The BTO 21.5-inch iMac was also 5 percent faster overall than the standard $1999 27-inch 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac, and 7 percent faster in our HandBrake test, 9 percent faster in our iMovie import test, 12 percent faster in MathematicaMark, and 15 percent faster in the Cinebench CPU test.

The 27-inch iMac with a 3.4GHz Core i7 processor was 5 percent faster overall than the BTO 21.5-inch iMac, and it was 8 percent faster in our iMovie import test, 15 percent faster at HandBrake, and 17 percent faster at both Cinebench CPU and MathematicaMark.

Speedmark 6.5 results showed the BTO 27-inch iMac to be 11 percent faster than the standard $1999 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac. The 3.4GHz Core i7 iMac was 17 percent faster in iMovie, 21 percent faster in HandBrake, 29 percent faster in the Cinebench CPU test, and scored 31 percent higher than the 3.1GHz i5 iMac in MathematicaMark.

The new standard 27-inch 3.1GHz Core i5 iMac performed very similarly to a BTO model from last year, a 27-inch 2.93GHz Core i7 quad-core iMac.

Our shows how the BTO iMacs compare to other current and discontinued Macs.