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2019 iMac 5K: diglloyd Adobe Photoshop Benchmarks

MPG tested the 2019 iMac 5K 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9 8-core / 128GB / 2TB / Radeon Vega 48. Purchase with 8GB memory, then add 64GB or 128GB OWC memory. See recommended Macs for photographers and videographers.

These tests made possible by loaner gear from B&H Photo and OWC, so please buy your gear at B&H Photo and OWC/MacSales.com using any link from this site or MacPerformanceGuide.com, ditto for OWC/MacSales.com. See also 2019 iMac 5K: Recommended Models and Accessories.

Unsure which Mac to get or how to configure it? Consult with Lloyd.

2019 iMac 5K

About

These four benchmarks test the speed of Photoshop with different size workloads.

The amount of memory has a major influence on the diglloydLarge and diglloydHuge tests, and that is where 64GB and 128GB memory configurations come to bear.

diglloydSpeed1

The diglloyd Speed1 benchmark uses a mix of the most commonly used Photoshop operations with a file size that allows everything to stay in memory. Hence it accurately represents what one might expect in everyday use of Adobe Photoshop CC. Specialty operations such as Liquify and other GPU-intensive tasks are just that—specialty, and are not included in this suite.

The 2019 iMac 5K handily beats the 2017 iMac 5K, the latter taking 24% longer.

diglloydSpeed1 Photoshop benchmark for 2019 iMac 5K vs 2017 iMac 5K
"Vega64" should read "Vega48"

diglloydMedium

The diglloyd Medium benchmark uses a mix of the core Photoshop operations with a moderately larger file size that exceeds what most users are likely to use, taking about 15GB of memory usage in Photoshop. This puts it right on the edge of what a Mac with 16GB of memory can manage.

The 2019 iMac 5K handily beats the 2017 iMac 5K, the latter taking a whopping 47% longer.

diglloydMedium Photoshop benchmark for 2019 iMac 5K vs 2017 iMac 5K

diglloydLarge

The diglloyd Large Photoshop benchmark uses a mix of the core Photoshop operations with a large file size that exceeds what most users are likely to use, using about 30GB of memory in Photoshop.

The 2019 iMac 5K handily beats the 2017 iMac 5K, the latter taking 40% longer.

diglloydLarge Photoshop benchmark for 2019 iMac 5K vs 2017 iMac 5K

CLICK TO VIEW: Recommended for iMac 5K

diglloydHuge

The diglloyd Huge benchmark uses a mix of the core Photoshop operations with a file size that requires about 56GB of memory usage in Photoshop, far beyond what most users are likely to encounter.

The 2019 iMac 5K handily beats the 2017 iMac 5K, the latter taking 81% longer. This is clearly the result of having 128GB memory instead of 64GB memory.

diglloydHuge Photoshop benchmark for 2019 iMac 5K vs 2017 iMac 5K
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