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Graphical Glitches Plaguing Some 2020 iMac Owners With Radeon Pro 5700 XT GPU

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Apple in August refreshed the 2020 iMac lineup with a new 27-inch model that's equipped with 10th-generation Intel processors, more RAM, more SSD settings, and faster AMD GPUs.

imac 27 inch
Unfortunately, some new Mac owners have been running into problems with their machines and have been reporting ongoing glitching with the graphics. There's a 57-page thread on the MacRumors forums filled with complaints dating back to August, suggesting this is a problem that's been impacting ‌iMac‌ owners since the new Macs came out.


Based on a poll, a good number of ‌iMac‌ owners who have the higher-end 5700XT GPU are seeing a white horizontal line flicker across the display on occasion, but the problem does not seem to impact all users. MacRumors reader torifile describes the issue:

I got my 2020 iMac Thursday night. It's as fast as expected and gorgeous. Last night I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a horizontal white line flash mid-way up the screen. It was really fleeting and I thought I was just seeing things. This morning, I saw the same thing. The computer isn't running hot or anything. iStat Menus has all the cores untaxed. I recall having this same problem with my MBP 13" (2019) with an earlier version of macOS (I can't remember if it was a late Mojave build or an early Catalina) and it was cleared up with a software update.

The white line described by those affected appears to flash across the screen at random intervals throughout the day, and there are some other seemingly related graphical issues that ‌iMac‌ owners have run into. Some users have reported being able to remedy the problem by choosing a scaled resolution other than the default, but that's not an ideal longterm solution.

It's not clear if the issue that ‌iMac‌ owners are experiencing is hardware or software based, but Apple has not yet implemented a fix for the problem.

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Top Rated Comments

AAPLGeek Avatar
AAPLGeek
72 months ago
Apple has already addressed this by updating the product page



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Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B
b656
72 months ago
if only nVidia and Apple were friends...
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dinobear Avatar
dinobear
72 months ago
How is this not apple's fault? They decided on the hardware, wrote the software, and built the machine. They are responsible for what is delivered as a final product.

If they can't figure out how to make existing architectures work in a form factor thats been around for 10 years, goodluck on thier new endevors 😂

I love apple dont get me wrong, but they''re not perfect and they should be held accountable for thier mistakes.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Grohowiak Avatar
Grohowiak
72 months ago
I wish MR would write a big piece on the 16" GPU issues.
Unless there was one but I don't recall.
Ultimately AMD drivers / hardware sucks lately.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T
teagls
72 months ago

Good question, apparently it’s Apple? Based on what they say on their site.

But surely AMD give them a tonne of base code to work from.
It's Apple's fault. At the end of the day Apple is solely responsible for the development and release of it's drivers. AMD provides assistance, but Apple controls the whole thing.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AZREOSpecialist Avatar
AZREOSpecialist
72 months ago
Thank you Macrumors for writing about this!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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