AMD has just announced its latest Radeon Pro 5000 series graphics lineup which is built exclusively for Apple’s brand new 27-inch iMac. In addition to the Radeon Pro 5000 series graphics, the newest Apple iMac also utilizes Intel’s 10th Gen Core processors, featuring up to 10 cores & 20 threads for a significant performance boost over the previous generation iMac.
Apple’s iMac Gets Updated With AMD’s Radeon Pro 5000 Series Graphics & Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs – Up To 10 CPU Cores and 7.6 TFLOPs of Graphics Horsepower With 16 GB Memory
The 2020 Apple iMac (27-inch) is getting a big update with the latest hardware from Intel and AMD. In addition to that, the latest iMac is all-around better in general, featuring faster SSDs & expanded storage of up to 8 Terabytes & a higher-quality display that is made up of new nano-texture glass, retaining its Retina 5K resolution, making it a great option for iMac users.
For CPU, the Apple iMac (2020) will be featuring Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs, all the way up to the 10 core part with 5 GHz boost clocks. There are four configurations listed which start with the i5 and go up to i7 and i9 variants. You can get the iMac configured in your choice of 6, 8 or the 10 core CPU options. Apple says that the 10 core variant offers up to 65% better performance than the Intel 8 core Coffee Lake CPU featured on the previous generation iMac. The performance numbers have been provided below for reference:
- Up to 65 percent more plug-ins in Logic Pro X.
- Up to 40 percent faster 8K ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro X.
- Up to 35 percent faster rendering with Arnold in Autodesk Maya.
- Up to 25 percent faster build time in Xcode.
On the GPU side, you will also be getting for configurations and all of them are from AMD. AMD has introduced a new line of Radeon Pro 5000 graphics exclusively for the new Apple iMac. All GPUs are powered by the first generation Navi architecture and include the Radeon Pro 5700 XT, Radeon Pro 5700, Radeon Pro 5500 XT and the Radeon Pro 5300.
All of these parts are similar to the standard offerings but feature tuned clock speeds. The Radeon Pro 5700 XT is the variant to focus on. It has twice the memory capacity of 16 GB GDDR6 compared to 8 GB GDDR6 on the regular variant. The memory is clocked slightly lower at 12 Gbps (vs 14 Gbps) but still manages to offer 384 GB/s overall bandwidth.
AMD Radeon Pro 5000 series GPUs bring new levels of performance and flexibility to the updated 27-inch iMac,” said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit at AMD. “The new AMD GPUs offer the optimal combination of compute performance, energy efficiency and outstanding graphics features to power a wide range of applications – from consumer to pro – wherever graphics matter the most.
AMD Radeon Pro 5000 Graphics Lineup For Apple iMac 27-Inch 2020:
| Graphics Card | Radeon Pro 5700 XT | Radeon Pro 5700 | Radeon Pro 5500 XT | Radeon Pro 5300 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) | 7nm Navi (RDNA 1st Gen) |
| Stream Processors | 2560 SPs | 2304 SPs | 1536 SPs | 1280 SPs |
| TMUs / ROPs | 160 / 64 | 144 / 64 | 96 / 64 | 80 / 64 |
| Peak Clock | 1499 MHz | 1350 MHz | 1757 MHz | 1650 MHz |
| Compute Power | 7.6 TFLOPs | 6.2 TFLOPs | 5.3 TFLOPs | 4.2 TFLOPs |
| VRAM | 16 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 4 GB GDDR6 |
| Bus Interface | 256-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Bandwidth | 384 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 224 GB/s |
| TBP | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
According to Apple again, the Radeon Pro 5000 graphics lineup from AMD delivers significant GPU performance gains over the last generation Vega offerings. It is reported that the Radeon Pro 5700 XT offers up to 55% better performance than the Radeon Pro Vega 48 graphics which is impressive. Following are the performance metrics for reference:
- Up to 55 percent faster rendering in Maxon Cinema 4D ProRender.
- Up to 50 percent faster demo fly-through in Unity Editor.
- Up to 45 percent faster performance in “Total War: Three Kingdoms.
- Up to 30 percent faster timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro X.
The new Apple iMac starts at $1799 US which is the price for the base variant configured with a 6 core, Intel Core i5 CPU, and AMD’s Radeon Pro 5300 graphics. The full spec’d variant with the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT, 10 core Intel Core i9 CPU, 128 GB of DDR4-3200 MHz memory and 8 TB SSD capacity would end you up with a price of $8299.00 US.
