24-inch M1 iMac teardown finds… not that much inside, actually

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  • Here’s an X-ray of the 24-inch iMac.

  • Here, iFixit has opened up the chassis and is accessing the logic board.

  • And here’s the small MacBook Air-style logic board.

iFixit has begun a teardown of the new, M1-equipped 24-inch iMac that was released to the public just last week, and so far the finding has been that there’s not a whole lot to find in there.

One thing to keep in mind: there is a version of the 24-inch iMac with seven GPU cores and another with eight. iFixit is tearing down the eight-core version, and that’s relevant because the cooling system differs between the two, so this isn’t exactly representative of every 24-inch iMac Apple is shipping.

Most of the components, including the logic board, can be found in the iMac’s chin. Since this is an M1 Mac, there is obviously not a separate GPU, and most of the key components are on the SoC. That means that upgrading the RAM or the GPU is not a possibility. iFixit compares the logic board to that found in the M1 MacBook Air.

As for thermals, there are two fans, both of which blow inward and across the logic board, as well as a couple of heatsinks to pull heat away from said board. In the grand scheme of desktop computers, it’s not a particularly robust cooling system, but it’s more than the MacBook Air has.

While the logic board is at the bottom, you’ll find a little more silicon along the top of the iMac—that’s the display board.

As with previous iMacs, that oh-so prominent Apple logo actually serves a function: passthrough for RF signals. iFixit notes that this iMac breaks with tradition because the antenna itself isn’t Apple-shaped.

Traditionally, iFixit gives each device it tears down a repairability score, but the site says the teardown is still ongoing, so that score is yet to come. That said, early signs seem a little bit better than expected. iFixit says the 24-inch iMac uses the “classic iMac adhesive” rather than the gnarlier alternative found in iPads. Further, the new iMac “has no metal chin to block access to internals,” an improvement over the previous design.

We’ll update this story after iFixit has come to a conclusion and granted the 24-inch iMac a score.

Listing image by iFixit

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1767482