Overview
- Preorders for the new iMac began Oct. 28 and Apple says units will ship and be available in stores starting Nov. 6, with prices starting at $1,499 for the base model.
- The M6 ships in two chip tiers: a 10‑core CPU/10‑core GPU base unit and a higher 12‑core CPU/12‑core GPU option, with up to dual 16‑core Neural Engines for on‑device AI work.
- Apple touts measurable gains in specific tests — faster CPU and GPU work, up to twice the SSD read/write speeds, and up to five times faster prompt processing versus the M4 — but those claims come from Apple’s own test configurations and real gains will vary by apps and settings.
- The iMac keeps the same 24‑inch 4.5K Retina display, 12MP Center Stage camera and base 16GB RAM/256GB SSD, so most M4 owners are advised to skip upgrading unless their work is bottlenecked by compute, storage, or local AI tasks.
- Networking and transfer upgrades require matching infrastructure because the iMac adds Apple’s N1 wireless chip with Wi‑Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and optional 2.5Gb Ethernet, and the M6 launch is part of a broader Apple push to move more AI work onto devices.