Apple Updates iMac With Kaby Lake Processors

During the recent WWDC event, Apple introduced a wide-ranging update for many of their products. Over the past decade, the prominent MacBook and iDevice lineups have been the face of Apple. Despite that, the iMac has continued to be a popular mainstay. Due to slowing iPad and iPhone sales growth, Apple is devoting more attention to their desktop series. At WWDC, Apple unveiled a new update for the iMac.

The key improvement is the transition from older Intel Broadwell processors straight to Kaby Lake. This should be a welcome upgrade due to architectural, process and frequency improvements. The upgrade also brings along improved iGPUs from Intel. These use the newer Gen9 graphics archiecture introduced in Skylake. The base 21.5 inch model gains the most with an 80% faster Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640. For the 4K model, the graphics car gets upgraded to either an AMD Radeon Pro 555 or 560. The 27-inch 5K model gets the beefier Radeon Pro 570, 575, or 580.

Along with internal upgrades, Apple is tweaking the displays, memory, storage, and I/O ports. The displays get a brightness boost of 43% which is nice due to the built-in display. Memory is now upgradeable with a 32GB or 64GB maximum for the 21.5-inch and 27-inch models respectively. Storage gets a boost for the 27-inch model with Fusion drives, combined HDD and SSD, being standard. Last of all, Apple is upgrading I/O with 2 USB 3 ports with Thunderbolt 3 support. Overall, it looks like a decent upgrade, though it doesn’t add much to attract non-Mac users.