Thunderbolt iMac Torn Down and Benchmarked

While Apple's new iMac models released yesterday appear nearly identical to their predecessors at first glance, the company has of course made a number of changes to beef up performance of its flagship desktop line.

100046 imac 2011 teardown 500

The folks over at iFixit quickly got their hands on one of the new 21.5-inch models and subjected it to one of their thorough teardown routines. Among the interesting findings:

100046 imac 2011 gpu board
Graphics board and heat sink from new 21.5-inch iMac

- The AMD graphics chip is located on a separate board from the main logic board, allowing for replacement of the GPU without the need for an entirely new logic board. Apple of course doesn't make the GPU board particularly easy to access, as it is not considered a user-replaceable part, but it can be done.

With a bit of magic, the GPU heat sink detaches from the logic board, exposing the AMD GPU board. You heard that right, folks - you don't have to replace the entire logic board if your GPU explodes from too much l33t gaming. You can just swap out the GPU board for another one.

-The new iMac features the same LG display found in the previous generation.

-The optional secondary solid state drive appears to reside directly underneath the optical drive.

The optional SSD appears to reside beneath the optical drive - that's the only space we could find where something was clearly missing. There's three mounting points under the optical drive that have nothing attached to them in our machine, since this option is only available on 2.7 GHz 21.5" iMacs.

The previous-generation iMacs only supported secondary SSD drives on 27-inch models, with the bay positioned next to the optical drive. The bay may still be in that location on the new 27-inch models, but Apple clearly had to find a different layout for the internal components in the smaller body of the 21.5-inch model in order to fit the drive in.

100046 imac 2011 speedmark

Separate from iFixit's teardown, reviewers have also begun benchmarking the new iMac models with Macworld having already put the new 3.1 GHz 27-inch model through its Speedmark 6.5 testing suite. Unsurprisingly, the machine was found to be significantly faster than the previous generation.

Our overall system performance test suite, Speedmark 6.5, shows the new system to be 16 percent faster than the previous high-end standard configuration iMac, a 27-inch 2.8GHz Core i5 quad-core model with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive, and ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics with 1GB of dedicated RAM.

Comparing to other machines, the new iMac clocked at about 10% faster than the standard high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro and about 15% slower than a build-to-order six-core Mac Pro.

Macworld will be subjecting the other three standard-configuration iMac models to the same battery of tests to provide comparison data.

Related Roundup: iMac
Buyer's Guide: iMac (Neutral)
Related Forum: iMac

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
apple oct 2024 mac tease

Apple Expected to Announce These Two to Three Products 'This Week'

Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip. Gurman...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
joz macbook tease

Apple Teases Upcoming M5 MacBook Pro Launch: 'Something Powerful is Coming'

Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...

Top Rated Comments

lazyrighteye Avatar
189 months ago
Still impressed by what they manage to cram inside these machines...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacMan86 Avatar
189 months ago
Well, it's not jut CPU. Apple will not tell you SKU for any of the components. All iMac components are regular PC components so if a buyer knew the part list s/he would make an educated decision and iMac would lose every time.

I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone to hear there's a generous mark-up on Apple products. It's for the consumer to decide if that's worth paying for or not. There are market forces after all, if it was too expensive, not enough people would buy them - but that doesn't seem to be a problem they're having at the moment.

Still, they are more than the sum of their parts, other companies are free to pick those parts off the shelf and put together something the same or better than the iMac for less. None of the competitors have impressed me with their attempts so far though. I'd be interested to see the cost of the 27" IPS display as well, doesn't strike me as a bargain bucket component.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Umbongo Avatar
189 months ago
Why won't they just give the cpu sku, it would make it much easier to compare than ghz values, with turbo, ht, vt enabled and what not.
Apple marketing don't think those things matter. You can find all the info easily at ark.intel.com and the information is in plenty of threads in the iMac subforum.

any care to fill out the rest?
21 inch base = Core i5 2400S
21 inch high = Core i5 2500S
21 inch bto = Core i7 2600S

27 inch base = Core i5 2500S
27 inch high = Core i5 2400
27 inch bto = Core i7 2600

Here is a link that compares all processors used: http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=52208,52211,52215,52207,52213
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
err404 Avatar
189 months ago
What exactly is so "elegant" about requiring the disassemble of half the computer just to change out the GPU?
It's not meant to be user serviceable. It's sold as an "appliance". In order to achieve the slim profile and silent performance, the jigsaw construction is very similar to a laptop.

That said, the replaceable GPU is intriguing. The worrying bit is:
Making the LCD and glass spotless when reassembling the machine is nearly impossible.
I wonder if ThunderBolt is fast enough to allow an external GPU that exceeds the performance of the 6970m? Bus to external GPU. GPU to display via Target Display Mode.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shasterball Avatar
189 months ago
i wonder how much apple pays to assemble these? one would think it's cheaper to put a tower or something similar together than an all in one
Since when does Apple try to lower prices by making something less elegant and appealing to a wide audience? Price is no restrictor (compared to others)!!! :)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacMan86 Avatar
189 months ago
Magnetic ... glass isn't magnetic ... only iron, nickle, cobalt are magnetic. Your suggestions are even possible ... learn physics before you suggest crazy ideas like this.

Calm down, no need to be rude, especially given that the guy was right.

The glass panel is held on by magnets - I've probably taken apart 50 iMacs so I would have an idea.

The glass panel has a number of metal pins on metal flanges, glued on around its circumference. The aluminium front housing has holes for these pins with magnets on either side. The magnets on the housing attract the metal pins on the glass panel and keep everything together.

If you don't believe me, find something ferrous in your house and wave it around the edge of an iMac's glass panel, you'll notice it get attracted to the 10 or so magnets hidden behind.

What the guy is suggesting is possible, just very unlikely to happen because the bare LCD is so fragile.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)