Apple equips iMac 24″ with faster M3 socket

Apple is launching a new version of its 24″ iMac. This all-in-one computer has a faster M3 chip, compared to the M1 from the previous model. The new iMac will be released on November 7 and will have a suggested retail price from 1619 euros.

The biggest change in Apple’s new iMac 24″ is the introduction of the updated M3 chip. That’s the first 3nm chip Apple has designed for use in computers; the company previously released a 3nm SoC for the iPhone 15 Pro smartphones. The M3 has eight CPU cores, which Apple says are faster and more efficient than the company’s previous Apple Silicon chips. The new SoC also has an improved GPU with hardware support for ray tracing. The M3 can be supplied with eight or ten GPU cores.

Apple claims the new M3 SoC is ‘up to thirty percent’ faster in productivity apps, such as Excel. That is compared to the previous iMac from 2021, which still had an M1 chip. In games, the new M3 GPU is said to be up to fifty percent faster than that in the M1. Furthermore, the M3 can simultaneously edit and play up to twelve 4k video streams, compared to a maximum of four streams with the M1.

The new iMac 24″ also comes with up to 24GB of memory and up to 2TB SSD storage. Visually, the computer is virtually identical to the previous iMac with M1. The device still has a 24″ screen with 4.5k resolution, which is surrounded by white screen borders. The colored housing is also unchanged. According to Apple, the stand is now made of one hundred percent recycled aluminum. The company also uses recycled rare earth metals, among other things, inside the device.

The iMac 24″ has a recommended retail price of 1,619 euros. That is more expensive than the iMac 24″ with M1 chip, which was available from 1,449 euros. The entry-level model has an M3 SoC with eight GPU cores, 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. A model with ten GPU cores will be available from 1849 euros. With that variant, users also get two extra USB 3 ports, in addition to the two Thunderbolt 4 connections that are standard in the iMac, and a Gigabit Ethernet port that is incorporated in the external power supply.

Source: Apple