This 5K 2017 iMac has a socketed CPU, a SATA 3.0 port, Four memory slots for PC4-19200s DDR4-2400T RAM, an NVME style PCIe x4 SSD blade slot, and an AirPort card slot which appears to also be of a PCIe interface. This iMac also uses slightly faster DDR4 over its 1080p 21.5″ counterpart, at 2400 MHz versus the 2133 MHz PC4-17000 spec. In the previous model year 2015, that 5K iMac used 1600 MHz DDR3.

Unfortunately, however – the GPU is soldered onto the logic board like every iMac after the Late 2011 model. It’s unknown if a better GPU can be fitted into one of these but it may be assumed you could swap a Radeon Pro 570 and it’s corresponding board components out with a Radeon Pro 580/etc; through soldering. This theory remains untested.

By the way.. there was no 2018 iMac refresh, which meant the 2017 models stuck around for nearly 2 years until the 2019 models came out. For the 1080p non-retina model, it was the end of the line: that one stuck around until October 29th 2021 – a full year and some change after Apple Silicon Macs were announced!

You also get a few minor upgrades over the Late 2015 5K 27″, too. Namely: a bump up to Bluetooth version 4.2, the addition of 2x USB-C style Thunderbolt 3 ports, which come with USB 3.1. Bluetooth 4.2 introduces better file transfer speeds claimed up to 2.5x over previous versions, and better user privacy through random address generation.

This model offers a 1 TB Fusion Drive standard which is a hard drive combined up with a 32 GB SSD in this particular model. You could also option it up to a 2 TB Fusion Drive or a 2 TB SSD for best performance results. Fusion Drives are a newer technology that was phased away eventually in favor of a full-on SSD in all Macs, and a failure of either the SSD or HDD inside the Fusion Drive would be catastrophic to the entire drive. The cool part about having a Fusion Drive is it keeps track of your work patterns and will move files, data, and applications to the SSD or back to the hard drive based on that information – with full transparency.

What You Need to Know

• These iMacs shipped with 8 GB of RAM standard which is fine for basic tasks, but is increasingly impractical these days. For a serious speed boost, opt for 16 GB of RAM or more, and an SSD over the Fusion Drive or Hard Drive.
• Most base models shipped with a 1 TB Fusion Drive.

Unsupported macOS

Although it is not officially supported, the 27″ 5K 2017 iMac can run the latest intel build of macOS via OCLP. This iMac has a Radeon Pro 570/575/580, which is compatible in later versions of macOS. All Core branded products in the 7th generation have AVX 2, so it won’t have issues with hardware acceleration even if the OS is unsupported when using its original GPU, as well as any eGPUs.

Details

• Announced June 5th 2017
• Apple model number: A1419 (EMC 3070)
• Model ID: iMac18,3
• Order: MNE92LL/A (3.4 i5-7500)
  • MNEA2LL/A (3.5 i5-7600, Pro 575)
  • MNED2LL/A (3.8 i5-7600K, Pro 580)
  • BTO/CTO (4.2 i7-7700K)
• Discontinued March 19th 2019

Mac OS

• Requires macOS 10.12.4 (16F2073) Sierra through macOS Ventura 13.7.1 officially.

Core System

This iMac shipped with Quad-Core Kaby Lake 14nm CPUs. Only the i7 has hyper threading. All iMacs use a FCLGA1151 socket, and can be upgraded!

Legend: L1i = L1 Instruction Cache, L1d = L1 Data cache

• Intel Core i5-7500 ($1799): 3.4 Ghz, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 3.8 GHz Turbo
  65W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 6 MB L3
  Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, AES, EPT, VT-x, VT-d, MPX, SGX
• Intel Core i5-7600 ($1999): 3.5 Ghz, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 4.1 GHz Turbo
  65W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 6 MB L3
  Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, AES, EPT, VT-x, VT-d, MPX, SGX
• Intel Core i5-7600K ($2299): 3.8 Ghz, 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 4.2 GHz Turbo
  91W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 6 MB L3
  Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, AES, EPT, VT-x, VT-d, MPX, SGX
• Intel Core i7-7700K ($2299/$2499): 4.2 Ghz, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 4.5 GHz Turbo
  91W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 8 MB L3
  Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, AES, EPT, VT-x, VT-d, MPX, SGX

Memory

• All models: 8/16/32 GB “2400T” MHz PC4-19200s SDRAM ~19.2 GB/s
  • 8/16 (+$200)/32 GB (+$600) on 3.4 i5
  • Up to 64 GB on all other models
  • All 4 chips supports up to 64GB, according to Intel.

Video

• Base: AMD Radeon Pro 570, 4 GB GDDR5, Ellesmere, 1792 Cores, 14nm
  • 5.7 Billion Transistors, 232mm die size, BGA-1401, PCIe v3 x16 217 GB/s
  • 1000 MHz GPU clock, 1695 MHz Memory clock (6.8 Gb/s effective), 150W TDP
  • OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.1, Vulkan 1.3, 28 Compute units, 16KB L1 Per CU, 2 MB L2
• ($1999): AMD Radeon Pro 575, 4 GB GDDR5, Ellesmere, 2048 Cores, 14nm
  • 5.7 Billion Transistors, 232mm die size, BGA-1401, PCIe v3 x16 217 GB/s
  • 1096 MHz GPU clock, 1695 MHz Memory clock (6.8 Gb/s effective), 150W TDP
  • OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.1, Vulkan 1.3, 32 Compute units, 16KB L1 Per CU, 2 MB L2
• ($2299): AMD Radeon Pro 580, 8 GB GDDR5, Ellesmere, 2304 Cores, 14nm
  • 5.7 Billion Transistors, 232mm die size, BGA-1401, PCIe v3 x16 217 GB/s
  • 1100 MHz GPU clock, 1695 MHz Memory clock (6.8 Gb/s effective), 185W TDP
  • OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 2.1, Vulkan 1.3, 36 Compute units, 16KB L1 Per CU, 2 MB L2
• 27″ IPS TFT LED-backlit LCD Retina display, 5120 x 2880 @217.5 PPI
  • Support for 1 Billion Colors, 500 Nits Brightness, and P3 Wide Color Gamut
  • “Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at 1 Billion colors and”
  • 1x 5120×2880/60Hz 1 Billion colors, 2x 3840 x 2160@60Hz 1 Billion colors, 2x 4096 x 2304 with millions of colors

Drives

• Base: 1 TB Fusion Drive (with 32 GB SSD portion)
  • Configurable to a 2 TB Fusion Drive (with 128 GB SSD portion) (+$200)
  • or a 256 GB (+$100) / 512 GB (+$300) / 1 TB (+$700) PCIe-based SSD

Expansion/Misc

• Facetime HD Camera
• 2x USB-C Style Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB 3.1
• 4x USB-A style USB 3.0 ports
• Bluetooth 4.2
• 802.11ac (a/b/g/n) Wifi
• Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 connector
• SDXC SD-Card slot reader
• 3.5mm Headphone Jack
  • wSupport for Apple iPhone headset with microphone
• Stereo Speakers
• A single Microphone
• Kensington lock slot
• 300W Power Supply, seems to be shared across models

Included Peripherals

• iMac 5K
• Magic Mouse 2
  • Configurable with Magic Trackpad 2
• Magic Keyboard 2
  • Configurable to Magic Keyboard 2 with Numeric Keypad
• Power Cord
• Documentation, Apple Stickers

Physical

• Size:H/W/D 20.3 x 25.6 x 8 in/51.6 x 65 x 20.3 cm
• Weight: 20.8 lb./9.44 kg