What’s up guys Mike here, the DetroitBORG, and I’m really excited to show you my new production machine. So this is the brand new 2017 5K iMac. So until the insane Space Gray iMac Pro arrives later this year we’re going to take a look at the max configuration of the 27-inch 5K iMac. So just to repeat what’s new for 2017, we get Kaby Lake CPUs, new graphics, faster SSDs, faster RAM – we’re now up to DDR4 RAM – and we get an even better 5K display that’s 43% brighter.And just like the 4K iMac we trade Thunderbolt 2 for Thunderbolt 3 so we get new USB type-C connectors instead of those mini DisplayPort connectors, but it means we keep everything else which is great. So my configuration is a built to order option which gets me a quad-core i7 clocked to 4.2 GHz. That’s the only Core i7 you can get in the iMac. I also stuck with 8 gigs of DDR 4 memory so at least we have faster memory, but it’s much cheaper to upgrade this myself, and I’ll do that later in this video. Otherwise it costs $1,400 to upgrade to 64 gigs. I went with the 3 terabyte Fusion Drive which again combines an SSD with the inexpensive storage of a hard disk drive. I just need more on-board storage, so I choose that most of the time. But of course if you want the fastest drives go for one of the SSDs, but it does get quite expensive. So the 2 terabyte SSD costs an additional $1,300 over the 3 terabyte Fusion Drive. Although you don’t need the Core i7 to get it, we also get the Radeon Pro 580 GPU with 8 gigs of video memory, that’s a really impressive video card, and we’re going to take a look at the performance later in the benchmarks.When it comes to the included accessories the first thing we have here is the power cable which is nestled in one of the styrofoam blocks. We also have the accessory box which you can configure to other Magic accessories, but I just went with the default configuration which gets me a Magic Keyboard and a Magic Mouse 2. I’ve done reviews on these previously, and I’ll leave that linked in the description below. Now, underneath the paperwork we’ll find a lightning cable for recharging those accessories and the paperwork itself is pretty familiar. We have a quick start guide, regulatory and warranty information, a set of white Apple stickers, and a microfiber cleaning cloth. So when it comes to upgrading the RAM they make it pretty simple. You just need to lay the iMac flat and make sure the glass is protected when
you’re doing this. Also, the RAM access door is just behind the hinge so you just have to pop that up to see the door. Now to release that door all you have to do is press a button that’s hidden within the power connector.This will release the panel and you just pry it off. Now inside the panel you’ll see some instructions on how to remove or install the RAM, and you’ll actually see that the panel itself is surrounded by friction fittings that prevent it from rattling when it’s installed. So this is the first time an iMac gets DDR4 RAM so the upgrade kits are a little more expensive than they were. So in my case I bought two 32 gig kits to max it out to 64 gigs. So for two kits it was about $500, which is still less than half the cost that Apple would charge. And if you want to buy one of these kits I’ll leave it linked in the description below. So to remove the old RAM all we have to do is spread the clips apart and the tray will spring forward then we can go ahead and remove the four gig sticks. Once that’s done all we have to do is slot the new RAM in place making sure that the pins are lined up correctly and seated.So you just want to make sure you hear a click and it bottoms out properly. Once you get all four RAM sticks installed you can push the tray back down it snaps into place. And then we can go ahead and reinstall the RAM door. And next up I just want to go to the system profile within the computer to make sure that all of the RAM sticks have registered. Amazingly, Apple continues to improve that 5K display. It’s now 43% brighter, but you have to expose the ambient light sensor to get to the maximum brightness. So it’s not something you can dial in automatically; you really have to force it. So once again the resolution is 5120 by 2880, but it is scaled up by the OS, so it makes effective use of the pixels to increase sharpness but it doesn’t make everything microscopic.So by default the resolution actually looks like 2560 by 1440. This is very bright at about 500 nits and supports the wide color spectrum of DCIP 3 and this is also a 10-bit panel that supports color dithering. So we have 1 billion colors reproducible by this display. One of the ongoing benefits of a 5K display, and one of the reasons I really like the 5K iMac, is that I can preview my 4K projects with enough room for the editor and software. And with faster DDR4 RAM performance it is better than ever with all of
these assets on the screen. So once again this is a very precisely calibrated display that’s ideal for professional use. Just like all of the other new Macs this year there seems they’ve tweaked the anti-reflective coating on the display so it seems to be a bit more effective.For the most part glare is pretty well controlled by this panel. Toward the top we’ll find the very familiar 720p FaceTime HD camera, but what’s missing this time is the microphone which is no longer positioned toward the top edge of the back which used to be the case with the previous generation. Now the microphone is hidden behind the glass bezel just above the Apple logo, so you can’t see it, but it’s there, and it’s just as effective as before. In terms of the I/O again we trade the Thunderbolt 2 for Thunderbolt 3 ports but we keep USB 3 and our SdXC card slot, headphone jack, and gigabit ethernet port. And the great news with Thunderbolt 3 is that you can now add a second 5K display to your 5K iMac so you can have 2 displays side by side with the same resolution or you can go two 4K displays as well.So with the exception of the I/O and the relocation of the microphone, for the most part this looks like the previous generation. It’s still a really nice looking computer although the bezels are starting to look kind of thick for a modern computer. But if you look around the edges it’s razor thin so we have this 5 millimeter edge which bows out toward the center to house all of the components. Of course at the center of that bulge is the articulating stand which allows you to pitch the computer up and down. Also behind the hinge is the ventilation which is very silent. You really don’t hear this unless the computer is really under load. Now that exhaust fan draws in air from the bottom edge, so if you look at the bottom edge you’ll see that razor thin edge with the perforations for both the stereo speakers and all the ventilation needed for this computer.Now the speakers sound fantastic once again, this is something they’re really good at. I find no need to add my own speakers to this setup. If I need to monitor audio I just use headphones, but I’m really impressed by the quality of these speakers And that’s really unchanged with this generation as well. Once again that big black plastic Apple logo in the back isn’t just cosmetic It’s actually part of the radio transparency needed for the Wi-Fi and the new Bluetooth
4.2 radio to work through this metal shell. So when it comes to our synthetic benchmarks, we’re not seeing huge gains from the previous generation So again we go from a 4 GHz, to a 4.2 GHz CPU so that single-core score is jumped from 5200 to around 5500. The multi-core score is a little more significant. We’ve added over a thousand points to the multi-core score from the previous model. In terms of graphics performance we trade the Radeon R9 with 5 gigs of RAM to the Radeon Pro 580 with 8 gigs of RAM and that added 20 frames per second to our OpenGL score and brought our CPU score from 822 to 900 so those are pretty big jumps.Something that’s more significant is the read and write speed of the Fusion Drive which has gone up quite a bit, so in terms of read speed we go from about 16 – 1700 to around 2500. In terms of the write speed that’s double to about 800. So for me I think the biggest update for this generation really is the pricing so I think you get a lot more for the money than you did before. I remember when this configuration used to cost well over $3,000. Now, it’s around $2600 – $2700 hundred dollars, so I think the value you’re getting with the latest iMacs has improved significantly. So you get all of the latest 2017 specs and I/O and an incredible 5K display which is unrivaled by any other all-in-one. So when it comes to tech this is one of my favorite items This is what I use to create my business. This is what I use day-to-day. This is what I spend the most time with and if you want to see this one compared to the iMac Pro make sure you stay tuned for that video and if you guys enjoyed this one.Please let me know with a like and I’ll see you again in my next video. .
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