It uses much more power-hungry chips, and power means performance. However, the 27-inch iMac doesn't use equivalent chips to the small and laptop-focused M1. We've all heard about what a beast the M1 chip is, and how it makes Intel's equivalent chips look like clockwork toys etc. Well, this is where it gets interesting when comparing iMac 24 vs iMac 27. This is especially true when Black Friday rolls around. With the iMac Pro having been discontinued, Apple has clearly pushed the regular 27-inch iMac into the limelight as its replacement, so this flexibility is welcome for the pros who need that kind of beastly power and still want the all-in-one form factor.īoth iMacs have now been out for a while, and that means you're more likely to find some decent price cuts if you keep an eye out. Get everything maxed out by Apple and you're looking at £8,299/$8,299/AU$12,449. Only the RAM is user-upgradeable of these after you buy it, so you need to buy well in the first place. Obviously, this can all make a massive difference to the price, and Apple is not known for its low upgrade costs. You can also add 10-Gig Ethernet optionally.

There are 8-core or 10-core processor options, you can go up to 128GB of RAM, up to 8TB of storage, and you can switch GPUs all the way up to a Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16GB. You can configure the 27-inch iMac with much more flexibility, though. The 27-inch iMac Intel starts from £1,799/$1,799/AU$2,699, and this gets you a 6-core Intel Core i5 processor (3.1GHz), 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and an AMD Radeon Pro 5300 4GB GPU. We have our dedicated iMac M1 review here, as well as our iMac 27-inch (2020) review, but here we'll explore what both machines offer for pros, who they're suitable for, and what their limitations are.

But the price is higher, so does older hardware work out as a sensible way to invest your money? Meanwhile, the 27-inch iMac retains the older design and still uses 10th-gen Intel processors, but offers so much flexibility along with its bigger screen. The brand new 24-inch iMac was the first of Apple's all-in-ones to include the new M1 chip, which offers incredible power for the ultra-slim frame… but with few customisation options, is it suitable for your pro software needs? That means it's still running on an Intel processor, and while that's perfectly fine for most tasks, it does mean the 27-inch is missing out on some of the great features that come with Apple silicon. Unlike pretty much every other Mac and MacBook made by Apple, the 27-inch iMac has yet to get Apple's own M1 or M2 chips.

Best buy imac 27