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New iMacs released. Up to 8 cores on non-pro model.

It's +$200 to upgrade from 8-core i5 (3.0 GHz) to an 8-core i7 (3.2 GHz). Does anyone have an idea of how much an improvement an i7 would be over an i5?

Oops.. thanks for the heads up. They're both 6 core, not 8, on the 21.5", which is the one I was looking at.

I see that the 27" does have the 8 core i7 option.
 
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I looked at OWC and tried to find SSD prices for the new iMacs, but couldn't find any. Are you sure you can replace the internal SSD?

I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it can at least be changed if you open the case. We had a repair shop do that on my wife's iMac (around a 2012 model).

^ That was to replace the fourth Seagate drive that failed out of warranty in a 4-week period, by the way.
 
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Just about any ssd can be exchanged for another of the same form factor.
I wouldn't doubt if this will be the last iMac that everything can be exchanged (once the T2 chip is installed).

The ifixit site is great to learn how to access what can be accessed in Macs.
Here's one for the 2014 5k. (there's also one for the iMac Pro)
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+Retina+5K+Display+Teardown/30260?utm_source=iMacRetina5k2014&utm_medium=Description &utm_campaign=YouTube

OWC also sells an install kit with adhesive and tools.
 
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I had a iMac once, back in the old days. Never again. They're glorified laptops on the back of a unchangeable monitor. Then they introduced the 'pro' model which is more desktop like (but still not remotely like a desktop - the backplane and PCB is still laptop). And as others have mentioned, for a fortune, and I believe still only takes more expensive laptop ram sticks.

The cheese grater MP's were a good deal. Just a little more than a PC and you can upgrade to the sky. I have hacked and modded my 2009 and it's still current (using it now actually), and runs Logic just fine. Biggest issue is no TB.

A possible leaked MP2020 looks like it will be a winner, as long as they don't go crazy with the price (yeah what am I saying).
In old day I had an Imac 24”, 8 GB ram, dual core 2 GHZ (I think) and I loved it, except when the cooling got noisy because of heavy load :).
Now I use Mac/ PC combo and it is powerfull! Yes, I like also the internal expspansion possibilities with the PC.
 
Per the OP’s initial announcement, I wanted to follow up from my previous posts to say my 2019 iMac arrived Thursday, a week earlier than the original delivery date! I’m still setting up and reinstalling everything, as past experiences with migration and cloning introduced legacy issues resulting in eventual clean installs anyway.

As for the questions/concerns about thermal throttling, I have been reading a number of positive reports (so far) as these new machines are just being delivered. Many of these are preliminary benchmarks, though showing definitively higher single and significant multi core performance compared to a 2017 iMac, and even compared to baseline iMac Pros. And for reasons still being deciphered, no throttling issues are being reported (yet), which will be good news for some potential buyers. Here is one brief synthesis among several I looked at at:



My personal benchmark is that of going from dual core i5 processors on my 2014 iMac, to this beast, lol, though my orchestrations have rarely exceeded 40 tracks (averaging about 35 per my workflow). I suspect other inquiries in this thread reflect much larger templates of preloaded ilk, relative to potentially pushing this machine to its limit. To me, these benchmarks are more theoretical, whereas I know precisely what limitations my 2014 system has had, and hence how this upgrade was timely for me.

On a personal note, as I’ve spoken about my progressive blindness, the display is also much brighter and at a higher resolution compared to my 2014 first-gen 5KRetina display. This consideration is a huge factor for me, relative those debates about the iMac being all-in-one.

EDIT: per my previous post about the specs I ordered, we are talking the higher i9 specs, as is the various benchmark reporting I referenced. I did not opt for the higher end video card. I added 64 Gb of memory (OWC), which fortunately happened to arrive on Thursday as well.

The one caveat so far is investing in a Thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter, which means my samples will still be loading at TB 2 speeds from a Blackmagic and OWC Thunder Bay, which is the one wow factor I’ll have to defer to later TB3 options at some point, lol.
 
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Per the OP’s initial announcement, I wanted to follow up from my previous posts to say my 2019 iMac arrived Thursday, a week earlier than the original delivery date! I’m still setting up and reinstalling everything, as past experiences with migration and cloning introduced legacy issues resulting in eventual clean installs anyway.

As for the questions/concerns about thermal throttling, I have been reading a number of positive reports (so far) as these new machines are just being delivered. Many of these are preliminary benchmarks, though showing definitively higher single and significant multi core performance compared to a 2017 iMac, and even compared to baseline iMac Pros. And for reasons still being deciphered, no throttling issues are being reported (yet), which will be good news for some potential buyers. Here is one brief synthesis among several I looked at at:



My personal benchmark is that of going from dual core i5 processors on my 2014 iMac, to this beast, lol, though my orchestrations have rarely exceeded 40 tracks (averaging about 35 per my workflow). I suspect other inquiries in this thread reflect much larger templates of preloaded ilk, relative to potentially pushing this machine to its limit. To me, these benchmarks are more theoretical, whereas I know precisely what limitations my 2014 system has had, and hence how this upgrade was timely for me.

On a personal note, as I’ve spoken about my progressive blindness, the display is also much brighter and at a higher resolution compared to my 2014 first-gen 5KRetina display. This consideration is a huge factor for me, relative those debates about the iMac being all-in-one.

Cool Greg! I hope you’ll enjoy using it. Keep us posted as I’m curious about it. Actually I’ve fallen and bought the 10-cores iMac Pro. Will receive it mid April.
 
Thanks Greg!
First impression sure sound great.
Makes waiting to see the new Mac Pro even harder!
 
I want to be tempted by these new iMacs, but my workflow bottom line is single-core performance. The new lineup's flagship i9 model has a single core performance of 6157 -- better than any other Mac, iMac Pros included (https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks). But my late 2014 flagship 5K iMac (Core i7, 4.0 GHz, turbo: 4.8) has a single core score of 4766. I'm thinking this would be a very expensive upgrade if it only bought me a 30% improvement playing a CPU-intensive piano VI like the Garritan CFX at a decent buffer setting without crackles and pops, which is where I most often encounter the limits of my current system (32 GB, with the CFX and other major VIs on an external SSD). Am I missing something?
 
Not exactly the first time that it took owc to point out the fact that more ram could be used in a mac.
In the past, it seems like tech advancements were part of the reason.
This time, wouldn't guess.
I'm not so sure if 128G is something we would need, but if you think you might, it's over $100 cost increase to buy the 2 stick 64G pair compared to the 4 stick 64G set from owc.
 
I'm not so sure if 128G is something we would need, but if you think you might, it's over $100 cost increase to buy the 2 stick 64G pair compared to the 4 stick 64G set from owc.
Two 32GB sticks of RAM for the 2018 Mac Mini are still priced high relative to the 16GB sticks. If you consider the difference in cost, either way you’re getting more for the money with iMac RAM. I don’t think an extra $100 is so bad when it gives you the option of adding more memory later, an option that Mini users don’t have.
 
I‘m considering buying a new iMac i9, 1 TB SSD, 8 GB Ram, 580x Radeon.

Upgrading to 64 GB (2x 32 GB)

Hope it will last as long as possible.
 
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