Apple announced a new 24-inch iMac with the M6 chip on Tuesday, October 27, 2026. The M6 iMac starts at $1,499 in the United States. Customers can preorder it from Wednesday, October 28, in 35 countries and regions, including the United States, and it reaches stores on November 6. Apple said the desktop delivers up to five times faster on-device AI performance than the previous M4 model, along with up to twice as fast graphics. The design and the seven color options carry over from the M4 machine.
What the M6 iMac chip delivers
The M6 chip in the M6 iMac has a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, the first dual Neural Engine Apple has put in a Mac chip. Each GPU core carries a Neural Accelerator, which Apple said speeds up AI work that runs on the machine itself. Memory bandwidth rises to up to 170GB per second, up from 120GB per second on the M4 chip. Apple also said the new model runs up to 12 times faster than the iMac with the M1 chip, and up to 18 times faster than the final Intel-based iMac. Storage speeds are up to twice as fast as on the M4 model.
Two configurations go on sale. The $1,499 model has a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU, 16GB of memory, 256GB of storage and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. A $1,699 model steps up to a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, with four Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of two. Memory on the higher model can be configured to 32GB, and storage to 2TB. The M6 iMac supports Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, and Apple said the faster on-device AI helps with prompt processing in local models, spreadsheet work and games with ray tracing. Geekbench results for the M6 chip already surfaced for the Mac mini, so the higher-end M6 iMac should offer up to around 40 percent faster CPU performance compared with the previous M4 model, according to MacRumors.
Display, camera and connectivity
The desktop keeps its 24-inch 4.5K Retina display with up to 500 nits of brightness. A 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with Desk View support sits above the screen, and the machine has six speakers, three microphones and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Colors remain blue, green, pink, yellow, purple, orange and silver. The M6 iMac also gains Apple’s N1 wireless chip, which adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, and buyers can add 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, standard on the 12-core model and optional on the 10-core model.
The M6 chip first appeared in the Mac mini in August 2026, two months before it reached the M6 iMac. That order matters for buyers because the desktop and the laptop now share the same base silicon, with the same dual Neural Engine design and the same memory bandwidth ceiling. It is the machine for buyers who want that chip in a fixed desktop with a built-in display, rather than in a portable laptop.
External display support depends on the configuration. The 10-core model drives one external 6K display, while the 12-core model drives two. That split, along with the port count and memory ceiling, is the main practical difference between the two prices. Both models share the same slim all-in-one shape, the same display and the same camera and speaker setup.
M6 iMac price and release date
At $1,499, the starting price matches the M4 model after Apple raised its price in June, when it had originally sold for $1,299. Preorders open on October 28, and availability begins on November 6, the same date Apple retail stores are preparing to start selling new products from its “Pro and tell” event in Los Angeles. The M6 iMac arrives alongside the new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the same chip, which starts at $1,999. Apple announced both machines a day before the event, at which Bloomberg News has reported the company is expected to show its first touchscreen MacBook Pro.