The fact that a new, chunkier version of the iMac is in the works is fairly old news these days. In fact, that particular rumor has been circulating for long enough that a lot of people have even stopped speculating about what's going to change in next year's model. Still, that doesn't stop Mac OS Rumors, who has a special report on the next iMac, code-named "C2." It may not be due until the middle of next year, but it's not too early to start getting excited about the next generation of Apple's consumer desktop system.

One of the harshest criticisms of the original iMac (and one of the most valid, in our opinion) was that it failed in one crucial aspect of the consumer computer experience: it wasn't a kick-ass game machine. It had the terribly anemic 3D performance of the ATI RAGE II+ chip, so many of the most popular games like Quake and Unreal just couldn't keep up. Things started to look up in the revision B iMacs, though, when the graphics chip was upped to a RAGE Pro; with three times the 3D performance (and three times the video RAM), 3D gaming got a serious boost with the rev. B's, and it showed that Apple was starting to pay attention. But if Rumors is correct, next year's C2 will go even further, with a RAGE 128 chip that even outperforms the vaunted 3Dfx Voodoo 2 in certain situations. Combine that with the C2's reported 333 MHz G3 processor, and suddenly, the iMac is a serious gaming machine, capable of running even the most resource-intensive games without blinking a Bondi blue eye.

And speaking of Bondi blue, that's the other news about C2: it may come in different colors. Rumors of multihued iMacs have been floating around since well before the first models even hit the shelves, but the claim now is that Steve Jobs has actually approved seven new colors for the C2, and that iMacs may even be color-coded by speed if multiple iMac configurations are sold. Personally, we tend to doubt this last point, since the iMac is all about simplicity-- it seems unlikely that Apple would decide to muddy the waters and confuse the buying public by shipping several different iMacs with different feature sets. (Maybe only allow options at the build-to-order Apple Store?) But shipping several iMacs whose only difference was case color? Now that would be cool-- collect them all!