Benchmarks for iMac with unreleased Intel processor & Radeon Pro surface
Alleged benchmark test results for an unreleased 2020 iMac with a currently nonexistent Intel Comet Lake chip have surfaced on Geekbench.
Credit: Apple
Although Apple announced a massive transition to Apple Silicon in its Macs at WWDC, it didn't reveal any new consumer-facing hardware. That's despite rumors that it would.
The Geekbench 5 report, first spotted by @_rogame, appear to show off an unreleased iMac machine with an Intel Core i9-10910 processor. Although benchmark specifications aren't always reliable, if legitimate, the specifications could hint at an impending refresh.
The supposed unreleased Mac also packs a currently unannounced AMD Radeon Pro 5300 graphics card with a maximum clock speed of 1650MHz. That GPU could be a desktop version of AMD's Radeon Pro 5300M chip, released last year and included in the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
The device packs 32GB of 1333MHz DDR4 memory. Although that may sound improbable, current iMac devices released in 2019 clock in with the same RAM frequency.
Although Geekbench didn't list the thermal design power (TDP) of the chip, Tom's Hardware speculates that it could slot in as Intel's 95W processor this year.
Based on the specifications and other available information, it appears that the Intel Core i9-10910 is a chip custom-made for Apple and will likely remain an exclusive to the Cupertino tech giant. The custom chip would follow the mainstream Comet Lake processors released in 2020.
Although it isn't clear when a new iMac could be coming, previous rumors have suggested that it would feature "iPad Pro design language" and slimmer bezels, a T2 chip, and an AMD Navi GPU.
Well-connected TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has previously forecast that the smaller model would be the first get a refresh in 2020 with a new 24-inch iMac.
Credit: Apple
Although Apple announced a massive transition to Apple Silicon in its Macs at WWDC, it didn't reveal any new consumer-facing hardware. That's despite rumors that it would.
The Geekbench 5 report, first spotted by @_rogame, appear to show off an unreleased iMac machine with an Intel Core i9-10910 processor. Although benchmark specifications aren't always reliable, if legitimate, the specifications could hint at an impending refresh.
As far as processor specifications, the Intel chip sports a 10-core CPU and 20 threads and 20MB of L3 cache. According to the Benchmarks, it runs with a 3.6GHz base clock and a 4.7GHz boost clock. Compared to the Core i9-10900, the 10910 boasts a 28.6% higher base clock, Tom's Hardware notes.[Apple iMac 2020]
Intel Core i9-10910
1 Processor, 10 Cores, 20 Threads
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 165 Stepping 5
AMD Radeon Pro 5300 Compute Engine
20 Compute Units
1.65GHz core clock
4GB VRAM
Apple Inc. Mac-CFF7D910A743CAAF AAPJ1851,1https://t.co/RLXyEapa4z pic.twitter.com/bjul5rnZq5-- _rogame (@_rogame)
The supposed unreleased Mac also packs a currently unannounced AMD Radeon Pro 5300 graphics card with a maximum clock speed of 1650MHz. That GPU could be a desktop version of AMD's Radeon Pro 5300M chip, released last year and included in the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
The device packs 32GB of 1333MHz DDR4 memory. Although that may sound improbable, current iMac devices released in 2019 clock in with the same RAM frequency.
Although Geekbench didn't list the thermal design power (TDP) of the chip, Tom's Hardware speculates that it could slot in as Intel's 95W processor this year.
Based on the specifications and other available information, it appears that the Intel Core i9-10910 is a chip custom-made for Apple and will likely remain an exclusive to the Cupertino tech giant. The custom chip would follow the mainstream Comet Lake processors released in 2020.
Although it isn't clear when a new iMac could be coming, previous rumors have suggested that it would feature "iPad Pro design language" and slimmer bezels, a T2 chip, and an AMD Navi GPU.
Well-connected TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has previously forecast that the smaller model would be the first get a refresh in 2020 with a new 24-inch iMac.
Comments
The 95W TDP are fake anyway (at full base speed comparable SKUs consume more like 200 W on the Windows machines, and macOS does not magically make the chip run cooler).
En plus, Apple can cool only 80 Watt continuously and I don't expect this to change. Look at how they murdered the MacBook Air cooling performance. So it is expected that there would be no improvement to last gen except for a few milliseconds when ramping up a workload.
Note that there's a difference between power consumed and heat dissipated. I believe the TDP number is *supposed* to be heat dissipated.
So, lower price 8 core, Navi graphics, maybe better SSD options.
I'll take that as a good upgrade over my quad-core 4 GHz 2014 5k 27"
Still, that kind of delay is very suggestive of a new release, rather than a supply chain glitch. We shall have to wait and see.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201918
which, when combined with this:
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/power/BTU_to_Watt.html
tells me that my 2014 27" iMac with quad core 4 GHz i7 consumes 288W at max CPU and, coincidentally, has a thermal output of 288W. (or maybe not so coincidentally -- it would seem that Apple is just converting watts to BTU/h in their table).
In any event.... this would make it seem like a 27" iMac can handle quite a bit more than 80 watts.
One of the big questions for a Comet Lake iMac 5K is how Apple is going to handle the 125W TDP and 250W turbo for the Core i9-10900K as well as a more performance GPU. Well, looks like they are getting a special binned part with lower power consumption, like 95W, with about 100 MHz less clock. Good trade if that's the case.
On the other hand, maybe the update is just an iMac Pro with Core processors and a silver finish?
I'd rather just take the slightly slower CPU. Trading 100 MHz to get 30 Watts sounds like a win to me. Really, that 125W part is just a stunt chip to compete with AMD in benchmark bragging rights (and arguably Intel still loses).
Not only helping any heat issues you have raised, but an additional selling point to minimise the Osborne Effect. and maybe as an extra sweetener it comes with more RAM out of the box. That geek bench ‘report' had 32GB.
A form factor change may or may not come this summer, but I'd guess USB4 and Wi-Fi 6 will wait for the A-chip model.
The clue is in the different represenation. 1333MHz is the underlying clock rate of DDR4-2666 RAM which in turn has a transfer rate of 2666.67 MT/s . So Apple reports the transfer rate with the right number (rounded) but the wrong unit of measure. Geekbench reports the underlying clock rate which is 50% of the transfere rate number). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM for a table with corresponding values:
From Apple system report -
...
BANK 0/ChannelA-DIMM0: [ of a total of four ]
...
Size: 16 GB
Type: DDR4
Speed: 2667 MHz
Status: OK
Manufacturer: Micron
vs geekbench
Memory Information
Size 64.00GB
Frequency 1333 MHz
Type DDR4
So while the alleged new iMac reported in the geekbench browser may be fake, the memory spec is plausible i.e. same as the current generation. Mainstream part, makes sense froma logistics and cost perspective.
I believe that any new Intel Macs would be the Pros. The iMac Pro is overdue for an update.