apple imac with 5k expert

The Good The new 27-inch Apple iMac adds a stunning 5K display for not much more than last year's high-end model. The design, while not updated, remains the gold standard for all-in-one desktops.

The Bad Except for the new screen and a different GPU, the components are essentially unchanged from last year's version. The high starting price only gets you a mid-level Core i5 processor.

The Bottom Line Apple skips 4K and goes directly to what the company calls a 5K display in this expensive, extravagant all-in-one iMac desktop that will appeal to photo and video professionals -- or anyone else looking for the best possible screen resolution.

In person, that 5,120x2,880 display is simply stunning, especially when displaying high-res full-screen photos and video. The previous 27-inch iMac had a 2,560x,1440 display, making this 2x jump especially impressive. That 2013 model used an Nvidia GTX 775M graphics card, but for the 5K panel, Apple has switched (back to) AMD with the R9 290X. Apple has jumped between these two GPU brands before, and currently, you'll find AMD in the Mac Pro and new iMac, while Nvidia powers the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the non-5K iMac.

Gaming has never been a big deal on Macs, but that graphics-card muscle is vital for video editing and encoding, as well as CAD and design tasks, and that's one reason people choose a 15-inch MacBook Retina Pro, 27-inch iMac, or Mac Pro desktop, all of which include discrete graphics cards.

What you're not going to find here is the latest generation of internal components. Nvidia has new 900-series GPUs for both mobile and desktop, but as noted, AMD is the GPU of choice here. Intel has a new generation of CPUs coming soon, codenamed Broadwell, but those are not expected until early 2015 at the earliest.

In the meantime, you could hypothetically go with Intel's stopgap Haswell-E chips, just announced in August for high-end desktops, but here we've got a standard Haswell-generation Core i5 (with an i7 upgrade for an extra $250, £200, or AU$300).

Josh Miller/CNET

If you've used any of the recent past generations of 27-inch iMacs, you already know what to expect physically. This is the same design, 5mm thick at the edge, gently bowing out in the back that looks so amazingly thin from the correct angle, and is frankly still pretty thin even in full profile.

This is the third year for this body shape, and the design has made it way all the way down to the base 21.5-inch iMac (or as we call it, the iMac Air). Still, it remains the sharpest-looking all-in-one you can buy, and the amazing 5K display will likely keep you so mesmerized you'll hardly notice anything else about the system.

Is this the iMac for you? If you're a photo or video professional, it's certainly worth a serious look. And, i you fall into that category, there's a good chance you're already eyeing a Mac Pro desktop, although this setup includes a built-in 5K display, and starts at $500 less. If you don't work with the ultra-high-resolution content, or don't sit with your nose inches from the screen, consider the standard non-5K 27-inch iMac, which starts at a more reasonable $1,800, £1,450, or AU$2,200.