Apple Silicon iMac specs just leaked — and it could be here soon

Apple Silicon iMac specs just leaked — and it could exist here soon

(Image credit: Apple)

The first iMac to feature Apple Silicon ARM processors is rumored to arrive early on next year, the beginning in a wave of new Mac desktops featuring Apple's custom designed processors. The new iMac volition be powered past a desktop class A14T chip, forth with a new Apple GPU, and volition arrive in the first one-half of 2021.

We've been waiting for news of Apple Silicon-powered desktops always since Apple's June announcement that the company would transition away from Intel, moving entirely a proprietary architecture similar to that used in iPads and iPhones.

The best all-in-ane computers we've reviewed
Here are the all-time computers you lot can buy
Just in: MacBook Pro 2020 leak but revealed new model

Co-ordinate to Chinese linguistic communication newspaper The China Times (via MacRumors), Apple tree is readying its offset desktop processor, the A14T chip (nether the evolution code name "Mt. Jade") which is beingness produced alongside a self-developed GPU code named "Lifuka."

Both chips are being produced using TSMC's 5-nanometer process, which promises higher computing performance and better overall power efficiency, lending itself to the sort of professional-form performance that have led both professionals and coincidental users to embrace Apple products.

Using hardware designed in-house will too grant Apple tree far more control over how software runs on the new Macs, providing especially tight integration betwixt the different Apple computing products, which range from the desktop iMac to the small iPhone. Native support for iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac will besides encounter significant improvements every bit all of these disparate products switch to a like processing architecture.

The new processing hardware will be found in an even so-to-be-announced iMac set to launch in the first half of 2021. We would expect this new hardware to debut in the larger iMac'southward 27-inch size, since it's been the flagship of Apple tree's desktop line, just with the potential of a redesigned iMac on the horizon, fifty-fifty that speculative particular is unknown.

Specific details have non been shared by Apple, but an Apple event focused on Mac and Apple silicon hardware is rumored for November 17th. At that aforementioned event, Apple tree is expected to announce a new Apple Silicon-based MacBook Pro, expected to release before the end of the year.

Apple developers can already get their hands on the first non-retail Apple Silicon Macs, as Apple has shared a Programmer Transition Kit Mac mini running on an Apple Silicon A12Z processor. These kits are limited to a select few, and aren't likely to exist sold in regular retail.

Simply the inflow of the kickoff ARM-based iMac doesn't mean that current Intel-based models won't be updated next year. With Apple tree promising to transition to Apple tree Silicon full past the end of 2022, it'due south reasonable to predict that some Intel iMacs volition still exist announced aslope the new models with Apple inside.

Brian Westover is an Editor at Tom'due south Guide, roofing everything from TVs to the latest PCs. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he wrote for TopTenReviews and PCMag.