Apple's iMac with M6 arrives promising a 'huge leap' in AI performance
It offers more cores and more performance per core than the iMac M4.
After unveiling a new iPad mini yesterday, Apple is continuing its staggered "Pro and Tell" product release with the launch of its latest iMac model. Powered by Apple's shiny new M6 processors, it promises a "major boost" in performance and AI capabilities thanks to extra cores and new Neural Accelerators in each core.
The M6 first arrived in the Mac mini and Mac Studio, but it's now available in Apple's entry-level iMac desktop machines. As we saw before, the M6 chip offers not only more performance per core, but more cores in total with up to a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU and Dual 16-core Neural Engine. That processor, along with faster 170GB/s memory bandwidth, will make the iMac twice as fast for graphics performance compared to the previous iMac M4 model, accelerating intensive tasks like photo editing and gaming, Apple said. Models start with 16GB of unified memory, with options for 24GB and 32GB.
Since it's mainly designed for productivity, Apple says the iMac is up to 50 percent faster for tasks like Microsoft Excel compared to the iMac M4, or 2.5x faster than the M1 model. However, these machines are plenty fast enough for more demanding jobs like photo editing and even video editing. It also delivers up to double the gaming performance for ray tracing, according to Apple.
Apple
As it did with the Mini and Studio models, though, Apple is focused on hyping the iMac's AI capabilities. There, the extra speed is much more pronounced with up to five times faster on-device AI performance for prompt processing in LM Studio compared to the M4 model, or 12 times the speed of the M1 model.
That AI performance is important, as the iMac with macOS 27 runs the next generation of Apple Intelligence with Siri AI, which Apple calls "profoundly more capable" than the old Siri. iMac users will be able to tap into that AI to do things like ask questions and look for information in emails and photos. Siri AI is also built into Spotlight, so you can find answers on any topic and ask follow-up questions. (Note that Apple Intelligence isn't yet available in Europe.)
The 4.5K 24-inch Retina display with 500 nits of brightness and P3 wide color is unchanged from before (we're still waiting for a new 27-inch iMac, Apple). However, iMac with M6 does have new Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 capabilities, along with 2.5Gb Ethernet offering 250 percent more speed than before. Unlike the latest Mac Studio, it only supports Thunderbolt 4 rather than the two-times-faster Thunderbolt 5 connections, unfortunately. However, you can connect up to two 6K external displays if you love to have extra space to work.
Other features include a 12MP Center Stage camera and a selection of seven colors, plus color matched accessories and Touch ID. The new iMac with M6 goes on pre-order tomorrow (October 28th) starting at $1,499 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core CPU and 16GB of RAM, or $1,699 with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU (16GB of RAM).