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iFixit posts teardown of 2017 21.5-inch iMac, finds user-upgradable RAM, modular CPU

The pork has soared and it looks like Apple has finally released an iMac with a user-upgradable CPU as well as RAM.

The cool cats at iFixit have just completed a full teardown of Apple’s new 21.5-inch iMac with 4K display. The unit features both removable RAM and a modular CPU, although Apple has yet to say if these components are user-replaceable. Accessing and replacing these components isn’t exactly easy, but it’s still possible.

This is the first time Apple has had a 21.5-inch iMac with expandable RAM since 2013, and the first modular CPU since 2012.


No one seems to know exactly why Apple has reverted to a socketed CPU, and perhaps there were lengthy discussions with Intel regarding it.

iFixit offered the following comments regarding the teardown:

Despite the upgradable RAM and CPU, we’re still giving this iMac a 3/10 for repairability. Here’s why: the iMac remains distinctly un-fun to open. Everything is buried under a finicky glass panel. It requires a speciality pizza-cutter-like tool to breach the adhesive before any repair. Plus the glass and Retina Display are fused together, fabulously increasing the cost of replacement. But hey, a 3/10 is triple the score of the iMac’s 2015 predecessor.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via 9to5Mac and iFixit