So glad I purchased the 2019 iMac

[Lankyman]

I could have waited for the 2020 27" 5K iMac but decided I would buy in 2019. I purchased the 2019 27inch 5K 2TB FD model and now feel totally vindicated with that decision. I'm only a light user these days and find the 128 gigs of fast storage more than enough, as to date I'm only using around a third of that, with the heavier data residing on the HDD. I don't have any fan noise or heat issues etc. yet it's no slouch. When I look at all the threads and many many posts of customers with the 2020 model complaining of fan noise, heat issues, throttling etc. I'm glad I didn't wait for this model. I'm happy to leave it to those who thirst for the fastest Ferrari iMac out there with all that brings to the party. I will still get to the same destination albeit a couple of seconds slower without a hair out of place and feeling totally relaxed. One satisfied customer.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

That's quite commendable.

 

[Lobwedgephil]

To be fair, with light usage you wouldn't be experiencing those issues either on the 2020 model.

 

[CE3]

I'm not seeing a lot of posts about 2020 iMac (throttling and heat) issues, but maybe I'm not paying close enough attention. It's still early.

The main issues I'm seeing posted about so far are the white line / window corner glitches with the 5700 configurations, but hopefully it's just a software problem and will be corrected soon.

There are threads about fan noise every year.

Anyway, congrats on the new iMac! My sister is a light non-power user, I recommended the fusion drive to her and she's been happy with the machine. I'm glad Apple is doing away with FDs going forward, though.

 

[KrazyKanuck]

The 2019 iMacs are excellent machines. I ordered a refurbished one in July, but (fortunately for me) decided to return it in anticipation of the 2020 iterations. I then had a 2020 i7 w/5500 XT for a week or so, but returned it in favour of a little more storage and the 5700. All three machines performed (and perform) exceptionally well, but I'm glad to have the processor and graphics overhead of the 2020 iteration (quite a jump from my 2013). These forums naturally attract users experiencing bugs and technical concerns, so that can easily bias one's perception of the 2020s. Some concerns are legitimate, some are just the product of users being unreasonable. I'm sure you'll enjoy many years with your 2019.

 

[Robbosan]

I have a late 4.5 year old late 2015 27' with 2TBFD 24GB ram, had the screen replaced in February this year for pink tinge with AC. Seems just as good as when i got it to me.

 

[casperes1996]

I'm glad Apple is doing away with FDs going forward, though.

I wouldn't say that personally. While hard-drive based Fusion Drives maybe should go away from quite expensive consumer devices, the concept of tiered storage like a Fusion Drive is brilliant, and in many ways the backbone of computing; If you look at non-persistent storage we have several levels of cache before we hit RAM to keep the most urgently needed stuff in a faster place - Having tiered storage also makes a lot of sense in that same spirit; More capacity/cheaper but slower storage at one point in the chain with faster storage closer to the data's maximal use-point. That same approach can just as easily apply to Optane and QLC SSDs or a fast SLC SSD with a slower backing QLC one down the chain; And many SSDs will have a bit of this inside them anyway as a form of caching, but a software driven Fusion Drive like solution is more flexible and expandable for finding the dynamic between the capacity and speed drives. I like Fusion Drives and hope they stay around, even if not with HDDs and perhaps not shipping in products by default, but as upgrade options or something you have to set up yourself for a Mac Pro with a super fast Octane add-in card

 

[ADGrant]

I could have waited for the 2020 27" 5K iMac but decided I would buy in 2019. I purchased the 2019 27inch 5K 2TB FD model and now feel totally vindicated with that decision. I'm only a light user these days and find the 128 gigs of fast storage more than enough, as to date I'm only using around a third of that, with the heavier data residing on the HDD. I don't have any fan noise or heat issues etc. yet it's no slouch. When I look at all the threads and many many posts of customers with the 2020 model complaining of fan noise, heat issues, throttling etc. I'm glad I didn't wait for this model. I'm happy to leave it to those who thirst for the fastest Ferrari iMac out there will all that brings to the party. I will still get to the same destination albeit a couple of seconds slower without a hair out of place and feeling totally relaxed. One satisfied customer.

I am happy that you like your 2019 iMac with the Fusion drive. I have to say though I have not experienced any of the these issues such as fan noise, heat issues, throttling with my 2020 iMac. The only issue is a couple of minor GPU glitches that are probably driver related.

 

[pldelisle]

One should not be satisfied with a Fusion Drive .... 😅

I don't see any sign of severe throttling with the 2020 iMac in threads here. It’s just correct. It could be better on cooling but it’s correct considering such compute performance in an AiO form factor.

 

[Elektrofone]

I could have waited for the 2020 27" 5K iMac but decided I would buy in 2019. I purchased the 2019 27inch 5K 2TB FD model and now feel totally vindicated with that decision. I'm only a light user these days and find the 128 gigs of fast storage more than enough, as to date I'm only using around a third of that, with the heavier data residing on the HDD. I don't have any fan noise or heat issues etc. yet it's no slouch. When I look at all the threads and many many posts of customers with the 2020 model complaining of fan noise, heat issues, throttling etc. I'm glad I didn't wait for this model. I'm happy to leave it to those who thirst for the fastest Ferrari iMac out there will all that brings to the party. I will still get to the same destination albeit a couple of seconds slower without a hair out of place and feeling totally relaxed. One satisfied customer.

I'm glad that you're happy with your 2019 iMac, but to use the issues that you read on a forum as the reasoning doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I purchased an i5 model 2020 iMac and it's been a dream so far. I'd say that the people experiencing fan noise, heat issues, etc.. are either using it for more extreme tasks or are a minority issue, but even when doing some light 3d rendering my iMac hasn't been too loud at all.

 

[Benz63amg]

I could have waited for the 2020 27" 5K iMac but decided I would buy in 2019. I purchased the 2019 27inch 5K 2TB FD model and now feel totally vindicated with that decision. I'm only a light user these days and find the 128 gigs of fast storage more than enough, as to date I'm only using around a third of that, with the heavier data residing on the HDD. I don't have any fan noise or heat issues etc. yet it's no slouch. When I look at all the threads and many many posts of customers with the 2020 model complaining of fan noise, heat issues, throttling etc. I'm glad I didn't wait for this model. I'm happy to leave it to those who thirst for the fastest Ferrari iMac out there with all that brings to the party. I will still get to the same destination albeit a couple of seconds slower without a hair out of place and feeling totally relaxed. One satisfied customer.

+1. I own the 2299$ configuration of the 2019 iMac as well and its an excellent machine throughout. The 512GB of storage even on the highest spec 27 inch configuration this year simply isn't enough if you want to do music production, have a nicely sized iTunes library and basically want to enjoy the machine without having to continuously worry about running out of space, My iPhone backup through iTunes on Mojave by itself take up 300GB for crying out loud so a 1TB SSD would be the MINIMUM which would require a BTO optioned iMac and waiting for one to be shipped to you. The 2020 iMac is probably a great machine but 512GB of storage isn't. (It's not even 512gb in reality if you factor in how much storage the MacOS system takes by itself on the already limited 512GB space)

 

[pldelisle]

The 512GB of storage on the highest spec 27 inch configuration this year simply isn't enough if you want to do music production, have a nicely sized iTunes library and basically enjoy the machine without having to continuously worry about running out of space, My iPhone 11 Pro backup by itself is 180gb A 1TB is need and that would require a BTO optioned iMac and waiting for one to be shipped etc

So what? Just BTO-it and wait a week or two.

 

[Benz63amg]

So what? Just BTO-it and wait a week or two.

No thanks, when the iMac's get a 120hz ProMotion display or a Mini LED display that is superior to the current 5K Retina display then perhaps an upgrade would be justified.

 

[Elektrofone]

+1. I own the 2299$ configuration of the 2019 iMac as well and its an excellent machine throughout. The 512GB of storage even on the highest spec 27 inch configuration this year simply isn't enough if you want to do music production, have a nicely sized iTunes library and basically want to enjoy the machine without having to continuously worry about running out of space, My iPhone backup through iTunes on Mojave by itself take up 300GB for crying out loud so a 1TB SSD would be the MINIMUM which would require a BTO optioned iMac and waiting for one to be shipped to you. The 2020 iMac is probably a great machine but 512GB of storage isn't. (It's not even 512gb in reality if you factor in how much storage the MacOS system takes by itself on the already limited 512GB space)

It kind of depends on how you use your computer. Everyone has different storage needs.

 

[pldelisle]

No thanks, when the iMac's get a 120hz ProMotion display or a Mini LED display that is superior to the current 5K Retina display then perhaps an upgrade would be justified.

Maybe next gen with Apple Silicon in a year or two I’d say.

 

[Donnation]

Every time Apple releases something new there are going to be people that experience issues with them. By all accounts, the 2020 iMac is actually a really nice upgrade over the 2019, and leaps and bounds better than anything before that.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

+1. I own the 2299$ configuration of the 2019 iMac as well and its an excellent machine throughout. The 512GB of storage even on the highest spec 27 inch configuration this year simply isn't enough if you want to do music production, have a nicely sized iTunes library and basically want to enjoy the machine without having to continuously worry about running out of space, My iPhone backup through iTunes on Mojave by itself take up 300GB for crying out loud so a 1TB SSD would be the MINIMUM which would require a BTO optioned iMac and waiting for one to be shipped to you. The 2020 iMac is probably a great machine but 512GB of storage isn't. (It's not even 512gb in reality if you factor in how much storage the MacOS system takes by itself on the already limited 512GB space)

The 16 days I waited for my 1TB iMac to arrive gave me time to sort out my data and other setup plans. Yes, waiting isn't anyone's favorite activity, but new orders are now only taking a week to arrive.

Also, search out how to make a directory hardlink in Terminal. My iOS devices all backup to an external HDD so it doesn't hog up all the valuable SSD space. There are internet articles available specifically on setting up hardlinks for the iOS backup folder.

 

[Homy]

Congratulations but it sounds like you're trying to justify your old iMac and the fact that you didn't/couldn't wait by complaining about iMac 2020. The important thing is that you're happy but I don't recognize most of the problems you're mentioning and I've read and watched most reviews and threads here. I even created this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-2020-reviews-and-benchmarks-the-last-intel-imac.2248978/. I think even you wouldn't say no to a better iMac if you could have waited, specially when the base model has a better GPU than last year's top model (5300 vs. 580X), but like you say you're a light user in no need of a better iMac.

Throttling: It's the first time I hear about this since no one has mentioned it in any reviews, benchmarks or here. The fact is that iMac 2020 gives the best performance since it can use more watts than previous iMacs. It's not crippeled like previous iMacs in that matter. The 8-core actually clocks higher than specified in tests (Max Tech), 5.1GHz vs official 5.0.

Heat issues: iMac 2020 gets hot but not hotter than other iMacs or Mac mini. Apple has always prioritised low fan noise so all iMacs and Minis get hot up to 99 degrees C. Haven't heard of any other heat issues.

Fan noise: This is a subjective matter. Some people are more sensitive than others and want their iMacs be dead silent even under heavy load. Those complaints are often about the 8- and 10-core iMacs, the most power hungry CPUs. Of course they get hot under heavy load and make the fans spin up but it's not anywhere near "hair out of place" levels. On contrary in many reviews the fans stay quiet or just "whisper" under heavy benchmarks.

Since you're a "light" user you wouldn't experience any of these issues with iMac 2020. That may be the reason you don't experience such issues with your iMac 2019 either, but under heavy tasks you may also experience all this if you pushed your iMac.

The only real problem is the 5700XT graphical glitch that hopefully will be solved by a driver update.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

I could have waited for the 2020 27" 5K iMac but decided I would buy in 2019. I purchased the 2019 27inch 5K 2TB FD model and now feel totally vindicated with that decision. I'm only a light user these days and find the 128 gigs of fast storage more than enough, as to date I'm only using around a third of that, with the heavier data residing on the HDD. I don't have any fan noise or heat issues etc. yet it's no slouch. When I look at all the threads and many many posts of customers with the 2020 model complaining of fan noise, heat issues, throttling etc. I'm glad I didn't wait for this model. I'm happy to leave it to those who thirst for the fastest Ferrari iMac out there with all that brings to the party. I will still get to the same destination albeit a couple of seconds slower without a hair out of place and feeling totally relaxed. One satisfied customer.

For the record, my 2020 27" iMac has none of the issues you describe. I'm so happy I waited and bought the 2020 for the 65% faster performance than 2019. That's a big leap. For others, the inclusion of the T2 chip alone is worth the cost of admission for the huge jump in video encode/decode performance. Then there is the 1080p FaceTime camera which I've been using a lot and the improved sound during those calls with the new iMac's studio mic array.

To each their own, but the 2020 was definitely worth the wait!

 

[Benz63amg]

For the record, my 2020 27" iMac has none of the issues you describe. I'm so happy I waited and bought the 2020 for the 65% faster performance than 2019. That's a big leap. For others, the inclusion of the T2 chip alone is worth the cost of admission for the huge jump in video encode/decode performance. Then there is the 1080p FaceTime camera which I've been using a lot and the improved sound during those calls with the new iMac's studio mic array.

To each their own, but the 2020 was definitely worth the wait!

did you get the one with 512gb SSD storage or did you do 1Tb SSD Storage?

 

[pldelisle]

did you get the one with 512gb SSD storage or did you do 1Tb SSD Storage?

The 512 GB doesn't worth it. It is a lot less performant than the 1 and 2 TB variant. There's a solid gap.

 

[Benz63amg]

The 512 GB doesn't worth it. It is a lot less performant than the 1 and 2 TB variant. There's a solid gap.

Interesting, So really only right “Upgrade” from top tier 2019 iMac with 2TB fusion, 580 graphics Card and 3.7ghz i5 is the top tier 2020 iMac but with minimum 1Tb SSD? 512gb is a clear compromise in terms of size capacity for obvious reasons which is very limiting for anyone with a nicely sized iTunes library etc but you’re sayings there’s more to it even when it comes to the performance of the 512gb module itself when compared to the 1Tb SSd Module?

 

[pldelisle]

Interesting, So really only right “Upgrade” from top tier 2019 iMac with 2TB fusion, 580 graphics Card and 3.7ghz i5 is the top tier 2020 iMac but with minimum 1Tb SSD? 512gb is a clear compromise in terms of size capacity for obvious reasons which is very limiting for anyone with a nicely sized iTunes library etc but you’re sayings there’s more to it even when it comes to the performance of the 512gb module itself when compared to the 1Tb SSd Module?

It's very well known that higher density NAND flash performs better in IOPS and transfert rates.

The right upgrade would be the i9, 5700XT, 64 GB aftermarket Crucial RAM in 2x32 GB, 1 or 2 TB SSD, 10 Gbps if needed. Then you *might* see an improvement. Anything below this strictly doesn't worth it.

 

[CE3]

Interesting, So really only right “Upgrade” from top tier 2019 iMac with 2TB fusion, 580 graphics Card and 3.7ghz i5 is the top tier 2020 iMac but with minimum 1Tb SSD? 512gb is a clear compromise in terms of size capacity for obvious reasons which is very limiting for anyone with a nicely sized iTunes library etc but you’re sayings there’s more to it even when it comes to the performance?

Others have posted benchmarks showing the larger capacity SSDs have faster read and write speeds, but ALL of Apple's Mac SSDs are extremely fast. As far as I'm concerned the only real compromise of the 512 is its storage capacity. I personally opted for the 1TB SSD this time around, but all my previous iMacs and MacBooks have had 512, and they usually stayed at half capacity or under. I actually prefer to store photo, video, and other large files externally.

 

[Benz63amg]

It's very well known that higher density NAND flash performs better in IOPS and transfert rates.

The right upgrade would be the i9, 5700XT, 64 GB aftermarket Crucial RAM in 2x32 GB, 1 or 2 TB SSD, 10 Gbps if needed. Then you *might* see an improvement. Anything below this strictly doesn't worth it.

I understand, Thank you. What is your opinion about Fusion Drives in general? Do I need to worry about reliability?

Others have posted benchmarks showing the larger capacity SSDs have faster read and write speeds, but ALL of Apple's Mac SSDs are extremely fast. As far as I'm concerned the only real compromise of the 512 is its storage capacity. I personally opted for the 1TB SSD this time around, but all my previous iMacs and MacBooks have been 512, and it's usually always stayed at half capacity or under. I actually prefer to store photo, video, and other large files externally.

What made you opt for 1Tb this time around then if 512 has always been sufficient to you?(aside from the performance boost mentioned above)

512gb is way too limiting and it’s more than just photos, videos. Apple Loops take huge space on the drive, iPhone backups take a large footprint on the drive as well and what’s the point of getting such a nice computer that only has 512gb Storage