It is indeed one of the great surprises of this model: despite the powerful processor and the summer climate of the test period, the temperature of the iMac Sandy Bridge has remained surprisingly low levels. Most of the time, CPU temperature stays around 30 to 35 °: the ventilation system is effective and extraction points at the top of the screen and behind the foot, once hot, now warm. When exporting Aperture, the temperature rises to 48 °. A video encoding where the four cores are at 100% for 25 minutes? 55 °. The fans always keep the composure of the machine without a voice, a sharp contrast to the previous generation and some MacBook Pro Sandy Bridge.
This discretion only to mask the raw performance of the iMac Core i7: they reach or exceed those of most of the range Mac Pro. This is not the first time we see the top of the range iMac rival the Mac Pro or exceed, but it's the first time that the difference is so great and strong.
The distinction is clear: the common tasks, the iMac Core i7 overwrite the entire Mac Pro. It drives not only its direct rival, the Westmere Mac Pro 2.4 GHz or eight cores (€ 3,400), but offers the luxury of making lousy Westmere Mac Pro 2.93 GHz twelve hearts, a machine ... € 8 300! We cannot even say it's SSD benefit: the twelve core Mac Pro was tested with excellent Toshiba 512 GB SSD So Sandy Bridge architecture that works wonders on the cuts in the Finder or the export Garage Band or Aperture. Match almost zero on the export music with XLD.
A test like Cinebench shows that Westmere Mac Pro keeps the advantage in raw power; the iMac is above the Nehalem Mac Pro. The entire iMac line is better than the Mac Pro graphics side, a habit now.
(Cont.)
