Apple launches 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display starting at $2,749

Apple today unveiled a 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display, featuring 14.7 million pixels, the new iMacs feature the latest quad-core processors, high-performance graphics, Fusion Drive and Thunderbolt 2 technologies. The iMac with 5K Retina Display is available today with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and a 1TB Fusion Drive for a suggested retail price of $2,749 (CAD)

5K was chosen as the target resolution by Apple because it is actually twice the horizontal and vertical capacity of the regular 27-inch iMac. A resolution of  5120 x 2880 means that apps and content can be scaled in a more natural way. 

“Thirty years after the first Mac changed the world, the new iMac with Retina 5K display running OS X Yosemite is the most insanely great Mac we have ever made,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With a breathtaking 14.7 million pixel display, faster CPU and graphics, Fusion Drive, and Thunderbolt 2, it’s the most beautiful and powerful iMac ever.”

With a resolution of 5120 x 2880, iMac with Retina 5K display has four times more pixels than the standard 27-inch iMac and 67 percent more pixels than a 4K display.

The benefit for photographers, video editors and anyone needing to handle large image or video files will be potentially game changing since the cost of a standalone 4K capable desktop plus a monitor can add up to a lot. To have this capability in one device makes a lot of sense.

Every new iMac with Retina 5K display also comes with new AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and can be configured with AMD Radeon R9 M295X graphics, delivering up to 3.5 teraflops of computing power, the most powerful graphics ever offered on an iMac.

8GB of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive are standard. The new iMac can also be configured with up to 32GB of memory, a 3TB Fusion Drive, or up to 1TB of super-fast, PCIe-based flash storage. In addition, iMac with Retina 5K display includes two Thunderbolt 2 ports that deliver up to 20Gbps each, twice the bandwidth of the previous generation.

iMac with Retina 5K display begins shipping today with a 3.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.9 GHz, AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics and a 1TB Fusion Drive for a suggested retail price of $2,749 (CAD). Customers can order iMac with Retina 5K display through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.ca).