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Maybe You SHOULDN'T WAIT for the Next M1X iMac

12:44 video

I just bought another Intel-based iMac, and I’m super excited. You might think I’m an idiot for buying an Intel iMac in 2021, but I needed (and wanted) one again, and despite rumors of an impending 2021 refresh, I think there are good reasons you might too.

The rumors

Posts about an upcoming iMac refresh arrive almost daily: a look matching the Pro Display XDR, no chin and bezels, bigger displays, different colors and an M1X chip. Who wouldn’t want an M1 iMac with four more performance cores and eight more GPU cores in a modern design? I’d definitely buy one as soon as it’s announced. But we don’t know when. Apple said the Apple silicon transition would complete within two years of last year’s WWDC, so it must come this month or at WWDC, right? Not so fast: rumors of a new iMac design have been around since the end of 2019, so if you’d waited since then, you could have bought one and used it for 18 months. The timeline:

  • January 2020: Max Tech predicted an updated iMac design in 2020.
  • April 2020: iLounge said a new 23-inch iMac was under work for release in Q4 2020, with mass production in Q3 (“It is clear that 2020 will be the year when Apple releases a new iMac”).
  • June 2020: MacRumors (citing Kuo) said Apple planned to launch a 24-inch iMac with a new design in Q4 2020, one of Apple’s first two Mac models with a custom Arm-based processor.

We did get an iMac update in August 2020: all-flash storage standard (no Fusion Drives), a 1080p FaceTime camera, True Tone, HDR and a nano-texture option on the display, the T2 chip (security, drive speed, faster video encoding, better bass response), 10th-gen Intel processors up to 10 cores, and updated AMD graphics. It was a solid update to the 27-inch, and I immediately returned the 2019 refurb I’d bought and got the mid-range 27-inch. But it wasn’t the redesigned Apple silicon iMac analysts promised, and almost 18 months after the first leaks, we still don’t know when it’s coming, what the specs will be, or whether it will outperform the Intel iMacs.

Why I bought another Intel iMac

When the first M1 Macs shipped, I was under the hype spell: they seemed too good to be true, with amazing benchmarks and cool, silent operation. The M1 MacBook Pro became the device I wanted to use all the time. Not as powerful as my mid-range iMac in most tests, it was powerful enough for work and YouTube editing, and I liked having one computer for desk and couch. I built a MacBook Pro desktop setup, put the iMac aside and eventually sold it. Since then, many things have become clear: using a MacBook as a desktop replacement is no match for a real desktop (I made a video about this months ago and ignored my own advice).

  • Displays: I’ve spent about 50 hours researching displays to match the iMac’s all-around performance. At 4K, native resolution makes everything too small, even at 32 inches, so you scale, which can hurt performance. Many third-party displays get hundreds of complaints about screen retention, bad pixels, backlight bleed, color accuracy and build quality. Even the Apple-certified LG 5K has consistency issues with backlights, retention and colors, plus its ugly, wobbly plastic.
  • Connection issues: even with a great display, there’s a good chance of MacBook issues (inverted colors over HDMI, distortion when waking, needing to unplug and replug, forgetting the display arrangement).
  • Simplicity: an iMac on a desk is a clean setup, with less clutter from docks and adapters, since the ports are built in, along with speakers, mics, camera, SD card reader and display. Fewer adapters means fewer problems: when I dock my MacBook Pro to a dock with Ethernet, it frequently keeps using Wi-Fi rather than Ethernet, which shows up on work video calls or slow copies to my Synology NAS, and I have to disconnect Wi-Fi (and remember to re-enable it).

The iMac is simply a better overall desktop: cleaner, more reliable and requiring less finagling, and I’m more productive.

Reasons an Intel iMac still makes sense

  1. App compatibility. Every Mac app is still written and optimized for Intel. Many have been updated for Apple silicon, and some run as well or better, but few are Apple silicon-only (besides some iOS apps). The Intel iMac has no Rosetta issues and no bugs from new Universal builds: everything just works. iOS apps on the Mac aren’t great because they were built for touch (the only one I use regularly is Authy, which has a Mac version anyway). Boot Camp is something M1 Macs can’t do: if you want Windows natively for specific apps or gaming, the Intel iMac is your best bet.
  2. RAM expansion. Apple silicon puts RAM in a unified package with the processor, which has performance benefits, but only to a point before you swap to the SSD, which only more physical RAM prevents. The 2020 Intel iMac supports up to 128 GB, helping with heavy workloads like 3D rendering in Blender, data analysis, many apps at once or video. I use a 64 GB OWC kit (linked in the description), and in a video export test, I finished 15% faster by adding RAM to the existing 8 GB.
  3. Resale. On Swappa, 2020 MacBook Airs with an i3 sold for about $785 to $845 about six months after the M1 Air’s release, and the Air is the clearest example of Intel vs. Apple silicon: the Intel Airs were awful in performance, heat, battery life and noise by comparison, and people still need Intel Macs. And check the Apple refurb store: the high-end 2020 iMac normally sells for $2,300, but I saved $350 buying refurbished the same 8-core i7 with the 5500 XT and 512 GB. Refurbished Apple units are cleaned and parts replaced for essentially a new iMac with a full warranty (the only difference is the box), and you could spend some savings on RAM.

I’m super happy with it. If a new iMac doesn’t arrive until the end of the year or early next year, I’ll be glad I bought now; and if it’s announced in a couple of weeks, “crap, that’s on me.” Are you expecting new iMacs before summer, or looking at an Intel iMac?

In this video

  • 0:00 intro
  • 1:07 new iMac rumors
  • 3:07 2020 iMac update
  • 4:15 why I bought another iMac
  • 7:49 intel vs apple silicon
  • 10:53 refurb iMac

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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