The M3 iMac Review: Embracing Intel’s Dominance

Two and a half years after Mac transitioned to self-developed chips, I am still using the iMac that was the final product of three years ago. In this M3 iMac Review, I explore the enduring performance and features of this machine crafted during Mac’s chip transition.

This system, which has a 10-core i9-10910 CPU, a 1TB solid-state drive, 32GB of DDR4 memory, and a Radeon Pro 5700XT with 16GB of video RAM, can be referred to as the final machine king of Intel. It is still more than sufficient for a word worker today.

However, the iMac’s position within the Mac product line has actually dropped from mid-range to mid-to-low end with the introduction of the Mac Studio product line. This is because it can no longer buy Pro and Max CPUs, the RAM is not pluggable, and the screen has shifted from 27 inches to 27 inches. 5K has been reduced to 24-inch 4.5K, and even the former SD card slot has been cut off.

I was therefore quite interested in learning how far the iMac with M3 had advanced when I received the updated model. Can it take use of Intel’s advantages?

The large chin, light weight, colourful design, network cable interface built into the adapter, magnetic charging cord, and even the keyboard and mouse use the same Lightning interface. We concentrate on the assessment since it maintains the design of the prior generation iMac. Set it up for performance evaluation.

The entry-level iMac has an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, and 8GB+256G of RAM. A 10-core GPU, 24GB of unified memory, a 1TB solid-state drive, a Touch ID keyboard with a numeric keypad, a Magic Mouse, and a Magic Trackpad were added to my review model.

CPU performance test

GeekBench Score:

The first PC chip on the market to employ the 3nm manufacturing technology is the M3 found in the iMac. The quantity of cores matches that of the M2. It continues to employ a 10-core GPU architecture with 4 big cores and 4 tiny cores. It’s important to remember that the M3’s maximum single-core frequency is higher than 4GHz.

Whether it is a single-core or multi-core, the GeekBench running score is 25% better than the M1 iMac. Between them, the multi-core performance is around 20% faster than the M2, and it is comparable to the M1 Max and M2 Max.

Naturally, there is now more of a difference between M3 and M3 Max, with the latter outperforming M2 Ultra in Mac Studio.

If we compare this to Intel’s previous machine king from three years ago, it is currently at the bottom. Regardless of the number of cores, it lags the M3 by nearly twice as much.

While the M3’s GPU specs are not much better than the M2’s, it does contain a compatible architecture to the A17 Pro, as well as hardware ray tracing, dynamic cache, and grid shading, all of which contribute to the GPU’s overall performance boost in common computing situations.

GPU performance test

GFXBench 4k : Aztek Ruins – Benchmark

The M3 iMac achieved 51 FPS in the GFXBench 4K Aztec Ruins (High Tier) offscreen test, over 40% faster than the M1 and 9% faster than the M2 Macbook Pro.

The iMac 2020, which has a dedicated graphics card, did fairly well in this game.

Hard disk read and write speed

BlackMagic Disk: Benchmark

The BlackMagic Disc test further demonstrates how much faster the new iMac’s writing speed is in comparison to the entry-level model of the previous generation iMac. However, the difference is about twice as large as it is with the M3 Max.

Combining the guidelines from the previous two products, it is evident how precisely Apple may cut data since the read and write speeds of the hard drive are closely correlated with the chip level and capacity of the solid-state drive.

Post rendering speed test

Mac has always excelled in film editing. A thirty-minute video in 4K 50FPS H.265 encoded MP4 format was rendered using Resolve.

The M3 iMac outperforms the M2 in rendering speed by 4 minutes, making it on par with the M2 Pro Mac mini. With 8GB of RAM, our M1 iMac was unable to finish the export and ended the struggle immediately because of the persistent pop-up notification indicating memory shortage.

With only half the time, the model with the M3 Max exhibits a significant advantage. Comparing the M3 Max to the M2 Max and M1 Max, we also discovered that there hasn’t been much of an improvement. We were amazed that the M3’s capabilities for video encoding and decoding might not be much improved.

Intel’s iMac is not competitive when compared to M-series CPUs that have been optimized for HEVC.

Furthermore, and this is a unique upgrade point, the M3 iMac now has the capacity to decode AV1 encoding, which can save CPU consumption when watching streaming video.

iMac isn’t the iMac of today. How should a desktop computer be selected?

The introduction of Mac Studio and the discontinuation of the iMac Pro product line caused the iMac to fall one spot in the product line, as was previously stated. However, this also helped to narrow down the product’s target market because it is no longer a This home computer is meant to be shared by several people, not as an office productivity tool.

A computer host, camera, display screen, six-speaker system, microphone, and other accessories are all integrated into its elegant, minimalist, and all-in-one design. Under 5 kg is the total weight of the gadget.

It may always be the center of attention in the surroundings and doesn’t take up any desktop space. In common with many businesses and commercial checkout desks, there are frequently two iMacs,they are an iMac selling feature that cannot be overlooked and provide colour to the room.

There is no demand on the M3 processor to do text, photo, or video editing tasks. This makes it ideal for home contexts without mobile office scenarios, even for moderately hefty 3D designs that won’t exhibit evident performance constraints.

Moreover, every member of the family may set up their own account and use Touch ID to log in with only one click.

The iMac fitted with the M3 processor had notable performance variations as a result of the iMac skipping a generation of chip upgrades. When compared to the M1, it was almost twice. The improvement was, however, somewhat small when compared to the M2 on the MacBook Air.

If the 21-inch Intel iMac is your only computer, then.The perfect replacement is the M3 iMac. You will notice a noticeable speed boost whether you are later editing photographs or just simply browsing. Users of 27-inch iMacs will have to give up some screen real estate, or look into the Studio Display + computer option.

Depending on how often you use it, if you bought the 8GB memory version of the M1 iMac three years ago, you could decide to replace it with the M3 iMac.

We advise choosing the 16GB+512GB variant of the M3 iMac as a minimum setup.

When deciding between the iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Studio, the Mac mini + monitor is a more cost-effective option if you are more concerned with practicality than desktop space usage.

Apple’s best desktop performance is still offered by Mac Studio with M2 Ultra if you do a lot of intense 3D modeling and rendering work.

The last piece of advice for artists is to grab the best tool available right now and start creating instead of waiting for a gadget that could get better later.