Quick question. Which is a faster machine? I'm thinking of replacing my late 2012 3.4 i7 iMac with a current Retina iMac 3.5 i5 model. BOth has 3tb Fusion and 32gb RAM. If it matters the 2012 has 1gb of video ram and the new model has 2gb (probably to drive the 5k screen). Thanks!
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Which iMac is faster?
- Thread starter Bielski
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I suppose the real question to ask is what you're trying to do, to see if you'll actually notice a difference in the speed. Otherwise, if you want an "overall" type of pictures, various benchmarking software tends to collect scores on machines to offer a quantifiable way to compare speeds. For example, going by GeekBench, here're some speed comparisons.
Retina iMac | late 2012 iMac
Single-core 32-bit: 3886 | 3185
Multi-core 32-bit: 14560 | 12229
Single-core 64-bit: 4351 | 3593 (Just for fun, note that the Late 2013 Mac Pro with 6 cores scores 3600 here)
Multi-core 64-bit: 16547 | 13908 (Just for fun, note that the Late 2013 Mac Pro with 12 cores scores a 32148 on this one)
In other words, there's a difference, but whether you'll really notice it will depend on what you're doing and how sensitive you are to those changes.
Retina iMac | late 2012 iMac
Single-core 32-bit: 3886 | 3185
Multi-core 32-bit: 14560 | 12229
Single-core 64-bit: 4351 | 3593 (Just for fun, note that the Late 2013 Mac Pro with 6 cores scores 3600 here)
Multi-core 64-bit: 16547 | 13908 (Just for fun, note that the Late 2013 Mac Pro with 12 cores scores a 32148 on this one)
In other words, there's a difference, but whether you'll really notice it will depend on what you're doing and how sensitive you are to those changes.
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2012/12/imac-27-late-2012-benchmarks/
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/10/retina-imac-64-bit-performance/
short answer:
imac 2012 i7: 12857 multicore
imac retina 3.5 Ghz i5: 12421 multicore
Iirc, unless you've got a 680mx, the r9 m290x should be able to beat it handily, unless you rely on CUDA. Vram really isn't the best way to compare video cards, though.
http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/10/retina-imac-64-bit-performance/
short answer:
imac 2012 i7: 12857 multicore
imac retina 3.5 Ghz i5: 12421 multicore
Iirc, unless you've got a 680mx, the r9 m290x should be able to beat it handily, unless you rely on CUDA. Vram really isn't the best way to compare video cards, though.
What Ledgem said, it depends what you're going to do with it. If it's mass video en-/decoding an i7 has an edge over an i5, even if it's a generation or two older. For all other things, the newer iMac is probably faster or as fast as your 2012 iMac.