The 'late 2015' iMac 5K Graphics
versus two competing Macs
Posted October 23rd, 2015 by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
The 'late 2015' 27" iMac 5K has upped its game with an AMD R9 M395X. How much faster is it compared to the previous model's R9 M295X or the 'late 2013' Mac Pro's FirePro D300s?
GRAPH LEGEND
iMac 5K '15 = 'late 2015' iMac Retina 5K 4.0GHz Quad-Core i7; Radeon R9 M395X GPU; 16G RAM; 1TB flash storage
iMac 5K '14 = 'late 2014' iMac Retina 5K 4.0GHz Quad-Core i7; Radeon R9 M295X GPU; 16G RAM; 1TB flash storage
nMP 4c = 'late 2013' Mac Pro 3.7GHz Quad-Core Xeon; 16G RAM; dual FirePro D300 GPUs; 512G flash storage
(RED graph bar means FASTEST)
(RED graph bar means FASTEST)
INSIGHTS
The 'late 2015' iMac 5K's AMD R9 M395X is faster than the previous iMac 5K's M295X, but only incrementally.
And for a reality check, you can see that the 'late 2013' Quad-Core Mac Pro's dual FirePro D300s combine to beat both mobile GPUs when running a pro app like DaVinci Resolve that fully utilizes both D300s to render blur and noise reduction on the fly.
What about heat and noise? The M395X runs just as hot as the M295X. Both quickly climb from 45C to over 100C when stressed. And at that temperature, the internal fan is running at the 2300RPM max (versus 1200RPM idle). Ambient room temperature was 21C.
A rough measure of sound level using an iPhone app (dB Meter Pro) positioned under the iMac reported a rise from 48dB to 58dB in both cases.
By contrast, the 'late 2013' Mac Pro's D300s reported a max temperature in the six stress tests ranging from 63 to 75C and the single cooling fan never rose above the 791RPM idle speed. Cooler and quieter than both iMacs, that's why you pay the big bucks for a Mac Pro.
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