If you’ve been hankering for a good deal on a 5K iMac, Woot (via Amazon) has you covered. For today only, the clearance retailer is selling 2015’s 27-inch, 2TB iMac for $1450.00. The offer expires just before midnight Pacific on Tuesday. (Update 3:10 p.m. ET: It’s gone now.)
This is a great deal on so many levels. First, this is for a new 2015 iMac, and Apple sells the same model refurbished for $650 more, at $2100. Second, the newer 2017 iMac with a 2TB Fusion Drive will set you back $2,300 on Apple.com for a nice (but not $850 nice) bump in processor and graphics performance.
The biggest differences between the 2015 and 2017 5K iMac models are the processor and the GPU. Woot’s 2015 iMac comes with a quad-core 3.3GHz “Skylake” Core i5-6500, while the current 2TB iMac has the quad-core, 3.8GHz “Kaby Lake” Core i5-7600K. It’s a very modest one-generation processor upgrade. For GPUs, the 2015 iMac includes a 2GB AMD Radeon R9 M395, and the newer model has AMD Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB of video memory.
Beyond those two key points, you get a similar rig. The deal version comes with a 2TB Fusion Drive, 8GB of RAM (the newer models have slightly faster memory), and a glorious 27-inch display with 5120-by-2880 resolution. There are also two Thunderbolt 2 ports (new versions use Thunderbolt 3), four USB 3.0 ports, and mini DisplayPort.
Our review of the smaller 21.5-inch iMac lists a single flaw: “Unimpressive performance boost over comparable 2015 model.” Saving $850 on this deal seems like a no-brainer.
[ Today’s deal: 27-inch Apple iMac late 2015 for $1450 at Amazon.]
Author: Ian Paul, Contributor
Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn't like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he's not covering the news he's working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.