Apple’s new iMacs are now powerful enough to support VR

Apple just refreshed their iMac line, and while the external design will stay the same, the company has put a ton of effort into refreshing the insides to make them competitive with other professional-grade computers.

And, not surprisingly, most of the focus was on adding enough specs to make sure Macs can run VR applications for both consumers and developers.

All of the models will be getting new GPUs. The base 21.5-inch iMac will have an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 with 64MB eDRAM, the iMac Retina 4K 21.5-inch will have a Radeon Pro 555 or 560 and the powerhouse 5K 27-inch iMac will come with a Radeon Pro 570, 575 or 580 with up to 8GB of VRAM.

This means that the 5K model will be able to push up to 5.5 teraflops, which makes it a very competitive device for VR.

Outside of graphics, Apple is also refreshing the screen on the iMac, making it 43 percent brighter than the previous generation.

The 21.5-inch model will also now support up to 32GB of RAM, and the 27-inch model will support 64GB of RAM.

Also, the Fusion Drive is coming to all 27-inch models, and the entire lineup will get 7th Generation Intel Core “Kaby Lake” chips.

This refresh will make the new iMac really compelling for developers, especially those waiting for more powerful machines. Oculus once said that they don’t support Macs because they aren’t powerful enough to run a VR rig. Not anymore.