The $1,099 iMac does manage to pull ahead during GPU-heavy activities, but only by a small amount. Past experience has demonstrated that Intel's integrated GPUs are much more power-hungry (and thus, heat-generating, and quicker to throttle) than its CPU cores. Look at the power consumption numbers from Intel's NUC mini desktop, which uses essentially the same CPU—gaming is more stressful than pushing all the CPU cores to the max. Since the new iMac can dissipate more heat, it has a small edge.

That said, the same GPU running slightly faster is no match for a better GPU. Cinebench 11.5 demonstrates the difference pretty well—you're losing more than half of your graphics horsepower when you step down to the $1,099 iMac from the current $1,299 iMac. This is consistent with what we've seen from other computers with the Iris Pro 5200 GPU, including Gigabyte's Brix Pro mini-desktop.

Versus other iMacs: A dual-core blast from the past

Now that we've established that the new iMac performs like a cooler-running MacBook Air, let's look at how it stacks up to some of its more expensive counterparts and its predecessors.

Every iMac Apple has sold to the public since 2011 has included a quad-core CPU. The last general consumer iMac to include dual-core CPUs was the mid-2010 model, which shipped with a 3.06GHz Core i3-540 based on the "Westmere" architecture. Apple released dual-core versions of the 2011 and 2012 iMacs, but sold them exclusively to schools—we won't be comparing this iMac to those since most people couldn't buy them. We also won't be able to do GPU comparisons between this iMac and older ones since we don't have them on-hand—if you've got specific GPUs you'd like to compare to the HD 5000, NotebookCheck's extensive list of mobile GPUs can give you a general idea.





The new $1,099 iMac is faster than an entry-level iMac from four years ago... but not by much. Three CPU architectures separate Westmere and Haswell, and even though the maximum clock speed of the Haswell chip is lower by some 660MHz, its architectural and memory bandwidth improvements help it to outspeed the older CPU.

Compared to the $1,299 iMac, whether you notice those two missing CPU cores will be dictated by how you use the computer. In single-threaded tasks (and for things that only use two of those four cores), the systems will be mostly indistinguishable. For CPU-heavy tasks like editing and organizing large photo libraries or editing video, you'll wish you had gone for the quad-core iMac.

It’s all about the target audience

If you're an individual looking at the iMac and you're trying to get the most value for your dollar, the $1,099 iMac just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You give up around half of your CPU and GPU performance and half your hard drive capacity to save 18 percent of the cost of the computer. One of the $1,299 iMacs will run faster, will feel faster for longer, and will be more versatile. It will increase the useful life of the computer and its resale value. Don't buy one of these to save $200.

The new iMac makes much more sense at scale. Many schools and businesses don't need fast computers, they just need many computers with current warranties and support agreements that can perform basic tasks for a few years until they're replaced. You only save $200 on one of these systems; you save $20,000 if you're buying 100 of them. That's why Apple has, in the past, offered these cut-down, cheaper iMacs primarily to educational institutions—they're one of the few places where these make any economic sense (one could also argue that buying standard PCs would save even more money, but Macs and OS X are often preferred or required in higher education).

Finally, there's the matter of the chip inside this thing: it's a little strange that, with Intel's next-generation Broadwell architecture just months away, Apple would release a new Haswell-based computer to the masses. As with the price, it's probably best explained by this thing's intended audience—we're right around the point when schools are going to be replacing old computers with new ones. For regular people who don't need a computer right this very second, try to hold out for the next model.

The good

The iMac is still an attractive, capable all-in-one computer.

It will perform just fine for most tasks, unless you're editing video or doing heavy 3D work.

Still includes all the good stuff from the more expensive iMacs, including Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, and the 1080p IPS display.

The bad

Spinning hard drives. Spring for the Fusion Drive upgrade.

Haswell's fine, but Broadwell is right around the corner.

The ugly