Apple to refresh iMac lineup with M6 chip this year
What's the story
Apple is gearing up to refresh its iMac lineup with the new M6 chip. The update is expected to be launched before the end of this year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. However, don't expect any major design changes or features with this upgrade. The new model will likely retain the look and feel of the current M4 generation, albeit with some possible tweaks in color options.
Chip evolution
Short product lifecycle for M6 generation
The M6 generation of devices will have a short product lifecycle, possibly lasting just six months.
This is much shorter than the year-or-more approach seen with previous Apple Silicon releases.
The speculation is that Apple will only stick to the base model of the M6 chip, skipping over Pro, Max, and Ultra versions altogether.
The company is expected to transition to the next-gen M7 chip in the first half of 2027.
Tech specs
Significant boost in memory bandwidth and GPU cores
The upcoming M6 chip is expected to offer a significant boost in memory bandwidth, to 200GB/s.
It will also come with a new memory architecture and a 12-core GPU.
This would be a major upgrade over the current generation of iMacs, which use the M4 chip with lower memory bandwidth and fewer GPU cores.