M4 iMac vs Intel iMac: Specs, features, price compared

Apple’s self-designed chip initiative, Apple Silicon, has been round for fairly just a few years. Launched in 2020, Apple Silicon has systematically changed all of Apple’s Intel-based Mac fashions with variations utilizing its personal design of processor.

The iMac noticed its final Intel launch in 2019, a time when Apple continued to make use of an older iMac design.Two years later, Apple modified the sport by not solely bringing out an Apple Silicon iMac, however one which was radically redesigned.

Individuals nonetheless utilizing an Intel iMac will discover issues have moved on significantly, and that an improve will make quite a lot of adjustments to their computing setup.

Whereas Apple Silicon has been in use since 2020, there’ll nonetheless be quite a lot of Mac customers who’ve stayed on Intel all through. Analysts determined that 56% of recent Mac homeowners had held on to their older Mac for 3 years or extra, in a 2024 survey.

That is not a brand new pattern both. The identical survey from 2020 discovered that 40% of Mac patrons at the moment held onto their {hardware} for 3 or extra years.

There’s an excellent probability that a part of that 56% phase consists of Intel Mac homeowners.

As to why they might be holding onto their {hardware} for therefore lengthy, there are just a few causes, apart from price. For instance, they might have Mac software program that runs on Intel’s structure, and never Apple Silicon.

Then there’s reminiscence, as Intel Macs typically gave the choice so as to add extra. Apple Silicon customers are caught with what they initially configured, with no choice to improve the insides for themselves.

This is how the final base Intel 21.5-inch iMac, which price $1,299 on the time, compares towards its counterpart, the $1,299 M4 24-inch iMac.

The M4 24-inch iMac is a far cry from the design used within the final Intel iMac. When Apple converted to Apple Silicon, it made a substantial variety of adjustments, together with an overhaul of its look.

Earlier than, there have been giant bezels to the edges, a tapered again part to the sides to present the phantasm of thinness, and a fairly restricted collection of colours.

Now, the iMac shares the design aesthetic of the iPad Pro, with flat sides and minimal bezels, in addition to a really vast colour palette for customers to select from. The chin nonetheless persists, however every little thing else has gone via quite a lot of change.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: The newer iMac has a skinny however slab-like building

On condition that there are two display sizes at play, and the unconventional design adjustments, you may anticipate the bodily dimensions to be very totally different.

The 21.5-inch iMac is 17.7 inches excessive and 20.8 inches vast total. The 24-inch iMac is a bit taller and wider at 18.1 and 21.5 inches respectively, however not by a lot.

The footprint on the newer mannequin is considerably smaller, because of a smaller base. That brings the general depth of the M4 iMac to five.8 inches versus 6.9 inches for the older mannequin.

Whereas barely greater, the 24-inch iMac is significantly lighter than its predecessor. The 21.5-inch iMac weighed 12.1 kilos, versus 9.74 kilos for the M4 iMac with two ports, 9.79 for the four-port model.

At 21.5 inches, the Intel iMac’s LED-backlit show supplied loads to customers. At 4,096 by 2,304 pixels, it supplied a pixel density of 219 pixels per inch.

The 24-inch mannequin’s bought the identical LED-backlit show know-how, however in an clearly bigger measurement. As a 23.5-inch, 4.5K show, it has a decision of 4,480 by 2,520, giving it the same pixel density of 218 pixels per inch.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: The most recent iMac’s show is greater than the Intel era’s display

What hasn’t modified is the brightness, which rests at 500 nits for each fashions. There’s additionally Extensive colour (P3) assist throughout the board, although you aren’t getting True Tone on the older mannequin.

One different know-how change for the show is that it is potential to get a Nano-texture remedy for the entrance glass to attenuate glare and reflections. Nonetheless, that is solely obtainable as an elective further on the four-port model of the M4 iMac, not the bottom two-port model.

The final era of Intel iMac was bought with three CPU choices. The bottom was a 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3 chip.

The mid-tier possibility was a 3.0GHz 6-core Intel Core i5, with a Turbo Enhance as much as 4.1GHz. Lastly, the very best finish possibility was a 3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7, with a 4.6GHz Turbo Enhance.

Relating to reminiscence, the Intel mannequin began with 8GHz of two,400MHz DDR, with 16GB and 32GB improve choices.

The M4 is accessible in two variants, relying on whether or not the consumer wants the two-port mannequin or four-port model.

The 2-port has an M4 chip with an 8-core CPU, with 4 efficiency cores and 4 effectivity cores. The four-port mannequin has a 10-core CPU, with 4 efficiency and 6 effectivity cores.

Apple makes use of unified reminiscence for its Apple Silicon chips, which permits all chip elements entry to the identical pool, with out segmenting and duplicating knowledge. The 2-port begins with 16GB of reminiscence with a 24GB improve obtainable, whereas the four-port provides a 32GB possibility on prime.

Graphics on the Intel fashions included a Radeon Professional 555X with 2GB of GDDR5 reminiscence, a Radeon Professional 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 reminiscence, and a Radeon Professional Vega 20 with 4GB of HBM2 reminiscence.

The GPU on the M4 fashions are Apple’s personal designs, with 8 cores and 10 cores for the two-port and four-port choices, respectively.

The Apple Silicon chips additionally profit from issues the Intel mannequin merely does not have, together with the Neural Engine. The 16-core factor is used for duties the place machine studying is at play, similar to Apple Intelligence.

Then there’s the Media Engine, which gives hardware-acceleration video encoding and decoding. That is historically a really CPU-intensive activity, so handing it off to a devoted element is a big profit for some purposes.

As for a way significantly better the M4 is over the Intel counterparts, there is no direct solution to evaluate by benchmarking, as Apple’s newest chip hasn’t been examined but. Nonetheless, we will go by Apple’s claims.

Apple says the M4 chip makes the iMac 1.7 occasions sooner than the M1, with regards to the CPU. The GPU can be claimed to be 2.1 occasions sooner, able to double the body fee in video games.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: Geekbench single-core and multi-core figures

Utilizing the M1 iMac as a information, Apple’s declare signifies that the M4 ought to attain about 3,987 for single-core exams in Geekbench, and about 14,224 in multi-core testing.

In contrast, the bottom Intel i3 can get 1,205 and three,442 respectively, whereas the i5 goes to 1,358 and 5,006. The i7 chip, the Intel iMac’s quickest, continues to be effectively behind at 1,496 for single-core and 6,259 for multi-core.

The Intel chips are additionally soundly overwhelmed by the M1 iMac, which will get 2,345 for single-core and eight,367 for multi-core.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: Geekbench Metallic figures

Relating to the GPU, the M4 theoretically scores about 67,000 on Geekbench’s Metallic take a look at.

The Radeon Professional 555X is listed at 17,628, the 560X at 23,747, and the Vega 20 at 33,916. The Vega 20 is nowhere close to the M4’s potential rating, however it does no less than beat the M1’s 32,168 complete.

In contrast towards the M1, the CPU and GPU capabilities of the Intel Mac are outclassed by Apple Silicon. No matter how correct Apple’s claims are, the M4 ought to be significantly higher.

The Intel iMac makes use of a FaceTime HD digital camera to deal with video calls and taking images from the perspective of the iMac.

The M4 has a superior one, branded as a 12MP Heart Stage digital camera. Able to 1080p video, it is also boosted by a complicated picture sign processor to computationally enhance the picture.

It additionally has Desk View, a function that simulates a top-down view of the consumer’s desk, which may be helpful to point out bodily objects to different folks.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: Exterior audio is the best way to go, as usualM4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: Exterior audio is the best way to go, as usualM4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: Exterior audio is the best way to go, as normal

Relating to audio, the M4 iMac has a high-fidelity six-speaker system with force-cancelling woofers, full with vast stereo sound and Spatial Audio assist. The Intel iMac has a lot less complicated stereo audio system.

The older iMac additionally makes use of a microphone to choose up audio. The M4 mannequin makes use of a studio-quality three-mic array with a excessive signal-to-noise ratio and beamforming.

This makes it loads simpler to choose up your voice clearly, which is useful for Siri queries.

Each fashions have a headphone jack, however the M4 iMac goes for one with assist for high-impedance headphones, utilized by audiophiles.

The Intel Mac had, in its base configuration, a 5400RPM 1TB exhausting drive, although you possibly can get variations with an SSD or a Fusion Drive. This latter possibility combines SSD and exhausting drive tech to supply excessive capability and sooner learn and write speeds for a few of your knowledge.

Fashionable Macs have, for some years now, converted to SSDs. It is a significantly sooner solution to entry and write knowledge, and quieter too because of the lack of spinning steel.

Within the M4 iMac, capacities begin off with 256GB, however you possibly can improve to 1TB on the two-port mannequin, or 2TB on the four-port.

Relating to ports, the 21.5-inch iMac presents a shocking quantity of flexibility. The again contains the headphone jack, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, 4 USB 3.1 ports, an SD card reader, and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

In contrast, the M4 iMac is extraordinarily minimalist. The 2-port base mannequin has simply two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the rear, with no card reader or Gigabit Ethernet, although you may all the time go for the four-port mannequin with Gigabit Ethernet, or pay for the improve. .

In fact, there’s an argument to easily including a Thunderbolt dock to the iMac to broaden its connectivity, however that will dent the uncluttered desk look a bit.

There’s Wi-Fi 6E assist within the M4 iMac, so you need to use wi-fi networking, however you may nonetheless get Gigabit Ethernet if you need. You can both improve to the four-port mannequin, or pay the $30 improve payment so as to add the port to the ability brick.

Wi-Fi on the Intel iMac is the a lot older 802.11ac. Bluetooth can be an older model, with Bluetooth 4.2 in use towards the M4’s Bluetooth 5.3.

All fashions ship with peripherals, together with the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad, in addition to a Magic Keyboard. Nonetheless, the M4 iMac’s keyboard may be configured with Touch ID, bringing biometric safety to the desktop Mac, one thing utterly lacking from the older iMac.

The 2019 Intel iMac began from $1,299 with the Intel Core i3 chip, AMD Radeon Professional 555X graphics, 8GB of reminiscence, and a 1TB exhausting drive.

M4 24-inch iMac vs Intel 21.5-inch iMac: The M4 presents an unlimited array of colorways

The M4 iMac at $1,299 has the 8-core M4 chip, an 8-core GPU, 16GB of unified reminiscence, and a 256GB SSD. The four-port model, with the 10-core GPU, 16GB of reminiscence, and 256GB SSD, is $1,499.

Reminiscence upgrades price $200 per improve tier. The storage upgrades begin at $200 for 512GB, one other $200 for 1TB, and one other $400 for 2TB.

Upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet on the two-port mannequin is $30, whereas including Nano-texture to the four-port mannequin is $200.

When Apple Silicon Macs got here out, they had been praised for providing appreciable efficiency beneficial properties over the Intel variations they had been changing. 4 generations of Apple Silicon later, and it is gone from a “ought to improve” to “should improve.”

Not simply due to the efficiency of Apple Silicon now, however due to the Intel chips it replaces. The Intel processors from 2019 are significantly gradual relative to fashionable requirements, to the purpose that even a change to an M1 iMac can be useful.

The argument of protecting maintain of the Intel chip for some software program ought to be useless by now. You’ll anticipate most mission-critical software program would’ve been up to date to run on Apple Silicon within the final 5 years, so the argument should not apply anymore.

Add within the bigger 24-inch show, the advantages of SSDs over spinning steel discs, and a extra fashionable design, and it turns into a no brainer to improve.

There was a concrete cause to maintain utilizing an Intel iMac. There’s much less of a cause to take action now.

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