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Apple Announces New iMacs With Better Screens And Modern Processors; Refreshes MacBook Lineup (arstechnica.com)

Apple today announced updates to its iMac line and MacBook lineups at WWDC, giving its all-in-one desktop, and laptop series more powerful specifications and the latest Intel chips. From a report: Apple is bringing Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake processors to the new iMac, along with what Apple calls "the best Mac display ever," offering 500 nits of brightness, or 43 percent brighter than the previous generation. The 21.5-inch model now can be configured up to 32GB of RAM, while the 27-inch goes up to 64GB, twice what had previously been offered. The new iMacs also are getting two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, making it Apple's first desktop computer to embrace the port standard. Graphics cards are getting a spec boost in the updated iMacs, too. The entry level 21.5-inch model will have an Intel Iris Plus 640 GPU, while the 4K 21.5-inch models will get Radeon Pro 555 and 560 graphics cards. Meanwhile, the 27-inch 5K model will have a choice of Radeon Pro 570, 575, and 580 graphics cards, topping out at 8GB of VRAM. The 21.5-inch iMac will start at $1099 and the 4K 21.5-inch model at $1299. As expected, Apple also refreshed the MacBook lineup. From a report: Today Apple provided a minor but wide-ranging refresh to its modern MacBooks and MacBook Pros, adding new processors from Intel and making a handful of other tweaks. The new processors are from Intel's "Kaby Lake" family, and some of them have been available for the better part of a year. Compared to the outgoing Skylake architecture, Kaby Lake introduces a gently tweaked version of Intel's 14nm manufacturing process, provides small boosts to CPU clock speeds, and supports native acceleration for decoding and encoding some kinds of 4K video streams.

1 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Apple hardware stil sucks by timholman · · Score: 4, Funny

    * iMac Pro -- at $4,999 isn't this just another Mac Pro ?

    It's worse than that - it's a betrayal of everything that Apple claims to believe in.

    Have you looked at photos of it? It has legacy ports, including an SDXC port, four USB 3 ports, an Ethernet port, and a headphone jack. What where the Apple engineers thinking? The iMac Pro should have nothing except USB-C ports, with lots of optional dongles, just like the MacBook Pro.

    The iMac Pro is doomed from the start. It's like putting propellors on a space shuttle. I can't imagine anyone paying good money to have their pristine new iMac Pro marred by those disgusting outdated openings on the back.