**The 2017 Top-Spec 5K iMac Performance Comparison**

In this performance comparison video, we put the 2017 top-spec 5K iMac to the test against other high-end Macs and Windows machines. The 5k iMac performed exceptionally well in many tests, making it one of the best-performing Macs ever made.

**Geekbench for CPU Test**

The Geekbench for CPU test revealed that the 5K iMac scored the best single-core score but suffered from the worst multi-core score. This is largely due to the differences in the amount of cores available between the 5k iMac and other machines. The 5K iMac's dual core processor was no match for the quad-core processors found in other Macs, resulting in a lower multi-core score.

**Geekbench for Graphics Test**

However, the 5k iMac fared much better in the Geekbench for graphics test, scoring three times better than the i9 MacBook Pro in Cinebench R15. The iMac Pro was the clear winner in this test, destroying both the i9 MacBook Pro and the 5K iMac.

**Unit Ins Heaven Benchmark**

We also tested video gaming performance with the Unit Ins Heaven benchmark, and the iMac Pro did extremely well, while the 5k iMac easily topped the MacBook Pro. This proves that the iMac Pro is a great choice for gaming, and the 5K iMac is not far behind.

**Real-World Testing**

We put the 5k iMac through real-world testing to see how it performs in everyday tasks. We started with photo editing and Lightroom, where the 5k iMac actually performed much better than the i9 MacBook Pro. In this export test, the 5K iMac did much better than expected, beating out the i9 MacBook Pro.

**Final Cut Pro 10 Video Editing**

We then ran a Bruce X test in Final Cut Pro 10 video editing, where the 5k iMac scored incredibly close to the iMac Pro. The MacBook Pro was way behind, struggling with the demands of this test. However, when we stabilized a 20-second 4K clip, the 5k iMac beat the other two machines by a huge margin.

**HEVC C2H TVC Export Test**

However, in the HEVC C2H TVC export test, the i9 MacBook Pro destroyed the 5k iMac and even topped the iMac Pro. This was due to the i9 MacBook Pro's use of the latest Quick Sync encoding and decoding technology, which gave it an edge over the 5k iMac.

**Five-Minute 4K Export Test**

When we tested a five-minute 4K export, the iMac Pro was actually the slowest machine in this test due to the lack of Quick Sync. The MacBook Pro was slower than the 5k iMac because of its thermal throttling processor and weaker graphics.

**Canon Ross 60 Frames Per Second Test**

We also tested a Canon Ross 60 frames per second test, where the 5K iMac was right on par with the Mac Pro. However, the MacBook Pro was extremely slow in this test.

**Timeline Smoothness during Canon Raw Test**

When we tested timeline smoothness during a Canon Raw test, the iMac Pro was the only machine that played it back at the full 60 frames per second. The other machines struggled to keep up with the demands of this test.

**The Verdict**

Overall, the top-spec 2017 5K iMac performed exceptionally well in most tests, making it one of the best-performing Macs ever made. Its dual core processor may not be as powerful as some other Macs, but its overall performance and smoothness make it a great choice for everyday users.

**Conclusion**

We hope to see the 5k iMac get refreshed this year, and we'll keep an eye on future Apple devices. If you enjoy this video, like it and hit that subscribe button. Also, check out our price guide, which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals on Apple products updated daily.

**Social Media**

Be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's been over a year since Apple refreshed the iMac lineup with updated performance hardware and Thunderbolt 3 which aren't major changes but they're personally a huge deal for us as full-time video editors last month came a new kid on the block the 2018 top spec eye 9 MacBook Pro and based on the benchmarks it almost seems like it's a better choice over the 5k iMac well let's find out the 5k iMac has been our main video editing machine since it was released and of course we opted for the top spec model with 32 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of SSD which will run you $3,000 $200 cheaper than the new top spec eye 9 MacBook Pro however the 5k iMac is the only new Mac that allows you to add in third-party RAM which we did we went with an 8 gigabyte model added in 32 gigs and now we've got a 40 gig model for only $3,000 that's $300 less than the 32 gig model now let's add in the base iMac pro for only $1700 more it may seem worth it to go with that over the 5k iMac you get an 8 core Xeon processor 32 gigs of RAM and one terabyte of SSD storage based on that it should easily outperform the 5k iMac right before we get into performance testing let's talk about what we liked about the 5k iMac what we don't like and what we can expect for this year's refresh the design of the 5k iMac is iconic and high quality but it's been 6 years since the last redesign and the large bezels are starting to look a bit dated the 5k display however is amazing it's super detailed it gets very bright and the colors are extremely accurate we love the large amount of ports on the back especially the Thunderbolt 3 ports which we use to connect a 40 terabyte nast server that can be accessed by two Macs at the same time with very fast speeds the keyboard and mouse are great we've hardly had any Bluetooth connection issues and the battery stay charged for weeks they also charged very quickly onto the internals the 2017 5k iMac switched over to Intel's cable 8 processors which added hardware acceleration for the HEV C codec which has recently become the standard for 4k video streaming it also introduced desktop-class graphics chips for the first time in years and even the cheaper Radeon Pro 570 is substantially faster than the best graphics option from 2015 now our top spec 5k iMac has the Radeon Pro 580 which is actually the same exact graphics chip that came in the new Blackmagic a GPU which is mostly marketed towards MacBook Pro users we put the iodine MacBook Pro with the e GPU against the 5k iMac in this performance comparison video so check that out if you're interested now let's go ahead and jump into our performance tests starting with Geekbench for CPU test the 5k iMac gets the best single core score but also the worst multi-core score mainly due to differences in the amount of course now for Geekbench for his graphics test the iMac pro is the clear winner scoring three times better than the i9 macbook pro in Cinebench r15 the 5k iMac is not far from the macbook and that's only because the macbook thermal throttles under load and the iMac pro destroys both machines we also tested video gaming performance with unit ins heaven benchmark the iMac pro did extremely well and the 5k iMac easily topped the macbook pro our iMac pro 5k gaming video proves how great it performs for gaming which you can watch by clicking the card above now let's get into some real-world testing starting with photo editing and Lightroom in this export test the 5k iMac actually did much better than the i9 MacBook Pro and once again worse than the iMac Pro now on to Final Cut Pro 10 video editing we ran the Bruce X test and the 5k iMac actually scored incredibly close to the iMac pro and the MacBook Pro is way behind we then stabilized a 20-second 4k clip into our surprise the 5k iMac beat the other two by a huge amount now in this HEV c2h TVC export test the i9 macbook pro destroys the 5k iMac and even tops the imac pro and that's because the hñ processor is using the latest quick sync encoding and decoding technology the iMac pro xeon cpu doesn't have integrated graphics to enable quick sync but the raw power allows it to still get the job done quickly moving on to a five-minute 4k export the iMac pro is actually the slowest in this test due to the lack of quick sync and the MacBook Pro was slower than the 5k iMac because of its thermal throttling processor and weaker graphics now for our Canon Ross 60 frames per second test the 5k iMac was right a Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro was extremely slow we also tested timeline smoothness during this Canon Raw test and the iMac Pro was the only one that played it back at the full 60 frames per second overall the top spec INA and MacBook Pro performs worse than the 2017 5k iMac in all most of the tests we ran which is completely unexpected based off the spec sheet we were also surprised at how close the 5k iMac compared to the iMac pro even beating it in some tests thanks to quick sync I've been doing video editing full time on this 5k iMac since it was released and I can tell you now it's really fast I've had to use maxes 2016 top spec 15-inch MacBook Pro a few times and it seemed unbearably slow in comparison we shoot and edit everything in 4k and I do a lot of stabilization which as you guys saw is almost twice as fast on this 5k iMac and the time savings really do add up throughout the day we also export everything in 4k as well which as you guys saw is faster on the 5k iMac so this machine really is the best bang for the buck for our scenario on the negative side the fans do get noticeably loud when exporting longer 4k videos I personally prefer using Google's Chrome browser and even with 40 gigabytes of RAM the fans can sometimes kick up really loud on on researching and opening a bunch of tabs at once Apple recently added HDR editing support to Final Cut Pro in the 10.14 update but of course there's still no HDR display in any Mac device this hints that Apple will either be working with a company like LG to bring us a new HDR display or Apple will do it themselves in the next iMac or iMac Pro or maybe even the rumored Apple Cinema Display overall the 2017 top spec 5k iMac is one of the best performing macs ever made and in our opinion the best bang for the buck Mac in terms of performance we're hoping to see the 5k iMac get refresh this year and you can watch our 2018 iMac wish list video by clicking the card above thanks for watching and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out when we get our hands on future Apple devices if you enjoy this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next videoit's been over a year since Apple refreshed the iMac lineup with updated performance hardware and Thunderbolt 3 which aren't major changes but they're personally a huge deal for us as full-time video editors last month came a new kid on the block the 2018 top spec eye 9 MacBook Pro and based on the benchmarks it almost seems like it's a better choice over the 5k iMac well let's find out the 5k iMac has been our main video editing machine since it was released and of course we opted for the top spec model with 32 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of SSD which will run you $3,000 $200 cheaper than the new top spec eye 9 MacBook Pro however the 5k iMac is the only new Mac that allows you to add in third-party RAM which we did we went with an 8 gigabyte model added in 32 gigs and now we've got a 40 gig model for only $3,000 that's $300 less than the 32 gig model now let's add in the base iMac pro for only $1700 more it may seem worth it to go with that over the 5k iMac you get an 8 core Xeon processor 32 gigs of RAM and one terabyte of SSD storage based on that it should easily outperform the 5k iMac right before we get into performance testing let's talk about what we liked about the 5k iMac what we don't like and what we can expect for this year's refresh the design of the 5k iMac is iconic and high quality but it's been 6 years since the last redesign and the large bezels are starting to look a bit dated the 5k display however is amazing it's super detailed it gets very bright and the colors are extremely accurate we love the large amount of ports on the back especially the Thunderbolt 3 ports which we use to connect a 40 terabyte nast server that can be accessed by two Macs at the same time with very fast speeds the keyboard and mouse are great we've hardly had any Bluetooth connection issues and the battery stay charged for weeks they also charged very quickly onto the internals the 2017 5k iMac switched over to Intel's cable 8 processors which added hardware acceleration for the HEV C codec which has recently become the standard for 4k video streaming it also introduced desktop-class graphics chips for the first time in years and even the cheaper Radeon Pro 570 is substantially faster than the best graphics option from 2015 now our top spec 5k iMac has the Radeon Pro 580 which is actually the same exact graphics chip that came in the new Blackmagic a GPU which is mostly marketed towards MacBook Pro users we put the iodine MacBook Pro with the e GPU against the 5k iMac in this performance comparison video so check that out if you're interested now let's go ahead and jump into our performance tests starting with Geekbench for CPU test the 5k iMac gets the best single core score but also the worst multi-core score mainly due to differences in the amount of course now for Geekbench for his graphics test the iMac pro is the clear winner scoring three times better than the i9 macbook pro in Cinebench r15 the 5k iMac is not far from the macbook and that's only because the macbook thermal throttles under load and the iMac pro destroys both machines we also tested video gaming performance with unit ins heaven benchmark the iMac pro did extremely well and the 5k iMac easily topped the macbook pro our iMac pro 5k gaming video proves how great it performs for gaming which you can watch by clicking the card above now let's get into some real-world testing starting with photo editing and Lightroom in this export test the 5k iMac actually did much better than the i9 MacBook Pro and once again worse than the iMac Pro now on to Final Cut Pro 10 video editing we ran the Bruce X test and the 5k iMac actually scored incredibly close to the iMac pro and the MacBook Pro is way behind we then stabilized a 20-second 4k clip into our surprise the 5k iMac beat the other two by a huge amount now in this HEV c2h TVC export test the i9 macbook pro destroys the 5k iMac and even tops the imac pro and that's because the hñ processor is using the latest quick sync encoding and decoding technology the iMac pro xeon cpu doesn't have integrated graphics to enable quick sync but the raw power allows it to still get the job done quickly moving on to a five-minute 4k export the iMac pro is actually the slowest in this test due to the lack of quick sync and the MacBook Pro was slower than the 5k iMac because of its thermal throttling processor and weaker graphics now for our Canon Ross 60 frames per second test the 5k iMac was right a Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro was extremely slow we also tested timeline smoothness during this Canon Raw test and the iMac Pro was the only one that played it back at the full 60 frames per second overall the top spec INA and MacBook Pro performs worse than the 2017 5k iMac in all most of the tests we ran which is completely unexpected based off the spec sheet we were also surprised at how close the 5k iMac compared to the iMac pro even beating it in some tests thanks to quick sync I've been doing video editing full time on this 5k iMac since it was released and I can tell you now it's really fast I've had to use maxes 2016 top spec 15-inch MacBook Pro a few times and it seemed unbearably slow in comparison we shoot and edit everything in 4k and I do a lot of stabilization which as you guys saw is almost twice as fast on this 5k iMac and the time savings really do add up throughout the day we also export everything in 4k as well which as you guys saw is faster on the 5k iMac so this machine really is the best bang for the buck for our scenario on the negative side the fans do get noticeably loud when exporting longer 4k videos I personally prefer using Google's Chrome browser and even with 40 gigabytes of RAM the fans can sometimes kick up really loud on on researching and opening a bunch of tabs at once Apple recently added HDR editing support to Final Cut Pro in the 10.14 update but of course there's still no HDR display in any Mac device this hints that Apple will either be working with a company like LG to bring us a new HDR display or Apple will do it themselves in the next iMac or iMac Pro or maybe even the rumored Apple Cinema Display overall the 2017 top spec 5k iMac is one of the best performing macs ever made and in our opinion the best bang for the buck Mac in terms of performance we're hoping to see the 5k iMac get refresh this year and you can watch our 2018 iMac wish list video by clicking the card above thanks for watching and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out when we get our hands on future Apple devices if you enjoy this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next video\n"