Apple unveils M6 Mac mini and M5 Ultra Mac Studio

Apple has refreshed its desktop lineup with the new M6 Mac mini and M5 Ultra Mac Studio, both designed to capitalize on the growing demand for on-device AI. The M6, Apple's first 2nm chip, powers the Mac mini, which starts at $899 — a $100 increase over the previous model. The M5 Ultra, described as Apple's "most powerful chip ever," debuts in the Mac Studio, starting at $5,499 Source: The Verge, CNBC.

Chip details

The M6 features a 12-core CPU (two super, four performance, six efficiency cores) and a 12-core GPU with neural accelerators, plus a Dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims up to 30% more peak GPU compute for AI than the M5 Source: The Next Web. The M5 Ultra uses a quad-die architecture, fusing two dual-die M5 Max chips via UltraFusion, offering up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and 512GB of unified memory at 1.2TB/s Source: Engadget.

AI focus and pricing

Both machines are aimed at developers running local AI models, a use case that has driven demand for Mac minis. The Mac mini's price increase reflects rising memory costs and the AI boom Source: Tom's Hardware. The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra can run models with hundreds of billions of parameters entirely on-device, a boon for European organizations with data sovereignty concerns Source: The Next Web.

Availability

Preorders begin August 25, with shipping starting September 22. The 512GB Mac Studio configuration won't ship until late October Source: ZDNET. Some sources note the Mac mini's base storage remains 256GB, and upgrades are costly Source: Tom's Hardware.