Design Perspective and Gaming Capabilities
Not much has changed from a design perspective but we've already crossed that bridge let's really talk about what makes this iMac the high-end version special and who might consider it over the base or mid-tier models now obviously if you're buying an iMac you're not buying it solely with the purpose of gaming in mind for instance most people who run Boot Camp on their Mac in Game and Windows are doing so maybe because they have this Mac they don't have a dedicated gaming machine and they can game on it in Windows Boot Camp so why not right and while this works okay sometimes a lot of times Windows gaming just doesn't work all that well on a standalone Mac but what I found is that's not really the case with this 2020 iMac with the 5700 XT GPU for a machine like this which in most cases will be gaming as a secondary purpose I was impressed by how well it performed and I'm not just talking about playing Rocket League I loaded up Cars too which is a fairly demanding title and I know version 3 just launched recently but like I was saying cars 2 is a demanding game and I was able to play it at the max settings at 1440p I was able to play it at high settings and 4k resolution and I was impressed now I I tend to play it in 1440p because when you start like driving through water and you have all those particles splashing up that's when you can notice the frame rate start to take a dip but here you can see 1440p it stays pretty much locked at 60 frames per second and visually speaking I'm not running at low settings at all as you can clearly see in this video so this could possibly be the last iMac that can run Windows natively and if you like gaming in Windows to wind down this machine performs admirably it's one of the reasons you might consider the high-end GPU upgrade.
GPU Performance and Gaming Capabilities
This 2020 iMac with the 5700 XT GPU is a significant improvement over its base model counterpart. The GPU performance is evident in various benchmarks, including Geekbench and Metal Performance. In Metal Performance, the top-of-the-line iMac scores significantly better than the entry-level model, showcasing the improved gaming capabilities of this machine. This suggests that if you're playing games that utilize Metal or use applications that rely on it, the difference between the base model and the high-end iMac will be substantial.
The 5700 XT GPU is also a significant upgrade over other GPUs available in Macs at this price point. It's clear that Apple has taken steps to improve the gaming capabilities of its machines by using more powerful hardware. This improvement may not be as noticeable for general users, but it's evident when trying demanding games like Cars 2 or Rocket League.
Final Cut Pro 10 Performance
The performance of Final Cut Pro 10 on this iMac is impressive, especially compared to the entry-level model. In various tests, including a real-world project that requires editing and transcoding video files, the high-end iMac shows significant advantages over its base model counterpart. This suggests that if you're using Final Cut Pro for video editing, you'll be happy with the performance of this machine.
However, it's worth noting that the difference in performance may not be dramatic enough to justify the upgrade for casual users. The entry-level iMac still performs well, and most users won't need the enhanced performance offered by the high-end model. But if you're working with high-end video files or requiring smoother performance, this machine is a clear choice.
Benchmark Results
To demonstrate the performance difference between the base model and high-end iMac, let's look at some benchmark results. In Metal Performance, the top-of-the-line iMac scores significantly better than the entry-level model, showcasing the improved gaming capabilities of this machine.
In Geekbench, the multi-core performance is a notable improvement over the base model. The additional four cores in the high-end iMac make a difference when working with applications that utilize multiple cores.
When it comes to GPU performance, the 5700 XT GPU offers a significant boost compared to other GPUs available in Macs at this price point. This suggests that Apple has taken steps to improve the gaming capabilities of its machines by using more powerful hardware.
Real-World Testing
To get a better understanding of how this iMac performs in real-world scenarios, let's take a look at some actual tests. I recently worked on a project that required editing and transcoding video files. The results are shown below:
Transcoding 10 of the files from my 2020 iMac review took significantly less time than expected. This suggests that the high-end GPU provides a noticeable boost in performance for tasks like video editing.
While the difference may not be dramatic, it's clear that this machine is capable of handling demanding tasks with ease. If you're working with high-end video files or requiring smoother performance, this iMac is an excellent choice.
In conclusion, if you're looking for an iMac with improved gaming capabilities and better performance for demanding applications like Final Cut Pro 10, the top-of-the-line model is an excellent choice. While it may not be worth the upgrade for casual users, those who require more powerful hardware will find this machine to be a significant improvement over its base model counterpart.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhow's it going ladies and gents boys and girls this is jeff benjamin with nine to five mac on this week's episode of back to the mac we're going to take a look at the high end configuration for the 2020 ipac and that includes the 10 core i9 cpu and more importantly the radeon pro 5700 xt gpu so as you've seen before i've already kind of walked through the basics of this imac what it all entails externally speaking not much has changed from a design perspective but we've already crossed that bridge let's really talk about what makes this imac the high-end version special and who might consider it over the base or mid-tier models now obviously if you're buying a imac you're not buying it solely with the purpose of gaming in mind for instance most people who run boot camp on their mac in game and windows are doing so maybe because they have this mac they don't have a dedicated gaming machine and they can game on it in windows bootcamp so why not right and while this works okay sometimes a lot of times windows gaming just doesn't work all that well on a standalone mac but what i found is that's not really the case with this 2020 imac with the 5700 xt gpu for a machine like this which in most cases will be gaming as a secondary purpose i was impressed by how well it performed and i'm not just talking about playing rocket league i loaded up cars too which is a fairly demanding title and i know version 3 just launched recently but like i was saying cars 2 is a demanding game and i was able to play it at the max settings at 1440p i was able to play it at high settings and 4k resolution and i was impressed now i i tend to play it in 1440p because when you start like driving through water and you have all those particles splashing up that's when you can notice the frame rate start to take a dip but here you can see 1440p it stays pretty much locked at 60 frames per second and visually speaking i'm not running at low settings at all as you can clearly see in this video so this could possibly be the last imac that can run windows natively and if you like gaming in windows to wind down this machine performs admirably it's one of the reasons you might consider the high-end gpu upgrade so that was more of a real world example of why you might consider going and upgrading your imac from the base model and that's supported in our heaven benchmark ultra settings 1080p tessellation moderate 63 frames per second versus 103 on the maxed out imac and geekbench cpu performance you could see quite a big difference there in multi-core performance as well so if you're working with applications that use multi-core those extra four cores are going to make a difference for sure so let's run some gpu benchmarks you can see the base model versus the max model metal performance a huge difference there between the 5700 xt and that entry level gpu and opencl also a big difference between the two so what that says is that if you're playing games that utilize metal or you're using applications that utilize metal there's going to be a big difference between that entry-level imac and the the high-end imac with the 5700 xt and you can clearly see that painted here in our graphics bench metal benchmark all right so let's talk about probably what is most important to me and if you're watching this likely very important to you as well final cut pro 10 performance so bruce x nine seconds for the bruce x benchmark 10 seconds better than the entry level imac but now i'm going to run some actual tests with a project that i was working on my 2020 imac review and you can see here to transcode 10 of the files from that video it obviously took less time to transcode on the higher end imac it took less time to render and of course it took less time to export as well but you'll notice that those times aren't really like super drastic right and that's what i noticed all throughout my testing is that yes the higher end imac is obviously better but i think a lot of people will be happy if you're just doing video editing you're going to be happy even with the entry-level imac with the base model gpu and the six core processor now of course i had to push it to the extreme and edit some canon eos r5 8k raw footage on the timeline here you can see i'm rendering right now and the rendering was obviously faster on that maxed out imac if you're working with high-end video like 8k video you can get it done especially with the new final cut pro and all the proxy tools built into that you can get it done on the entry level imac but it's a much better smoother experience with the high end gpu less stuttering smoother timeline playback all that but like i said even the entry-level imac is good for final cut pro 10 performance but if you want a game definitely go with the high-end gpu that 5700 xt what do you guys think let me know down below in the comment section this is jeff with nine to five machow's it going ladies and gents boys and girls this is jeff benjamin with nine to five mac on this week's episode of back to the mac we're going to take a look at the high end configuration for the 2020 ipac and that includes the 10 core i9 cpu and more importantly the radeon pro 5700 xt gpu so as you've seen before i've already kind of walked through the basics of this imac what it all entails externally speaking not much has changed from a design perspective but we've already crossed that bridge let's really talk about what makes this imac the high-end version special and who might consider it over the base or mid-tier models now obviously if you're buying a imac you're not buying it solely with the purpose of gaming in mind for instance most people who run boot camp on their mac in game and windows are doing so maybe because they have this mac they don't have a dedicated gaming machine and they can game on it in windows bootcamp so why not right and while this works okay sometimes a lot of times windows gaming just doesn't work all that well on a standalone mac but what i found is that's not really the case with this 2020 imac with the 5700 xt gpu for a machine like this which in most cases will be gaming as a secondary purpose i was impressed by how well it performed and i'm not just talking about playing rocket league i loaded up cars too which is a fairly demanding title and i know version 3 just launched recently but like i was saying cars 2 is a demanding game and i was able to play it at the max settings at 1440p i was able to play it at high settings and 4k resolution and i was impressed now i i tend to play it in 1440p because when you start like driving through water and you have all those particles splashing up that's when you can notice the frame rate start to take a dip but here you can see 1440p it stays pretty much locked at 60 frames per second and visually speaking i'm not running at low settings at all as you can clearly see in this video so this could possibly be the last imac that can run windows natively and if you like gaming in windows to wind down this machine performs admirably it's one of the reasons you might consider the high-end gpu upgrade so that was more of a real world example of why you might consider going and upgrading your imac from the base model and that's supported in our heaven benchmark ultra settings 1080p tessellation moderate 63 frames per second versus 103 on the maxed out imac and geekbench cpu performance you could see quite a big difference there in multi-core performance as well so if you're working with applications that use multi-core those extra four cores are going to make a difference for sure so let's run some gpu benchmarks you can see the base model versus the max model metal performance a huge difference there between the 5700 xt and that entry level gpu and opencl also a big difference between the two so what that says is that if you're playing games that utilize metal or you're using applications that utilize metal there's going to be a big difference between that entry-level imac and the the high-end imac with the 5700 xt and you can clearly see that painted here in our graphics bench metal benchmark all right so let's talk about probably what is most important to me and if you're watching this likely very important to you as well final cut pro 10 performance so bruce x nine seconds for the bruce x benchmark 10 seconds better than the entry level imac but now i'm going to run some actual tests with a project that i was working on my 2020 imac review and you can see here to transcode 10 of the files from that video it obviously took less time to transcode on the higher end imac it took less time to render and of course it took less time to export as well but you'll notice that those times aren't really like super drastic right and that's what i noticed all throughout my testing is that yes the higher end imac is obviously better but i think a lot of people will be happy if you're just doing video editing you're going to be happy even with the entry-level imac with the base model gpu and the six core processor now of course i had to push it to the extreme and edit some canon eos r5 8k raw footage on the timeline here you can see i'm rendering right now and the rendering was obviously faster on that maxed out imac if you're working with high-end video like 8k video you can get it done especially with the new final cut pro and all the proxy tools built into that you can get it done on the entry level imac but it's a much better smoother experience with the high end gpu less stuttering smoother timeline playback all that but like i said even the entry-level imac is good for final cut pro 10 performance but if you want a game definitely go with the high-end gpu that 5700 xt what do you guys think let me know down below in the comment section this is jeff with nine to five mac\n"
