On March 19, Apple released it new 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs.
“Apple today updated its iMac line with up to 8-core Intel 9th-generation processors for the first time and powerful Vega graphics options, delivering dramatic increases in both compute and graphics performance.”
I got to wondering exactly which Intel part numbers and generation CPUs were used. After some investigation, the chart below emerged.
| 2019 27″ iMac CPU Models | ||||
| Apple “Name” | Intel Model | Family | Gen | Cores/Threads |
| 3.6GHz 8-core 9th-gen i9 | i9-9900KF | i9 | 9th | 8/16 |
| 3.7GHz 6-core 9th-gen i5 | i5-9600KF | i5 | 9th | 6/6 |
| 3.1GHz 6-core 8th-gen i5 | i5-8600 | i5 | 8th | 6/6 |
| 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-gen i5 | i5-85001 | i5 | 8th | 6/6 |
| 2019 21.5″ iMac CPU Models | ||||
| Apple “Name” | Intel Model | Family | Gen | Cores/Threads |
| 3.2GHz 6-core 8th-gen i7 | i7-87002 | i7 | 8th | 6/12 |
| 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-gen i5 | i5-85001 | i5 | 8th | 6/6 |
| 3.6GHz quad-core 8th-gen i3 | i3-81003 | i3 | 8th | 4/4 |
| 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-gen i5 (rel. 2017) | i5-7360U | i5 | 7th | 2/4 |
1Same CPU as $1,099 2018 Mac mini
2Same CPU as $1,299 2018 Mac mini
3Same CPU as $799 2018 Mac mini
There are several things to note here. Only two of the entries, the high end CPUs in the 27-inch iMacs are 9th generation, that is, Coffee Lake Refresh. For an explanation, see: “Why Apple May Have Delayed the New iMac.”
The 8th generation CPUs are the standard Coffee Lake CPUs which Intel has been shipping since late 2017.
Next, note that the new 8th gen CPUs used in the 21.5 inch iMac are the same as used in the 2018 Mac mini. But the iMacs use discrete (Vega) graphics. The Mac mini uses on-board Intel UHD Graphics 630.
We’ve provided links in the chart above so you can read more about each CPU Apple has selected.
Finally, I’d like to thank my colleague, Dave Hamilton, for extraordinary assistance in the compilation of the chart above.
This is a seriously helpful article – thx! Any chance of a similar look at the MBP and Mini CPUs?
So only the top end CPU on the 27 and 21 and the bottom CPU for the 21 has multithreading? It looks like on the rest they only have one threat per core. I find that very surprising. I thought that was pretty much standard with modern CPUs.
More real cores are better than virtual cores, and Intel has been moving in that direction of late.
Yeah. A better way to look at it is that i3 and i5 CPUs don’t have hyper-threading, but i7 and i9 do. The one exception, of course, is that dual-core i3 and i5 CPUs do have hyper threading (as with the i5 in the lowest-end iMac and the latest MacBook Air).
Dave, I’m not smart enough to read Anand Tech. What’s the latest on hyperthreading and rendering (for example, I do video and photos) for 8G and 9G CPUs. And how does that matter with GPUs in iMac?