The 2019 iMac Review: A Powerhouse for Creative Professionals

The 2019 iMac is a powerhouse of a machine, designed to meet the demands of creative professionals who need a reliable and efficient workstation. With its sleek design and impressive specs, it's easy to see why this iMac is a top choice among creatives.

Benchmarking the iMac

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To put the iMac's performance to the test, I ran a series of benchmark tests to see how well it stacks up against other high-end machines. The first test was a simple video playback benchmark, which showed that the iMac can deliver smooth playback even at 4K resolution. But that wasn't all - I also put the iMac through its paces with a more demanding video editing benchmark, which pushed the machine to its limits.

The results were impressive: the iMac delivered a stunning 31 frames per second, beating out many other machines in the process. This is particularly notable when compared to other Macs on the market, such as the 2018 Vega MacBook Pro and 2018 Mac Mini. The iMac's performance was also comparable to that of the 2017 MacBook Pro, which is no small feat.

Exporting Video with Final Cut Pro

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Next up, I put the iMac through its paces with a video export test using Final Cut Pro. This test pushed the machine to its limits, as it had to compress a 10-minute video into a smaller file size while maintaining quality. The results were impressive: the iMac took just 8 minutes and 22 seconds to complete the export, beating out even the second-fastest machine in the test.

This is particularly notable when compared to other machines on the market, such as the iMac Pro, which took significantly longer to complete the same task. The iMac's performance was also comparable to that of a more expensive machine, making it an attractive option for those looking to save money without sacrificing performance.

Temperature Management

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One of the standout features of the 2019 iMac is its temperature management system. When I ran a benchmark test, the machine's CPU and GPU activity spiked momentarily, but the temperature remained steady throughout the process. This is particularly notable when compared to other machines on the market, which often suffer from thermal throttling.

The iMac's temperature management system also extends to its fans, which spin up slightly during intense use but remain relatively quiet. The only noise the machine makes is a gentle hum, which is barely audible even at maximum volume.

Display and Bezels

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One of the most noticeable features of the 2019 iMac is its display. With a stunning 5K resolution and razor-thin bezels, this machine is perfect for anyone looking to create stunning visuals on their workstation. However, some may find the bezels to be a bit large, which could be a concern for those who prefer ultra-wide displays.

Other than that, however, the display is one of the iMac's strongest features. With deep blacks and vibrant colors, it's perfect for anyone looking to create stunning visuals on their workstation.

Value for Money

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When considering value for money, the 2019 iMac is an attractive option compared to other high-end machines on the market. With its impressive performance and sleek design, it's easy to see why this machine is a top choice among creatives.

However, some may find that the bezels are too large or that the machine lacks a full redesign. But overall, the iMac is an excellent value for money, especially when compared to more expensive machines like the iMac Pro.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, the 2019 iMac is a powerhouse of a machine designed to meet the demands of creative professionals. With its impressive performance and sleek design, it's easy to see why this iMac is a top choice among creatives. Whether you're looking for stunning visuals or rapid video editing capabilities, the 2019 iMac has got you covered.

But before making a purchase, consider whether the bezels are too large or if you'd rather have a more affordable option. However, overall, the 2019 iMac is an excellent value for money and a must-have for any creative professional looking to take their work to the next level.

If you haven't subscribed already please subscribe and if you enjoyed the video please give it a like if not the other ones okay - as always thanks for watching this is Aaron I'll see you next time

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone Aaron here for ZolloTech andthis is the 2019 iMac this is thetop-of-the-line spec as you can see hereit's the iMac 27-inch 5k 3.6 gigahertzeight core 64 gigabytes of RAM and 512gigabyte SSD with the Vega 48 graphicscard with eight gigabytes of RAMnow let's unbox the new iMacand we've got the standard keyboard ofcourse you can change this up we've gota Magic Mouse here and we do have someApple stickers or documentation we'lltake a look at in a moment and you doget a lightning cable so you can chargeyour devicesnow inside we have a littledocumentation some Apple stickers and amicrofiber cloth to wipe off the screenwe also have a power plug here there'sour power plug or power adapter on theback we have quite a few port stills sowe still retain the headphone jack andthe SD card slot we have four USB toThunderbolt three and an Ethernet jackwhere the AC adapter goes there's alittle button you push that and abovewhere the AC adapter is is a door popthe door open and it reveals fourdifferent RAM slots so if you want tobuy the RAM later on or upgrade it youhave that option now we'll remove thewrapper that covers the entire screenyou start from behind the displaywe'll plug in the AC adapter plug itinto the wall and then start up the iMacit's on and there's no longer a soundfrom the Mac chime I don't know why theyremoved it from all the Mac's but theydid and I do miss it we're at thewelcome screen will click continueselect our keyboard select our Wi-Finetwork and then we have to agree to thedata in privacy then we can transferinformation from the Mac I'm not goingto do that I'll set it up as new andthen put in my Apple ID once I've putthat in I have to agree to the terms andconditions and we'll move on to the nextstep and it sets up your iCloud so thatyou can find it and find my Mac andthings like that later on the nextscreen has to do with setting it up I'lluse Express setup and hit continue andalso I'll use files in iCloud I use thatall the time and then we can choose alight or dark theme I actually preferthe light theme when working on a Mac Iactually find it kind of depressing touse dark all day but choose whicheverone you want and hit continue and thenit sets up the Mac and we get to ourdesktop now that everything's set upI'll get everything installed that weneed to benchmark it and to use FinalCut Pro and we should be good at thispoint I believe the Mac is up to datethe way it ships but let's take a lookat that as well at the about screen youcan see it has the latest version of MacOS Mojave at version ten point fourteenpoint four and again there's all thespecs 3.6 gigahertz Intel Core i 960four gigs of ram and the Radian pro Vega48 with eight gigabytes of RAMeverything is now setup and I've waitedfor the background activity to subsideso that we could properly run thebenchmarks and not have anything goingon in the background so the first thingI thought we'd take a look at isGeekbench and Geekbench is a prettystandard benchmark that will give us anidea of what's going on so let's run thecpu benchmark and see what we getthe Geekbench has completed and as youcan see the single core score is fivethousand nine hundred and ninety sevenwhere multicore is thirty three thousandseven hundred and sixty-five now let'smove on to the metal benchmark and seehow that one goesso we'll run the compute benchmark themetal benchmark completed and we have ascore of one hundred forty sixthousand, five hundred and fourteen nowthe next thing we'll run is the OpenCLbenchmark so let's just switch it overhere and then click run computebenchmark the OpenCL benchmark completedand the scores one hundred and fortyseven thousand five hundred and fortyseven now let's move on to Cinebench nowthe first one we'll run is Cinebenchreleased twenty or are twenty from theapp store and we'll see how the cpu doeson this then we'll check out Cinebenchr15 Cinebench completed with a cpu scoreof three thousand nine hundred andninety six so that puts it just belowAMD rise ins thread ripper sixteen corewhich is pretty good now we'll move onto Cinebench r15 and that way we can runthe CPU and the opengl benchmark solet's go ahead and run the cpu benchmarkthe cpu benchmark finished and you cansee it's 1616 it's basically the same aswhat we'd expect right next to anotherninety nine hundred k cpu let's move onto OpenGLthe OpenGL benchmark completed it has ascore of one hundred and forty six pointfive one frames per second which isquite good and should work well foranyone doing work but let's see how ithandles gaming performance so we'll usethe heaven benchmark and we'll puteverything at Ultra and the highestresolution we can and see what kind offramerate we get it's running prettysmoothly so far there is a little bit ofchoppiness here and there and it'sactually running at about 36 to 37frames per second which is ok it's notphenomenal but if we take a look in theupper right corner as the benchmarkcontinues you'll see we now we're in the40s for frames per second and then the50s and depending which part it's at itcan go up or down so now it's down inthe 30s again so it's running okay butnot phenomenal for any high-end graphicscard now we'll try the valley benchmarkwith the exact same settings and we'llsee what it does now this is running atabout 31 frames per second it goes up ordown depending again on which part ofthe benchmark test we're at but it looksokay and most people aren't going to begaming on their Mac anyway but I guessyou could if you wanted to now let'smove over to the Final Cut Pro exporttest will export 4k video and I'm goingto use the exact same file I've usedbefore this is an iPad pro 10.5 review Idid that's about 10 minutes long or soand I export it an h.264 and we see howquickly it compresses so let's go aheadand go to preferences I'll show you thatrendering is turned off and then alsowill dump out the generated media filesso we'll get rid of all of those to makesure that it's a fair test compared withthe others so we'll get rid of all thegenerated media files and then we'llmove on to actually compressing thevideo here so let's compress it in amaster file and then once we select nextyou'll see that we have h.264 in itsfastest quality it's just how I ran inthe other benchmark tests as well sowe'll do that we'll hit next and we'llalso start a timer at the same time sothat we can get an accurate result solet's go ahead and hit start and seewhat we get now let's click on statushere so we can see how quickly it'sfinishing and then also I installed Isnap menuthat we can see the temperature at thesame time so this is a littleapplication I like to use that monitorsCPU and GPU activity so you can seethere's the CPU there and then the GPUjust spiked and this tells us thetemperature as well so it's reallyhelpful just to see what's going onoverall so let's see how quickly thiswill compress everythingit's finished exporting and we have atime of 8 minutes and 22 seconds that'sbetter than real time whereas the totalvideo was 9 minutes and 56 seconds so Ithink that's the best I've ever seen andwe didn't have any thermal throttling oranything like that this chart shows theexact same test run on other Macs so wehave the 2018 Vega MacBook Pro 2018 MacMini and the 2017 MacBook Pro and you'llsee the 2019 iMac if you look in theupper right the export time was 8minutes and 22 seconds the secondclosest one is 13 minutes and 23 secondsand then the Mac Mini took 15 minutesand 28 seconds for the exact sameproject I also find it much faster thanthe iMac Pro in my tests that I've donein the past where this has quick syncbuilt into the Intel chipset so it'smuch faster at exporting h.264 videoduring the benchmark tests the fans didspin up a little bit but not like olderIMAX where they were really noisy it wassort of just a light hum it wasn't loudat all and I would say the only thingquieter at this point is the iMac Proand the back of the iMac wasn't thatwarm either except by the vents where itpushes out the air and while that's kindof strange that it pushes directly intothe arm or the hinge where it holds onto the iMac it seemed to work okay andstayed cool the entire time that's itfor the 2019 iMac it had a prettysignificant processor in GPU upgrade andif I had one complaint I'd say that thebezels are kind of large I'm used tousing very thin bezel ultra widemonitors and some people like the bezelsbecause they're black and the work kindof fades into the background and youreally can't beat the display but thebezels are really my only complaintnothing else at all so I'd say it's avery good value to pick up compared toan iMac Pro for example and honestly Iwouldn't buy an iMac Pro at this point Iwould buy this configuration it'sdefinitely the fastest I've used toexport video and it never slowed downwhile I was well you know what you thinkabout the Refresh iMac in the commentsbelow is it something you'd pick up ordid you already pick one up also are yougoing to wait for a full redesign or isthis one good enough for you what do youthink about those bezels iswell let me know in the comments belowif you haven't subscribed already pleasesubscribe and if you enjoyed the videoplease give it a like if not the otherones okay - as always thanks forwatching this is Aaron I'll see you nexttime\n"