The rumors were at least somewhat true as Apple announced its M3-based 24-inch iMac, almost three years after the introduction of its impressive M1 iMac. The updated iMac retains a similar design to the M1 unit but features the faster, more efficient M3 chip.
In terms of design, the new iMac looks pretty much the same as before. The display is also the same as before 24 inches with 4.5K resolution.
The M3 is based on the A17 Pro used by the iPhone 15 Pro handset, and is the first Apple chip designed for Macs that uses a 3-nanometer architecture. Apple has stated that this offers significant advances for its GPU cores, and the M3, along with the A17 Pro, are the first Apple chips to support hardware ray tracing.
The M3 CPU has performance cores up to 30 percent faster than the M1 and 15 percent faster than the M2. Because of the new architecture, the chip also consumes less power than previous chips, even though it offers more performance. The base model has an 8-core CPU with a 10-core GPU.
The price points for the new M3 iMac remain the same and begin at $1299 for the 256GB storage and 8GB RAM configuration. Apple didn’t mention versions of the updated M3 iMac with M3 Pro or M3 Max chips, and pre-orders began on Monday on Apple’s website, with initial deliveries estimated for November 7.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via 9to5Mac and store.apple.com