New 27-inch iMac 2017 benchmarks show it can play with the big Mac Pro boys

Why it matters to you

With the latest family of iMacs, Apple has beefed up its all-in-one PCs to outperform the previous generation — and even the Mac Pro in some tests.

Benchmarks of Apple’s latest 27-inch all-in-one iMacs have appeared on Geekbench, and there are some interesting numbers to chew on. The iMac 2017 benchmarks were conducted by Primate Labs founder John Poole, and compare the new units against the batch released in late 2015 and late 2014, as well as Mac Pro models sold in late 2013. Based on Geekbench 4, the benchmarks measure single-core performance, multiple-core performance, and the compute tasks of the installed graphics cards.

OpenCL performance

Shown below, the lowest-performing graphics chip in the new batch of iMacs provides better performance than the best graphics chip offered in the most recent group shipped in late 2015. This benchmark doesn’t test the chips for their gaming capabilities, but on how well they can handle simulating physics, processing images, and other tasks offloaded by the main CPU.

What’s important to note is that the Radeon Pro 580 and Radeon Pro 575 outperformed the AMD FirePro D700 graphics chip (93,028) in the 2013 Mac Pro. However, Poole notes that Geekbench 4 only measures the performance of one graphics chip at a time. Apple’s Mac Pro includes two FirePro D700 graphics chips with 6GB of dedicated video memory each.

That said, the Mac Pro’s FirePro D500 and D300 graphics chips reside toward the bottom of the benchmark chart, falling between the iMac 2015’s Radeon R9 M395 and the iMac 2015’s Radeon R9 M390 graphics chips. Two iMac 2014 models are also listed, with the Radeon R9 M295X scoring an 86,494 and the Radeon R9 M290X scoring a 76,507.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 580
116,989
Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 575
99,759
Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 570
89,475

Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M395X
86,632
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M395
76,997
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M390
67,734
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M380
50,030

Single-core CPU performance

Here, the listed 2017, 2015, and 2014 iMac models outperformed the four Xeon processors installed in Apple’s Mac Pro models sold in 2013. The latest “Kaby Lake” units provide a nice little 9 percent bump up from the previous “Skylake” generation, and a 20-percent single-core increase from the 2014 ”Haswell” generation.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
Core i7-7700K
5,610
Late 2015
Core i7-6700K
5,263

Mid 2017
Core i5-7500
5,041
Late 2015
Core i5-6500
4,362

Mid 2017
Core i5-7600
5,041
Late 2015
Core i5-6600
4,671

Multi-core CPU performance

Although not shown below, it’s here where the 2013 batch of Mac Pros put a hurting on the iMacs. At the top of the performance totem pole is the Mac Pro’s 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 chip, with a score of 24,562. Following that is the eight-core Xeon E5-1680 v2 with a score of 21,736. In third place, there’s the four-core Intel Core i7-7700K chip in the latest 27-inch iMac with a score of 18,945. After that is the Mac Pro’s six-core Xeon E5-1650 v2 processor with a score of 17,090.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
Core i7-7700K
18,945
Late 2015
Core i7-6700K
16,986

Mid 2017
Core i5-7500
13,674
Late 2015
Core i5-6500
12,035

Mid 2017
Core i5-7600
14,602
Late 2015
Core i5-6600
12,593

Apple introduced its new lineup of iMacs in June, along with the all-in-one iMac Pro.