Apple announced today that it will be refreshing the iMac lineup with AMD’s Radeon Vega Graphics and the Intel 9th Generation processors. The 21.5-inch model comes in with either 1080p or 4K Displays. The 27-inch desktop is equipped with a 5K display.
Technical Specifications:
- 21.5-inch iMac:
- 2.3GHz dual-core i5 (Turbo: 3.6GHz) up to the 3.2GHz 6-Core, 8th Gen i7(Turbo: 4.6GHz)
- 8GB of 2133 MHz with up to 32GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 memory
- Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 on the base model. Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of VRAM; configurable to Radeon Pro Vega 20 with 4GB of VRAM
- 1TB Fusion Drive, configurable to 1TB SSD
- Price: $1099 – $1499
27-inch iMac:
- 3.0GHz dual-core i5 (Turbo: 4.1GHz) with up to the 3.6GHz 8-Core, 8th Gen i9 (Turbo: 5.0GHz)
- 16GB of 2666 MHz with up to 64GB of 2666 MHz DDR4 memory
- Radeon Pro 570X/575X/580X with 4GB of VRAM; configurable to Radeon Pro Vega 48 with 4GB of VRAM
- Up to 2TB of Fusion Drive, configurable to 1TB SSD
- Price: $1799-$2299
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Apple seemingly hasn’t made any design changes to the new iMac. Although an easier way to install a VESA mount would be much appreciated, as per Apple, the display offers brightness up to 500 nits, with “14.7 million pixels and 1 Billion colors”. Both the models use an IPS panel but lack touch sensitivity. Moreover, we also get the same I/O with 2 Thunderbolt 3.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and Gigabit Ethernet.
The new i9 chips along with Radeon Pro Graphics offer the much-needed performance boost. However, one should keep in mind that the advertised “2X performance boost” is only true for the highest-end models. The rest of the lineup still fails to impress due to limited configurability, a closed ecosystem and an exceptionally high price point.
Apple is expected to make some announcements at the upcoming March 25th special event. However, with hardware updates coming out this week, it’ll most likely be a software-centric event.