Apple is announcing updates for both the 27-inch and 21.5-inch iMacs. It’s updating the processors inside to Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake processors and also switching out the webcam to a higher-resolution 1080p HD sensor instead of the low-res 720p found in other Macs.
The graphics, the vanilla configurations have either an AMD Radeon Pro 5300 card or Radeon Pro 5500 XT, both 7-nanometer GPUs built on AMD’s RDNA architecture. From there, you can upgrade to the 5700 or 5700 XT. The 5700 XT will have 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM, making this the first time the 27-inch iMac line has maxed out with quite that much graphics memory.
SSDs are standard depending on which configuration you choose, you’re starting with 256GB or 512GB, but from there you can go all the way up to 8TB. If that sounds like a lot, it is previously, the 27-inch iMac topped out at 2TB. Interestingly, because of that shift from Fusion Drives to SSDs, the weight is a little lighter this time around (19.7 pounds), even though the machine is otherwise identical at a glance to its predecessor.
As for memory if you so choose, build your machine with 128GB. (The previous limit for this machine was 64GB.) Of course, at the entry-level price you’re starting with much less: eight gigs.
The 27-inch iMac starts at $1,799, is available to order today, and will ship this week. The 21.5-inch iMac starts at $1,099 and will ship next week. Apple is also giving the iMac Pro a small spec bump, making the 10-core Intel chips the new baseline for $4,999 also shipping next week.
The specs are:
$1,799: Six-core 3.1GHz Core i5 processor, 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300 GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD
$1,999: Six-core 3.3GHz Core i5 processor, 4GB AMD Radeon Pro 5300 GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD
$2,299: Eight-core 3.8GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD
The spec bumps for the iMac don’t seem like quite enough to entice users who have the last-generation iMac to upgrade. But if you’ve been waiting for an update for the all-in-one system, they might be worth a look
