Macworld (2019-06)

24 MACWORLD JUNE 2019

MACUSER REVIEW: 21.5-INCH IMAC RETINA 4K

that the iMac’s
faster Core i5
is up against
the Mac mini’s
slower Core i3
processor.
What may
be surprising is
that the new
iMac
outperforms
the base
model $4,999
iMac Pro in
single-core
performance
by 6 percent. Keep in mind, however, that
the iMac Pro and its Xeon W processor
were released in 2017 (so it’s due for an
update soon), and single-core
performance isn’t really its forte, as we’ll
see in other test results.
The new iMac really stands out in
multi-core testing, thanks to its newer CPU
with two additional processing cores. Our
6-core iMac showed a 43 percent increase
in performance over the 2017 quad-core
iMac. And compared to the 2015 3.3GHz
quad-core Core i7 iMac, the new model
posted a 39 percent increase. (Multi-core
test results show how well the processors
handle software that is written to take
advantage of CPUs with multiple cores.)
The new iMac also blew away the

current Mac mini with a 3.6GHz quad-core

Core i3 processor with a 43 percent boost.

Compared to the 3.2GHz 8-core Xeon W

iMac Pro...well, it wasn’t much of a contest.

Multi-core processing is where the iMac Pro

excels, and it was 48 percent faster than the

new iMac. But overall, the new iMac’s multi-

core performance is notable, and if you can’t

spare the money for the iMac Pro, the new

6-core iMac offers attractive multi-core

performance for the price.

RADEON PRO VEGA 20

GRAPHICS BENCHMARKS

We ran a few graphics benchmarks to

gauge the performance of the 4GB

Radeon Pro Vega 20 graphics card in the

new iMac. We compared the results to the

0 8,000 16,000 24,000 32,000

GEEKBENCH 4 MULTI-CORE

Longer bars are better

21.5-inch iMac (2019)

3.0GHz 6-core i5

Mac mini (2018)

3.6GHz quad-core i3

21.5-inch iMac (2017)

3.4GHz quad-core i5

iMac Pro (2017)

3.2GHz 8-core Xeon W

21.5-inch iMac (2015)

3.3GHz quad-core i7

21,000

14,453

14,618

31,151

15,065