Apple iMac summer 2010 (Intel Core i3 3.06GHz, 21.5 in)

In time for the back-to-school buying season, Apple has updated its iMac desktop line with a broad assortment of under-the-hood features. This review will focus on the entry-level $1,199 model, but all four of Apple's default iMac configurations received updates to their CPU, memory, and graphics chips. The highest-end 27-inch model also has a new option for solid-state hard drives. Apple left off a few hoped-for features from its new iMacs, including an HDMI input and Blu-ray drive support, although we've pretty much given up on Apple ever adding the latter. We also find the iMac's 21.5-inch screen small compared with more-affordable 23-inch Windows-based all-in-ones. Despite those reservations, the iMac's new core components make it one of the fastest all-in-ones available. We'd look elsewhere for an all-in-one to serve as a home entertainment hub, but the entry-level iMac is your best bet if you're shopping for an all-in-one with performance as your primary concern.

Though Apple has made a number of changes to the new iMac's internal components, the exterior remains identical to the previous edition of the iMac from October 2009. The new system features the same aluminum and glass design, the same glossy LED backlit display, and almost all of the same ports and inputs as the original. The only change is that the SD card slot, a new feature on the last iMac update, now supports higher-capacity SDXC cards, which go up to 2TB. That mirrors the SD card slot Apple added to the new Mac Mini, which debuted in June.

Apple also left the contents of the new iMac box unchanged. The system still includes the Apple wireless keyboard and the wireless Magic Mouse. The Apple Remote remains a configurable option for $19, and Apple has also added its new Magic Trackpad as an officially supported input device for an additional $69.

Apple's Magic Trackpad gives you a new way to interact with your iMac.

The Trackpad brings the touch- and gesture-based controls from the MacBook Pro, and Apple's mobile products to Apple's desktops for the first time. It also gives Apple a reasonable counter to those who might complain about the iMac's lack of a touch screen, a feature that comes on many Windows-based all-in-ones in the same price range as the iMac. You can read our full review of the Magic Trackpad here.

Among the iMac's new internal components, the new Intel CPU brings the most dramatic changes. The 3.06GHz Core i3 chip has the same core clock speed and pair of physical cores as the previous iMac's Core 2 Duo, but thanks to Intel's HyperThreading technology, the iMac's new CPU can emulate four processing threads. That pseudo quad-core design has a noticeable benefit to the the iMac's multitasking capabilities, as you'll see in our performance charts below.

Aside from HyperThreading, the Core i3 features a number of architectural improvements over the older Core 2 Duo generation, but most of the changes will manifest themselves through faster performance. It has an integrated memory controller, which means faster communication between the CPU and the system RAM. It also features improved power efficiency.

In addition to the CPU update, Apple has also moved all of its iMacs to a discrete graphics card. The $1,199 model comes with the modest 256MB ATI Radeon HD 4670, whereas the older 21.5-inch iMac featured an integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics chip. Gaming on the Mac has made some significant steps this year. Valve Software's Steam service has made a number of popular PC games available to the Mac via digital distribution. We're also starting to see some early Mac-compatible cloud gaming services such as OnLive, which lets you play a variety of games, including popular PC titles, on a Mac via a remote connection to the OnLive servers. Cloud gaming won't really rely on the 3D card since most of the rendering work happens remotely, but for Steam, and other locally hosted games, the new graphics card should provide a noticeable improvement to the Mac gaming experience, particularly at higher resolutions.

Finally, Apple has also bumped the system memory in the new iMac up to 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM, compared with 1,066MHz RAM on the older model. That won't provide a significant speed boost by itself, but it contributes to generally faster performance for the iMac in aggregate.

Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering multiple CPUs

Rendering single CPU

Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 08873AU

11,391 

3,166 

Gateway One ZX6900-01e

8,751 

3,965 

Apple iMac summer 2010

8,718 

3,746 

Apple iMac fall 2009

6,506 

3,486 

HP TouchSmart 300-1120

5,747 

2,986 

For the most part, the new iMac improves on the original's already fast performance and further distances Apple's all-in-one from its Windows-based competition in the same price range. Both our Photoshop CS3 test and our iTunes test tend to respond to single-core clock speeds, so though the new iMac is faster than the old one on those tests, the more dramatic speed boost comes on the multitasking test, where the Core i3 chip can flex its HyperThreading muscles and act like a quad-core CPU.

Even though we're generally happy with the iMac's single-core and multitasking results, the Lenovo IdeaCentre demonstrates that for single applications that leverage multiple processing threads, the number of native cores still matters. The Lenovo has an older Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, but it's still a full quad-core chip, which propelled it far past the iMac and its HyperThreaded dual-core CPU on our multithreaded Cinebench test. Serious content creators should take note: if you're looking for a low-cost editing station, a Windows-based all-in-one is still your best bet if you use multithreaded software suites, at least until Apple updates to a true quad-core CPU.

For gaming performance, we can report a completely unplayable experience with Call of Duty 4, even at lower resolutions and image quality settings. We had an improved experience with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, two games available from Steam. Both of those titles played smoothly at the iMac's native 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, even with 2x anti-aliasing enabled and lots of action onscreen. We'd feel better recommending the new iMac for gaming if it had had no hiccups, but since the bulk of the Mac titles out right now share the Source engine common to Team Fortress 2 and Portal, we can at least say that for those and other Valve titles, the iMac is a solid gaming system.