieter. Don't exactly have a choice!
Click to expand...
My 2014 iMac had the 4790K and R9 M295X. I could get the fan to 3600RPM during normal work, when 2700 was supposed to be the max. And it'd still be at 105+C on the GPU which eventually fried it. This 2020 one, even when it's at a system power draw of over 150W isn't even really spinning the fan much above idle or raising temps noticeably. Of course it will if sustained for very long, but even when pushing it as hard as I ever did the last one, GPU temps never go above 90 (mostly mid 80s) with fan speed never exceeding the 2700RPM and very rarely above 1800 even
 
casperes1996 said:
Not necessarily. If you need a Mac. Also need Windows, and you need both to be powerful, getting one powerful Mac that can do both is a better way to go than two mediocre computers
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Here’s the reasons I ordered the x86 iMac vs building a PC:

Quality 27” display at 5K Retina resolution w/ support for p3 color. In PC land displays tend to top out at 4K with the exception of the Apple co-developed 5K LG Ultrafine which isn’t exactly cheap. Also Apple displays default calibration and ICC profiles are spot on. I’ve compared them with $1500 spectrophotometers and while hardware profiling makes sense with displays with poor or no factory color management I find just sticking with Apple displays to be a lot less of a headache. I have a 24” Ultrafine for my M1 mini and the color on that is fine too.

Hum that’s already a lot of text just covering the display situation. Let me try to summarize.

While I would love to avoid Windows for the rest of my life there are a few very important use cases where I require Windows software, the rest of the time I’d much rather be in Mac land.

The future is Apple Silicon but in the meantime I have an Egpu I quite like (x86 Macs only), several important apps that aren’t supporting Apple Silicon yet and overall a lot of GPU requirements that the M1, theoretical M1X, and even a M2 may not be able to fulfill.

I build PCs all the time and follow PC tech intensively. Computer decisions can be complicated.

If this is indeed the last Intel Mac I’m ok with riding it out for the next five years. If by then I need another Windows machine ok I’ll build one but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!
 
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chumps said:
Exactly.

Here’s the reasons I ordered the x86 iMac vs building a PC:

Quality 27” display at 5K Retina resolution w/ support for p3 color. In PC land displays tend to top out at 4K with the exception of the Apple co-developed 5K LG Ultrafine which isn’t exactly cheap. Also Apple displays default calibration and ICC profiles are spot on. I’ve compared them with $1500 spectrophotometers and while hardware profiling makes sense with displays with poor or no factory color management I find just sticking with Apple displays to be a lot less of a headache. I have a 24” Ultrafine for my M1 mini and the color on that is fine too.

Hum that’s already a lot of text just covering the display situation. Let me try to summarize.

While I would love to avoid Windows for the rest of my life there are a few very important use cases where I require Windows software, the rest of the time I’d much rather be in Mac land.

The future is Apple Silicon but in the meantime I have an Egpu I quite like (x86 Macs only), several important apps that aren’t supporting Apple Silicon yet and overall a lot of GPU requirements that the M1, theoretical M1X, and even a M2 may not be able to fulfill.

I build PCs all the time and follow PC tech intensively. Computer decisions can be complicated.

If this is indeed the last Intel Mac I’m ok with riding it out for the next five years. If by then I need another Windows machine ok I’ll build one but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!
Click to expand...
A lot of this resonates with me. In many ways it would be "easier" for me to run Windows since I have some windows only apps for business and in some UX ways Windows > macOS still for someone fully entrenched in M365 (this is becoming less and less true each passing update).

I stick with Mac because of the broadness of capabilities and the iMac and iMac Pro (current and last computer) because of the whole package. The display is a big part for sure.
 
Just wanted to provide a little update.

First the big and real only con: Idle fan noise. Never heard anything w/ my 2014 iMac but it's very noticeable on this one. When I manually set it to 1000rpm it's a lot better but there's no simple way to set the floor. Going to try out this script out which looks promising: https://github.com/costika1234/2020-iMac-fan-control

Also using Turbo Boost Switcher Pro to disable Turbo Boost as 2x the power usage for 15% more speed is not worth it for me and I still have my M1 mini for bursty apps.

Mostly I am really impressed with the GPU (16GB 5700 XT) and eGPU (8 GB Vega56). Finally ridding myself of the TB2 > TB3 adapter and hacky scripts felt good. Combined they perform similarly to a 6900xt which is nice given the GPU prices these days.

x86 Blender in macOS feels way more responsive than the mini despite the recent ARM build. Haven't tested it in Boot Camp. Don't really want to deal with Windows except for important edge cases. My two fluid painting apps work very well in windows. 5K canvas in Verve Painter at 60 FPS. 200fps+ w/ Expresii.

If/when GPU prices calm down it'll be nice to have the option to upgrade to the 6900 XT or whatever else happens to be the latest dGPU Apple still supports. (not holding my breath on Apple supporting the 7000 series but hey it'd be cool)

Also nice is the updated display w/ P3 support. It matches my LG Ultrafine more or less perfectly.
 
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chumps said:
What's the likelihood of Apple releasing a new x86 iMac? Even if it's in the old chassis. I know it is slim but I need a new computer that can run Windows and the thought of building out a PC doesn't fill me with joy.

My main computer is an M1 mini and right now I use a 2014 iMac as a dual-boot and GPU rendering machine.
Click to expand...
It's highly likely that the 2020 27" 5K Intel iMac was the last Intel Mac, let alone last Intel iMac. If you want a Mac that can dual-boot with Windows, your only currently-sold-as-new options are the 2018 Mac mini, the 2020 4-port 13" MacBook Pro, the 2019 16" MacBook Pro, the 2020 5K 27" iMac, and the 2019 Mac Pro.

That being said, if you are only shopping for a Mac because you need a Windows machine, but you don't want to build a PC, there are decent pre-built PCs that you can buy. If you're looking for a desktop, Dell Precision, Dell OptiPlex, HP Z Workstation, HP EliteDesk, Lenovo ThinkCentre, and Lenovo ThinkStation are all pretty stable and easy to maintain (and don't come with the kind of bloatware that you get on the consumer Dells and other branded PCs that you find in a Best Buy or Costco). For laptops, Dell Latitude, some Dell XPS laptops, HP EliteBook and ZBook, some Lenovo ThinkPads, Asus Zenbooks, and a few other options will also give you a fairly smooth ride in terms of having a PC that's as easy to maintain as a Mac running Windows via Boot Camp. The only annoying thing when it comes to shopping for consumer PCs is that you need to know which ones are great and which ones really aren't. But, once you know that, it's pretty easy.
 
Do you recommend buying a 2020 iMac at this time? Because I'm also in a situation I'll have to upgrade soon (late 2015 iMac with a fusion drive) and I still want a mac to run Windows natively when needed so the M1 will be a "downgrade" in some way. So, is buying a 2020 iMac right now is wasting money, or its still a very good computer?
 
soyoung...

IF you need to run Windows natively,
and
IF you need an iMac now or "soon",
then
You're only choice is to buy an Intel-based iMac.

(or else buy a Windows computer for the Windows stuff...)
 
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SoYoung said:
Do you recommend buying a 2020 iMac at this time? Because I'm also in a situation I'll have to upgrade soon (late 2015 iMac with a fusion drive) and I still want a mac to run Windows natively when needed so the M1 will be a "downgrade" in some way. So, is buying a 2020 iMac right now is wasting money, or its still a very good computer?
Click to expand...
Point blank the iMac 2020 is still a VERY good computer. Spec as you need for the time you'll want to keep it.
 
Just bought a 2020 iMac with i7 and Pro 5700XT GPU upgraded from a 2013 iMac fantastic screen and even plays AAA games in windows in 4k with decent FPS it’s a beast of a machine for a Mac, let’s hope one day the ARM chips can run native windows on a Mac.
 
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SoYoung said:
Do you recommend buying a 2020 iMac at this time? Because I'm also in a situation I'll have to upgrade soon (late 2015 iMac with a fusion drive) and I still want a mac to run Windows natively when needed so the M1 will be a "downgrade" in some way. So, is buying a 2020 iMac right now is wasting money, or its still a very good computer?
Click to expand...
The 2020 27" iMac is not a bad computer. And, as others have said, if you need a Mac to run x86-64 Windows natively, then it's kind of your only iMac option at this point (I'm intentionally not counting the non-retina Mid 2017 21.5" iMac which is still being sold because that's a horrible buy no matter how you slice it).
 
SoYoung said:
Do you recommend buying a 2020 iMac at this time? Because I'm also in a situation I'll have to upgrade soon (late 2015 iMac with a fusion drive) and I still want a mac to run Windows natively when needed so the M1 will be a "downgrade" in some way. So, is buying a 2020 iMac right now is wasting money, or its still a very good computer?
Click to expand...
Yea an Intel Mac is still a better pc than a pc :).
 
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