Apple’s new Mac mini and Mac Studio launch tomorrow, Tuesday, September 22. Both computers have been open for pre-order since August 25, and tomorrow is when the first orders start arriving and the new models reach Apple Store locations.
Neither computer gets a new design, so every change is internal. The Mac mini moves to the M6 chip with an M5 Pro option, and the Mac Studio moves to the M5 Max and the first M5 Ultra. Apple announced both in late August, earlier than its usual fall Mac schedule, and a report at the time pointed to strong business demand for AI hardware as the reason.
The M6 Mac Mini Brings a 2nm Chip and Starts at $899
The M6 Mac mini is the first Apple computer with the M6, which is also Apple’s first 2nm chip. It has a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, up from 10 cores each on the M5, plus a dual Neural Engine with two 16-core engines. Memory bandwidth reaches 170GB/s, up from 153GB/s on the M5.
Apple compares it with the previous Mac mini running a 10-core M4 chip, 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage. Against that machine, Apple claims up to 40 percent faster CPU performance, up to 4 times faster AI tasks, and up to 2 times faster graphics and storage. Both the M6 and M5 Pro versions now put a Neural Accelerator in every GPU core.
The rest of the spec sheet looks like this:
- Chips: M6, or M5 Pro in a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU version or an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU version
- Memory and storage: up to 32GB and 2TB on M6, up to 64GB and 8TB on M5 Pro
- Wireless: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, up from Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 on the 2024 model
- Ports: Thunderbolt 4 on M6, Thunderbolt 5 on M5 Pro, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet as standard with a 10 Gigabit upgrade available
- Displays: up to three external displays, a limit that carries over despite the new chip
- Finish: silver only
The M6 Mac mini starts at $899 with 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage, and the M5 Pro Mac mini starts at $1,699. Amazon has already discounted the base model to $879.99, and AppleCare+ for it runs $44.99 per year. Our full M6 Mac mini vs M4 Mac mini comparison covers every spec that changed.
Mac Studio Buyers Get the M5 Max Tomorrow and the 512GB M5 Ultra in Late October
The Mac Studio with M5 Max has an 18-core CPU made up of 6 super cores and 12 performance cores, up to 40 GPU cores, up to 128GB of unified memory with 614GB/s of bandwidth, and up to 8TB of storage. Apple says its AI performance is up to 3.9 times faster than the previous generation.
The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra links two dual-die M5 Max chips through Apple’s next-generation UltraFusion connection, so all four dies work as a single processor. That gives it up to a 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, up to an 80-core GPU, a 32-core Neural Engine, up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth. Compared with the M3 Ultra, Apple claims up to 1.3 times faster multithreaded CPU performance, up to 40 percent faster graphics and up to 4.5 times the peak GPU compute for AI tasks.
Apple also changed what surrounds the chip:
- Connectivity: Thunderbolt 5 with up to 120Gb/s of bandwidth, and Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for the first time through Apple’s N1 chip
- Displays: support for up to eight displays, plus genlock over USB-C
- Clustering: multiple Mac Studio systems can be linked over Thunderbolt 5 with RDMA to share one memory pool, and Apple says four systems deliver up to 3 times faster AI inference than a single one
- Storage: a new SSD architecture that Apple says is up to twice as fast as before
- Software: macOS 27 Golden Gate, which Apple released to the public on September 14
The Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at $2,499 and the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499. Configurations with 512GB of unified memory are the exception to tomorrow’s launch and arrive in late October.
Apple’s original press release said the new SSD was built on PCIe Gen 6, then removed that line shortly after publishing it. Apple has not posted any correction regarding the standard, but the updated press release now points to PCIe 5.0, the same standard as the M5 Max MacBook Pro models.
Both Computers Carry the Higher Prices Apple Introduced in June
Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad lineup in June, and the new models start from those higher numbers.
- M6 Mac mini: $899, compared with $799 after the June increase and $599 when the M4 model launched in October 2024
- Mac Studio with M5 Max: $2,499, compared with $1,999 before the June increase
- Mac Studio with M5 Ultra: $5,499, compared with $5,299 for the M3 Ultra after the June increase and $3,999 at its original launch
Early Geekbench 7 results put the M6 at around 4,070 in single-core and 22,600 to 22,800 in multi-core, and the M5 Ultra at about 52,000 multi-core. Reviews for both machines are already out. Critics praised the M6 Mac mini’s performance while pushing back on its price, and the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra drew the same split, with local AI work as the main reason to buy it.
