After two years with no updates, Apple finally updated the iMac with more modern specs. Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s iMac going into the holiday season.

Chip

Introduced in the Mac mini back in August, the M6 chip is making its way to the new iMac models. This is Apple’s first 2nm chip that’s made for the Mac, taking performance in everyday computing, graphics, and AI-related tasks to a whole new level. M6 chip found in the base model with two Thunderbolt / USB-C 4 ports has 10 CPU cores (2 super / 3 performance / 5 efficiency) and 10 GPU cores, but the M6 chip found in the higher-tier model with four Thunderbolt 4 ports is the full-fledged one that’s seen in the base Mac mini as well as the base 14-inch MacBook Pro that was also updated today. That is the one with 12 CPU cores (2 super / 4 performance / 6 efficiency) and 12 GPU cores. Both variants of the M6 chip feature Neural Accelerators in each GPU core as well as a dual 16-core Neural Engine. The M6 chip also provides up to 170GB/s memory bandwidth.

Connectivity & Storage

Following suit with newer Apple products, the new iMac features the N1 chip, which is Apple’s custom-designed wireless networking chip that integrates Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support and improves the performance and reliability of peer-to-peer features such as AirDrop and AirPlay.

The two-port model continues to support one external display at up to 6K, and the four-port model continues to support up to two external displays at up to 6K resolution.

But what’s also new for the iMac is that 2.5Gb Ethernet is making its way to this all-in-one computer, which brings faster Ethernet speeds, so you can enjoy streaming content or playing games with even lower latency. The Ethernet port is found in the power adapter; 2.5Gb Ethernet is a built-to-order option for the two-port model, but it continues to be a standard feature in the four-port model.

Accessories

The iMac continues to come bundled with color-matching Magic Accessories (Keyboard / Mouse / Trackpad) along with a color-matching USB-C cable for charging those accessories, and this year’s iMac continues to come in the same shades of colors that were introduced in the previous M4 generation: blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, green, and silver.

The two-port model comes bundled with the Magic Keyboard with Lock key, and the four-port model comes bundled with the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, so you can conveniently unlock your iMac or authenticate Apple Pay purchases. Both models can be configured with the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad. Also, following suit with MacBook models introduced this year, the Magic Keyboards that come bundled with the iMacs also have the glyphs on the side keys in place of the words.

Both models of the iMac include the Magic Mouse, but they can be configured to the Magic Trackpad for a full range of gestures.

Pricing & Availability

The two-port model starts at $1499 while the four-port model starts at $1699. These are the same prices as yesterday. I didn’t expect the prices to stay the same considering we’ve seen several price increases across several upgraded products over the past few months.

Pre-orders will begin on Wednesday, October 28 at 10:10 a.m. PT, and they’ll be available starting Friday, November 6.