I bought a maxed late 2015 5K a year and a half ago. The new ones look great, but, save for the graphics, they're just an incremental improvement. I'll be enjoying my 'old' iMac 5K for a few more years.
I bought a late 2015 27" 5k iMac January of this year as my late 2013 13" MBP was having issues as a desktop and wasting money trying to fix it. As of the beginning of the there was no real road map to what Apple was officially going to do and when. I have the 3.3ghz core i5 with a 2TB Fusion drive and a R9395 2 GB card. I got a RAM upgrade from amazon using crucial 2 16 GB kits. For the time being, when it comes to Live Video I don't work with 4K at this time. yes I have a 4K+HDR TV for a dedicated home theater display for watching content, and my current iMac plays 4k without issues In focus of creating content most people don't have 4k at this time so there is no reason to invest in equipment to produce it until, it's going to be able to be consumed by the mainstream. I know that Youtube is one of the more popular 4K content providers right now, and I can still provide 4K screen casts with Screenflow which seem to work very well.
The bottom line is this feels like a really solid system that will meet my needs for quite a few years. The one thing i've learned about Apple and most modern tech, is it doesn't really matter when you buy anymore It's not that long before something new is out. So I feel the best way to avoid stressing over this stuff is to buy what you need now and will get you through for a few years, then upgrade when what you have no longer does the job well.
Bought a top of the line unit to replace my 2009 iMac. Sold by the numeric keypad. Have a mismatched one right now, and eliminating batteries is something I am looking forward to.
Hopefully it boots up in less than 30 minutes like my current machine...
I need the speed for running Mail, Firefox, and Safari all at once... ¡
So, the headline is basically "Desktop impresses with desktop-class graphics" ... am I missing something here? That seems like a really low bar for being impressed with something.
Well, and a 5K billion color DCI-P3 display in case you weren't paying attention.
My target is a 4.2ghz core-i7, 3TB fusion drive, and a Radeon Pro 580.
I'll add my own RAM, thank you Apple.
Really great review. --- I'm sold -- After owning 4 or 5 previous Mac's this time I'm 'putting the pedal to the metal' --- but I was actually sold 10 days ago and just wanted to read this hoping to confirm my new purchase. One Correction: I checked several source and all say the new 27" iMac has an SDXC card slot; this was important for me, filming now in 4K video. -- Ports: "The iMac has four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a gigabit ethernet port, and an SDXC card slot." ---- This is the best iMac I've purchased and as your article points out several times getting better than entry level makes a big, big difference in this case. I can't wait to see it all in action...the 2-TB Fusion drive having 128GB SSD cache is one of the big differences, the Radon 580 having 8MB of VRAM another major difference. As your article says: "The new star of the show is the 8-gigabyte Radeon Pro 580." -- You state the key conclusion: " a new, "better tier" 2017 5K iMac priced at $2,399 will outperform the previous generation 5K iMac that cost $2,799. The "best tier," high performance tier outperforms the Late 2015 5K iMac at a price that's $400 less expensive. " -- New iMac Pro; more than I'll need. -- Backlighted Magic Keyboard...well, yea, that would be more magical, wouldn't it. Go For It! (Oh yea, the new level of Thunderbolt 3 also a very dramatic upgrade and one thing Real Nice is Apple going along with a standard in the Window's PC world: UHS-C...so UHS-C is good and going to be around for awhile and a lot of add-on's will all be using it. -- I'm adding 32GB to this sucker and hope to never look back. (Note: On the big how much RAM is needed or too much RAM, Apple in this case recommends if you have a 2-TB Fusion Drive, have at least 32GB RAM...and since this machine will take 64GB RAM I guess the only amount we can be certain would be 'too much,' would be 65GB.) This a good time to go for this 'better tier' model...or save your pennies and get the upcoming iMac Pro and --- presuming there are no defects -- you'll have no regrets.
Helpful review, but why was there NOT EVEN ONE WORD about the new iMac's audio and MIDI capabilities? (Except the part where the reviewer mentioned that they COULDN'T FIND the MICROPHONE!! DUH...) Part of the "multi" in "multimedia" is sound, y'know. I use a Mac mostly because CoreAudio provides a relatively simple and reliable way to connect and run audio hardware with many tracks of audio at very high sampling rates. At least the reviewers could have run a cursory check to see if the audio aupport was working as well as previously.
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I'll be enjoying my 'old' iMac 5K for a few more years.
Ah it will be like a whole new world