Tue, 24 Aug 2010 Lab tested: 27-inch Core i7 iMac/2.93GHz quad core with SSD

Ladies and gentlemen, the fastest Mac we’ve ever seen is currently sitting in the Macworld Lab. It’s the 27-inch 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac, equipped with a solid-state drive (SSD). This built-to-order (BTO) model posted the highest Speedmark 6 score of any iMac we’ve tested - for now.

The 27-inch 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac with SSD isn’t one of the four standard configurations Apple offers, and Macworld doesn't mouse-rate BTO models. To get the Core i7 CPU and SSD, you have to customize a 27-inch 2.8GHz quad core Core i5 iMac when ordering through the online Apple Store. Upgrading to the 2.93GHz Core i7 adds £160 to the £1,659 base price. Substituting a 256GB SSD for the hard drive adds another £480. So the total price of the iMac we tested (with 4GB of RAM) is £2,288.99 inc VAT.

We used our Speedmark 6 test suite to gauge the performance of the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac and to see how well it performs compared other current iMacs. Overall, the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac with an SSD is impressive, posting a Speedmark 6 score of 254, currently the highest Speedmark 6 score posted by any Mac. (We just received two of the three new Mac Pro models, and we'll test them and provide results soon. We think that the new Mac Pros will beat the Core i7 iMac, but the story will be the margin of difference.)

Compared to the standard configuration 27-inch 2.8GHz quad core Core i5 iMac with a 7200-rpm hard drive, the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac is 17 percent faster overall. We saw the most dramatic improvements in our Aperture, iMovie, iPhoto, and Unzip Archive tests, which weren’t surprising since these tests tend to write files to disk, and the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac with its SSD provides a speed benefit.

Interestingly, the one test where the 2.8GHz quad core Core i5 iMac wins by a wide margin is in our HandBrake test. The 2.8GHz quad core Core i5 iMac was nearly three times faster than the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac. This result wasn’t much of a surprise, though; as we’ve experienced while testing DVD ripping on the new iMacs, some iMacs (like the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac we tested) come with Hitachi-LG SuperDrive mechanisms that haveriplock, which slows down the SuperDrive during movie playback to reduce noise from the drive mechanism. Other new iMacs we tested came with Pioneer SuperDrive mechanisms that produced faster results. Apple doesn’t specify what SuperDrive mechanism is being installed when you order your iMac.

We also compared the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac with another BTO iMac, the 27-inch 3.6GHz dual core Core i5 iMac (£2,039.00 with SSD instead of a hard drive). With both models using an SSD, we found the extra £249.99 for the 2.93GHz quad core Core i7 iMac gets an 11 percent boost over the 3.6GHz dual core Core i5 iMac. The Core i7 iMac showed big boosts in our Cinebench, MathematicaMark, and Compressor tests, where the software can take advantage of the additional cores provided by the Core i7.

Booting from the SSD also provides a benefit that really can’t be measured by hand. The general snappiness of the SSD iMacs gave the impression of a faster machine. Windows, documents, and programs felt like they opened much quicker than when booting from a hard drive. Even starting up the iMac in our test configuration (we try to limit the items that launch at startup to only what’s necessary) felt shorter, though it was too fast for use to time with a stopwatch.