Apple has unveiled a new 27-inch iMac with Retina display, a cheaper version of the new Retina iMac Apple introduced late last year, but not cheaper than the 27-inch non-Retina widescreen with the same screen size.
The new iMac Retina is largely the same as its older brother, but it costs $300 less at $1,999. As expected, the cheaper version comes with a number of compromises that Apple wouldn't have done on the $2,299 27-inch iMac Retina, such as the processor downgrade to a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 from a 3.5 GHz version of the same chipset. However, this is slightly better than the 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 on the non-Retina iMac, which costs $1,799. The older 27-inch iMac Retina also has a more powerful AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics card, a newer version of the R9 M290 on the newer iMac.
Also removed from the new iMac Retina is the 1 TB Fusion Drive on the more expensive version. The new iMac only has the 1 TB hard drive found on the non-Retina iMac. Apple likely decided to opt for the hard disk drive (HDD) instead of the solid-state drive (SSD) or Fusion Drive on the older 27-inch iMac Retina. SSD is known to be much faster than traditional HDD but is more expensive, so Apple developed Fusion Drive, which as its name implies, fuses the two technologies to combine the speed of SSD and the storage capacity of HDD, while keeping costs a little bit less expensive than if it went with a full SSD drive.
This is where the $300 difference ends between both 27-inch iMac Retinas but not for the new iMac Retina and the 27-inch non-Retina. The biggest difference, of course, is the screen. While the widescreen iMac delivers a decent resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, the new 27-inch iMac Retina has a stunning display with a resolution of 5,120 x 2,880, which is perfect for professionals who do a lot of graphics work and for those who simply like their visuals up to par with the highest standards.
Users will also find that the R9 M290 graphics card on the new iMac Retina is much more powerful than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 75M on the non-Retina model, which is a must-have to power all those graphics-intensive activities.
Check out the comparison table shown to see the differences between the 27-inch iMac non-Retina and both variants of the 27-inch iMac Retina 5K.
iMac non-Retina | iMac Retina 5K (2014) | iMac Retina 5K (2015) | |
Processor | 3.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.8 GHz) | 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.9 GHz) | 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.7 GHz) |
Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce GT 75M | AMD Radeon R9 M290X | AMD Radeon RP M290 |
Memory | 8 GB (configurable to 16 GB and 32 GB) | 8 GB (configurable to 16 GB and 32 GB) | 8 GB (configurable to 16 GB and 32 GB) |
Display | 27-inch LED-backlit widescreen display with 2,560 x 1,440 pixels | 27-inch LED-backlit Retina display with 5,120 x 2,880 pixels | 27-inch LED-backlit Retina display with 5,120 x 2,880 pixels |
Storage | 1 TB HDD | 1 TB HDD | 1 TB Fusion Drive |
Price | $1,799 | $1,999 | $2,299 |
